New Retina MacBook Pro Models Showing Up in Benchmarks

Following yesterday's introduction of new Retina MacBook Pro models, the machines have already begun showing up in Geekbench benchmarks, offering the opportunity to see how their raw performance compares to the previous generation.

While several of the entries appear to be fakes, there are enough legitimate results to begin to get a sense of the new machines' performance, which arrive with the following 32-bit Geekbench 3 averages so far:

15-inch with quad-core CPU:
- i7-4750HQ @ 2.0 GHz: Single-Core 2844, Multi-Core 10887
- i7-4850HQ @ 2.3 GHz: Single-Core 3100, Multi-Core 11771
- i7-4960HQ @ 2.6 GHz: Single-Core 3379, Multi-Core 12813

13-inch with dual-core CPU:
- i5-4258U @ 2.4 GHz: Single-Core 2613, Multi-Core 5248
- i5-4288U @ 2.6 GHz: Single-Core 2856, Multi-Core 5954
- i7-4558U @ 2.8 GHz: Single-Core 3000, Multi-Core 6189

As is fairly typical for updated machines, most of the benchmarks come in at approximately 4-10% higher than their predecessors, while the increased efficiency of Intel's Haswell chips has allowed Apple to improve overall battery life. Apple has also made the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro thinner, matching the thickness of its larger sibling but at the cost of a slight decrease in battery capacity from 74 Whr to 71.8 Whr.

The base 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro had shown up back in June in results from Geekbench 2 benchmarking software, which uses different baseline scores than the current Geekbench 3. A 15-inch model also showed up in early July, but with a chip that Apple ultimately elected not to use in yesterday's update. The chip in that early machine was Intel's i7-4950HQ at 2.4 GHz, but Apple bumped the high-end chip in the released lineup to the i7-4960HQ at 2.6 GHz, a new chip that was officially launched just last month.