Apple's new Ivy Bridge-powered MacBook Pro, Air benchmarked
Benchmark data collected on Tuesday show incremental gains for most of Apple's new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air notebooks that were announced yesterday at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference.
As Apple's newly-refreshed MacBook lineup starts to make its way into the hands of consumers, Geekbench 2 maker Primate Labs began compiling results received at its Geekbench Browser database and pitted the scores against comparable models from 2011.
Four models of the MacBook Pro and all configurations of the MacBook Air were analyzed and the 32-bit data showed the expected moderate gains in performance with the new 2.7GHz Pro leading the way.
Tested models include the new 15-inch Retina Display MacBook Pro with 2.3GHz and 2.6GHz Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs, the legacy design 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2.3GHz and 2.7GHz processors, the 13-inch MacBook Air with dual-core 1.8GHz and 2.0GHz chips and the 11-inch MacBook Air with 1.7GHz and 2.0GHz CPUs.
Apple's fastest 2.7GHz quad-core i7 15-inch MacBook Pro took the top spot with an average score of 12,303 which is almost 14 percent faster than 2011's 2.5GHz 15-inch notebook. The Retina Display MacBook Pro's 2.6 GHz outpaced the carry-over design by a mere 44 points with both being about 13 percent faster than comparable 2011 machines. Trailing the pack was Apple's entry model next generation MacBook Pro which managed a score of 10,810.
Source: Primate Labs
As for the MacBook Air, the top-of-the line 13-inch model sporting a 2.0GHz dual-core Ivy Bridge chip barely squeezed past its identically configured 11-inch counterpart with a score of 7,007. Both of the 2.0GHz MacBook Airs outperformed previous generation models by nearly 20 percent.
Noticeably absent from the charts is the 13-inch MacBook Pro, which didn't have any data posted to the Geekbench Browser as of Tuesday.
While the Geekbench 2 benchmark suite computes processing power and memory performance, the jury is still out on video performance and stress tests which should be favorable given Apple's move to an all-SSD architecture and next-generation NVIDIA graphics.
As Apple's newly-refreshed MacBook lineup starts to make its way into the hands of consumers, Geekbench 2 maker Primate Labs began compiling results received at its Geekbench Browser database and pitted the scores against comparable models from 2011.
Four models of the MacBook Pro and all configurations of the MacBook Air were analyzed and the 32-bit data showed the expected moderate gains in performance with the new 2.7GHz Pro leading the way.
Tested models include the new 15-inch Retina Display MacBook Pro with 2.3GHz and 2.6GHz Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs, the legacy design 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2.3GHz and 2.7GHz processors, the 13-inch MacBook Air with dual-core 1.8GHz and 2.0GHz chips and the 11-inch MacBook Air with 1.7GHz and 2.0GHz CPUs.
Apple's fastest 2.7GHz quad-core i7 15-inch MacBook Pro took the top spot with an average score of 12,303 which is almost 14 percent faster than 2011's 2.5GHz 15-inch notebook. The Retina Display MacBook Pro's 2.6 GHz outpaced the carry-over design by a mere 44 points with both being about 13 percent faster than comparable 2011 machines. Trailing the pack was Apple's entry model next generation MacBook Pro which managed a score of 10,810.
Source: Primate Labs
As for the MacBook Air, the top-of-the line 13-inch model sporting a 2.0GHz dual-core Ivy Bridge chip barely squeezed past its identically configured 11-inch counterpart with a score of 7,007. Both of the 2.0GHz MacBook Airs outperformed previous generation models by nearly 20 percent.
Noticeably absent from the charts is the 13-inch MacBook Pro, which didn't have any data posted to the Geekbench Browser as of Tuesday.
While the Geekbench 2 benchmark suite computes processing power and memory performance, the jury is still out on video performance and stress tests which should be favorable given Apple's move to an all-SSD architecture and next-generation NVIDIA graphics.
Comments
The second image url should be http://photos.appleinsidercdn.com/12.06.12-Benchmark-2.jpg instead of http://photos.appleinsidercdn.com/12.06.12-Geekbench-2.jpg.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaHarder
Hardly worth the cost to upgrade.
So you won't be buying 3 each for everyone in your family?
My current MacBook Pro 15" (mid 2009) scores 4001.
The new top Retina MacBook Pro scores 11844.
I'm soon in for a pretty noticable upgrade!
There's something wrong with the graphic for the 13" MacBook Air.
The 1.8GHz i5 13" MacBook Air cannot have a score of 6900 based on the graph, or it's graph is wrong.
6900 is very close to 7004, but the graph shows a bigger gap.
It looks more like ~6200.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaHarder
Hardly worth the cost to upgrade.
Its raining outside... and the forecast is grim...
I'm pretty excited to upgrade. I'll be moving from my mid-2007 15" MBP with a 2.4GHz dual-core C2D to the top-end non-retina 15" MBP with a 2.6GHz quad-core i7. $250 more to bump the 2.6GHz to 2.7GHz certainly does not seem worth it. I have my pennies saved, just have to decide on some details before plunking down my order! Then the old MBP goes to my sister...
I'm agree with you, check out this done in 2 mins:
100% Primate Labs accuracy...
Just bought refurbished early 2011 15" for a discount of £500 don't think it is worth paying the extra for the new ones though was toying with the lowest spec 13" Pro would be interested to see the benchmarks on this. Going to replace the drive with a 256GB SSD and the optical with a 500GB 7200 rpm drive. This is only a stop gap until they bring out new iMacs as my old ones graphic card got fried and I will be hooking it up to a 23" Cinema display and maybe get a Thunderbolt one as well. Still it is going to be much faster than the 2006 MacBook Pro I have been putting up with recently which has a benchmark speed of 1329 !!!
I'll take it if she doesn't want it. That's still a nice machine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaHarder
Hardly worth the cost to upgrade.
The retina screen and the slimmer body are both good incentives. The performance increase is not a good reason alone, however. That being said, some people will benefit from the SSD. If they are often calling up big chunks of data, it could make a nice difference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by palegolas
My current MacBook Pro 15" (mid 2009) scores 4001.
The new top Retina MacBook Pro scores 11844.
I'm soon in for a pretty noticable upgrade!
Yes, but only when the CPU is working hard. For most stuff, and most of the time for most people, there will be less of a difference. CPUs have been fast enough for most things for a long time now. The SSD should speed things up a lot for certain tasks as well.,
http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks
The highest 12-core is only 75% faster. A Cinebench render will show the difference more accurately but even at that, the 3820QM scores 6.8 vs 15.1 in the 12-core Pro (120% faster).
Personally, I'd take a retina MBP over a 12-core Pro any day. I know Sandy Bridge Xeons change things a bit but not by that much.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaHarder
Hardly worth the cost to upgrade.
Unless, like me, you have a 2.3 GHz Core 2 Duo machine from about five years ago.
I'm expecting it to be at least twice as fast on everyday things.
Wish they had a 17", though. However, my current machine is falling apart and I can't wait to see if a new 17" will ever appear.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaHarder
Hardly worth the cost to upgrade.
From the last model? Of course not. But that's almost never the case, and it's not the reason they upgrade the line in the first place. This will be very tempting to people with pre-2010 machines.
I will wait for 17" Retina hopefully they will release it soon. Also looking forward to the newer MacPro in 2013. So for now, I am happy with my early 2009 17" MBP.
I think I have that generation of MBP. For everyday things, it seems plenty fast. Unless you have something that takes sustained CPU power (rendering, etc.), I think upgrading your current machine to SSD and maybe upgrading your RAM would give you a lot more of a bang for the buck in making your computer feel a lot more responsive. If it's showing other issues, or if you want the Retina display, then a new machine is the way to go.
That seems unlikely when they've pulled all 17" models from the store. Picking up a clearance model may be your best bet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerrySwitched26
The retina screen and the slimmer body are both good incentives. The performance increase is not a good reason alone, however. That being said, some people will benefit from the SSD. If they are often calling up big chunks of data, it could make a nice difference.
I don't understand why is everyone so obsessed with thin. I would understand if you were talking about weight... But width? I don't really care about width (in fact I preferer bulkier laptops).