14 DAY TRIAL // Apple launched a new MacBook model a few days ago, which is the thinnest and lightest to date. But the Cupertino tech giant also revealed a slight upgrade of its MacBook Air and 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro lines.
The two 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air models were treated to 5th generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors, Thunderbolt 2, and Intel HD Graphics 6000.
As for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the laptop was also upgraded to Broadwell (Core i5 and Core i7 with Turbo Boost speeds going as far as 3.4GHz), while also being outfitted with the new Force Touch trackpad.
How do the new MacBooks stack up against older models?
Well, if you have been wondering how the new models perform in comparison with last year’s models, these Geekbench benchmark results are where you should be looking for answers.
As you can see, the new MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i5 processor clocked at 2.7GHz managed to score 3043 points in the single-core test and 6448 in multi-core.
Comparing these results to the last year’s 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, the difference is quite negligible. The 2014 model with Intel Core i5-4278U (based on Haswell) managed to grab around the same (as you can see in the image).
As for the 11-inch MacBook Air with Intel Core i5 processor clocked at 1.6GHz, it also performed quite similarly to the mid-2014 models, as the same Geekbench benchmark results can attest.
The laptop scored 2753 in single-core and 5486 in multi-score, which is a tad higher than the mid-2014 model.
The same can be said of the 13-Inch MacBook Air.
Intel's Broadwell does not focus on performance boost
It’s possible that the new MacBook Pro and Air might get a performance boost after OS X Yosemite passes first-boot housekeeping territory.
But it’s pretty clear at this point that the newcomers offer a minor increase in performance over the last year’s models.
Still, we shouldn’t be surprised, given the fact that Intel has chosen to focus on boosting up battery life instead of dwelling on performance.
The new MacBooks do come with faster graphics and flash storage, so that’s an area where you’ll see a marked evolution compared to last year.
