MemoryTester Memory Performance

These tests use the MemoryTester 'compute' command. MemoryTester is part of diglloydTools.

This is a pure memory access test. Speed is thus a function of memory bandwidth, which is a function of memory speed and channels, and the memory controller.

Both the MacBook Pro 2.3GHz and Mac Pro 3.33GHz uses 1333MHz memory, but the Mac Pro with 3 modules uses triple-channel memory (dual channel with 2 or 4 modules), whereas the MacBook Pro uses two modules for dual-channel memory. So the Mac Pro always wins on memory bandwidth.

The 2.3GHz MacBook Pro actually runs slightly faster for one CPU thread (perhaps due to a slighty higher Turbo Boost speed), but for two threads or more, its memory access speed is about 17% slower, consistent with the performance seen on a variety of tests in this review.

Time in seconds, lower is better
Horizontal scale is the number of simultaneous CPU threads