Primate Labs benchmarks new Retina MacBook Pro models
Apple bumped the processors in the Retina MacBook Pro line last week, pushing the 15-inch model to the 2.4, 2.7 or 2.8 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 and the 13-inch to 2.5, 2.6, 2.9 or 3.0 GHz dual-core processors. As usual, Primate Labs grabbed a handy copy of their "flagship product" -- Geekbench -- and tested each model's performance.
The 100 MHz increase in processor speed across the board on the 15-inch MacBook Pros was responsible for a 3 to 5 percent increase in performance as measured by the Geekbench 2 scores. Likewise, the 13-inch models received a bump in both speed and performance.
Primate Labs noted, though, that the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro models ship with both old and new processors. The new processors are only available in 13-inch models that start with 256 GB of storage, while the machines that start with 128 GB of storage retain the older, slower processors.
John Poole at Primate Labs notes that the new Intel processor architecture, Haswell, is forthcoming later this year, so it's not surprising that Apple decided to outfit the Retina MacBook Pro line with the latest in Ivy Bridge processors. However, he's curious about why the non-Retina MacBook Pro line didn't receive the same speed bump, and speculates that the current line of Retina-free MBPs might be the last.
