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Thinner, lighter, FASTER: Early benchmarks show 50-65% improvement in MacBook Pro’s Iris graphics

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Macworld’s benchmarks

…less expensive, better battery life too

Apple’s relentless improvement iterations continue unabated. Macworld’s early benchmarks on Apple’s new base model 13″MacBook Pro with built in Intel Iris Graphics are in and show huge speed gains in graphics performance:

The most impressive improvements in the new laptops came courtesy of the new Iris graphics. Compared to the HD 4000 graphics in the early 2013 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, the Iris graphics posted between 45 and 50 percent higher frame rates in Cinebench r15’s OpenGL tests and the Unigine Valley Benchmark. Unigen’s Heaven benchmark showed the new systems with about 65 percent improvement in frame rates over the earlier model.

Iris Graphics also support displays up to 4K at 24Hz, a first for Apple’s entry level Pro laptops.

CPU performance improvement is slight but the Intel Haswell architecture adds a few hours of (Apple’s estimated) battery life while the machine actually got thinner and lighter. Meanwhile, Apple loaded up faster 802.11ac Wifi and speedy Samsung PCIe SSDs up to 1TB and Thunderbolt 2.0.

Price? Dropped $100  to $1299. (we are already seeing discounts/tax advantages in our Products section).

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Comments

  1. MiKey (@ExWoW) - 10 years ago

    Love my new MacBook Pro Retina 13,3″. Works like a charm

  2. NQZ (@surgesoda) - 10 years ago

    If you wanted to spend the green to get a 4K monitor, why in the world would you want to run it at 24Hz?
    Seriously…that’s downright ridiculous! I have the original retina MBP 13″ and yeah, the HD 4000 graphics suck, really bad. So bad that just zooming in on a PDF causes lag if you have scaling turned on. Oh well.

    Even though Iris is an improvement, it’s not really that much of improvement if you compare it to a *real* GPU like the 750M in the 15″ retina. When Apple puts a REAL gpu in the 13″ retina is the day I’ll upgrade :) Could care less abou thunderbolt 2, there’s no thunderbolt 2 devices even out yet lol; there’s barely any thunderbolt 1 devices out. I’ll try to dig up an Iris to 750M comparison.

  3. NQZ (@surgesoda) - 10 years ago

    Gigabit Wifi is also a welcomed addition, but since the brand new iPhone 5S I just bought DOESN’T have it, and neither will the iPad Air or Retina Mini, so what reason do I have to upgrade my access point right now? Just FYI — Samsung Galaxy S4 has had gigabit wifi Since April, and the Moto X has it as well.

    • rettun1 - 10 years ago

      MIMO is good because you can still get speed increase even if there isn’t an 802.11ac station nearby. The omission would only be a big deal if ac was widely used I think

  4. Pierre Calixte - 10 years ago

    As good as those numbers are, I still kinda disappointed that the 13″ MBP didn’t get the iris pro graphics. In my opinion, the 13″ should be a step behind the 15″ MBP and giving the 15″ irs pro and discrete graphics leaves the 13 MBP two steps behind.

    A “pro” laptop should get pro graphics, no?

    • weakguy - 10 years ago

      I totally agree with ya. That’s is exactly what I though during the keynote. I really have no idea what Apple is thinking. Their MacBook Pros aren’t really “pro” laptops unless you spend some extra dollars, this extra is a lot this time. If you want discrete graphics, you now have to pay $300 more than the previous model (if I remember this right). Ridiculous. Yet, Apple says it now has a lower entry price point. Problem is, those laptops are not for pro, but for people who want to look like pro.

      With the new iWork, iLife, and new rMBP, I’m seriously thinking that Apple doesn’t care about their advanced users, not necessarily just the pros now.

  5. Daniel Birchall - 10 years ago

    It’s cheaper in terms of having a lower entry price – but the $1299 config comes with 4GB RAM, while the previous base config came with 8GB. Mavericks’ RAM compression magic better work!

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Avatar for Seth Weintraub Seth Weintraub

Publisher and Editorial Director of the 9to5/Electrek sites.


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