When the MacBook Pro was first announced, everyone was unconvinced by the performance gain numbers presented on stage. After release, when the machine ended up in people hands, and they started using it, everyone was pleased with the performance. But it looks like the MacBook Pro is even more powerful than meets the eye.

Readers of the French Mac site MacBidouille have noticed that Apple has underclocked the ATI Radeon Mobility X1600 graphics chip in its MacBook Pro laptop. The difference was noticed while running ATI's ATI Tools utility - version 0.25, a beta release - running under Windows XP. The software showed that the X1600 was clocked at 310Mhz, 35 per cent slower than the clock speed recommended by ATI, and the memory at 278Mhz (41 per cent below par).

MacBidouille repeated the process, confirming the reported numbers. ATI recommends that the GPU be run with a core frequency of 475Mhz, and that the memory clock should be 470MHz (940MHz effective).
Apple's decision to underclock the component seems to have everything to do with the MacBook Pro's thermal envelope, which in turn has the effect of keeping the fan running as slowly as possible and thus generating less noise. In addition to these two benefits, there would also be an improvement in battery life.

While this entire report is based on beta software from ATI, running on a totally different operating system, it does indicate that there is plenty of room to crank up the power in the MacBook Pro, albeit at the price of heat, noise and battery life. Would the gain be significant to the current setup? That depends on each individual, however, user benchmarks show that Counter Strike benchmark test with all settings pushed to the max and the resolution set to 1,440 x 900 saw frame rates jump from 61 to 97.