13-Inch MacBook Pro Benchmarks: $1,799 Model Up to 16.5% Faster Than $1,299 Model

[dannys1]

Maybe the economic downturn caused them to release a more conservative product.

There is no economic down turn yet and they plan years ahead not by a month.

At the minute technology has been selling through the roof - as an Apple reseller my business has double compared to that of any quarter in the past 10 years. Apple's services are up too. We're probably seeing a lot of people who were spending thousands on holidays now spending on technology instead.

 

[Zdigital2015]

That was a desktop tower though. If anything, I’d expect a Mac mini form factor if Apple releases a test device.

Possibly...however, in the year 2005, a desktop was relevant, in 2020, mobile is the most relevant form factor. So, if they don’t have a macOS side loader for the 2018 and 2020 iPad Pro, they’ll most likely go MacBook (12” or maybe 14.1”) or release an iMac, but not a mini or a tower of any kind. That way they can test FaceID (if they have it) among other new tech goodies.

 

[badatusernames]

For those who are wondering these are some benchmarks from my 2019 MacBook Pro 13" 2.8 GHz i7.

 

[MacLawyer]

16.5 percent faster... my humble opinion is that it’s not worth the $ 500 difference.

Well, for $500 more you also get double the RAM and storage of the base model. Also, you get Intel Iris Plus graphics which is supposed to be much better than the Intel Iris 645 on the base model.

 

[kittycat40]

Yet no WiFi 6 despite being made the new standard in fall 2019. Going to wait on upgrading my 13 inch 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

 

[chucker23n1]

Intel 8th 9th 10th gen same same. No AMD Ryzen, no buy.

Yes, hi, Tom Boger here. I'd like to order three million Ryzen CPUs for the coming three years or so.

— Sorry, what? Boger. Tom Boger. Yeah, I manage Mac Product Marketing at Apple.

— sure, I'll hold.

— yes, my name is Tom Boger. Your Ryzen Mobile 4000 CPUs sound very impressive. …mhm! Yeah. No, nothing to announce on the ARM front. But we like to have options, y'know?

— yeah. No, your assistant is right, I did say three million. No, not for three years. Not total. No, no, I meant per quarter over three years. Yes, 36 million. Yeah.

— wait, why?

— uh, sure, we'll pay you a premium. I can offer 40% upfront?

— because your CPUs sound impressive is why.

— you… you can't?

And that's how Apple chose Intel yet again.

 

[Peperino]

And 16% faster is worth $500 extra?
What is wrong with Apple?
16% is almost nothing furthermore, for a little more you can buy a Mac Mini...

It will be nice that Macrumors for once tell the truth that 16% for an extra $500 is kind of a NOT worth it (not to say a joke).

 

[Dwalls90]

There is no economic down turn yet and they plan years ahead not by a month.

At the minute technology has been selling through the roof - as an Apple reseller my business has double compared to that of any quarter in the past 10 years. Apple's services are up too. We're probably seeing a lot of people who were spending thousands on holidays now spending on technology instead.

Sorry for not being more clear. In case you missed the latest quarterly performance, Apple narrowly beat prior year's quarter, but missed pre-COVID revenue guidance by a fairly larger margin. The economic downturn has begun. Folks maybe had a short term need of obtaining a computer to work remotely, but that will level off sooner or later, and financials released thus far show us evidence that the uptick did not outweigh other issues such as store closures.

Furthermore, supply chains are being impacted. This is not the first Apple product rumored to have slipped in retail release.

 

[MikhailT]

And 16% faster is worth $500 extra?
What is wrong with Apple?
16% is almost nothing furthermore, for a little more you can buy a Mac Mini...

It will be nice that Macrumors for once tell the truth that 16% for an extra $500 is kind of a NOT worth it (not to say a joke).

Did you skip to the last page and ignored everyone else who pointed out that the 500$ extra is not on the CPU only? You get double the storage, RAM, 2 more TB ports, MUCH faster GPU, etc?

Btw, it's 16% faster on multi-core, it's 33% faster on single-core. Single core is where most folks would notice the difference in day to day stuff.

 

[davidf18]

16.5 percent faster... my humble opinion is that it’s not worth the $ 500 difference.

The article is incorrect:
The single core is 33% higher. (1236/927) = 1.333
The 4 multicore is 16.5% higher. (4455/3822) = 1.165

It would be nice if people who write articles would do the simple math. But just by examination, it is clear that 1236 is more than 16% higher than 927.

Since most apps will probably rely on the single core, this is what really matters for benchmark speeds.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Yes, hi, Tom Boger here. I'd like to order three million Ryzen CPUs for the coming three years or so.

— Sorry, what? Boger. Tom Boger. Yeah, I manage Mac Product Marketing at Apple.

— sure, I'll hold.

— yes, my name is Tom Boger. Your Ryzen Mobile 4000 CPUs sound very impressive. …mhm! Yeah. No, nothing to announce on the ARM front. But we like to have options, y'know?

— yeah. No, your assistant is right, I did say three million. No, not for three years. Not total. No, no, I meant per quarter over three years. Yes, 36 million. Yeah.

— wait, why?

— uh, sure, we'll pay you a premium. I can offer 40% upfront?

— because your CPUs sound impressive is why.

— you… you can't?

And that's how Apple chose Intel yet again.

Brilliant...too bad the usual suspects still don’t get the fact that AMD would choke on Apples contract requirements and volume expectations, especially given any other contract obligations AMD must fulfill with other PC OEMs.
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Did you skip to the last page and ignored everyone else who pointed out that the 500$ extra is not on the CPU only? You get double the storage, RAM, 2 more TB ports, MUCH faster GPU, etc?

Btw, it's 16% faster on multi-core, it's 33% faster on single-core. Single core is where most folks would notice the difference in day to day stuff.

All he does is rant about how everything Apple makes is bad or overpriced, etcetera etcetera...I have had him blocked for at least a year now.
[automerge]1588875228[/automerge]

Intel 8th 9th 10th gen same same. No AMD Ryzen, no buy.

Give me a break...you weren’t going to buy anyways, even if Apple did move to RYZEN.

 

[TechieGeek]

Here’s an interesting review, comparing the 2020 13” MacBook Pro with the previous and 2015 models.

13-inch MacBook Pro (2020) review: Two laptops, one keyboard

The most important feature of the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is the keyboard. With the addition of the new Magic Keyboard design originally introduced in late 2019 with the 16″ MacBook Pro to th…

sixcolors.com

The GeekBench OpenCL compute scores aren’t as improved as I expected, but I expect 3D graphics performance to be more improved.

View attachment 912997

I just downloaded and ran Geekbench 5 on my i7 MacBook Air, it seems like performance is on-par with this new MacBook Pro: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/2067376

I don't know why everyone's losing their minds trying to compare CPUs by looking at the watts of power they consume 🙄do you measure the performance of your vacuum cleaner or your fridge by the watts it consumes?

We want things to be more efficient, particularly on laptops. Using less watts is not a bad thing.

 

[GuruZac]

Those opting for the lower end 8th Gen Intel MBP are much better off with the MBA, or hell, buy an iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard.

 

[christcc2]

This is uninformed and frankly... a bit daydreaming.

Intel has always been using the 15W parts on the 2x TB ports model so they won't be using 1038NG7 (28W) but its 15W variant like 1035NG4 or something.

The issue with this is that 1035NG4 15W model only offers marginal performance improvement vs the 8257U 8th gen model while increasing cost. This might be why they chose to stick with the 8th gen CPU

You're correct. Intel's 10 gen processors have higher bin costs compared to the 8th and 9th gen parts, Apple had to pass along that cost - the base model would not have been able to stay at $1299 if 10th gen CPU's were used.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Please test the battery life as well since that was my disappointment in earlier modells.

I don't have one on order as of yet ... I'm waiting a few months (2-3) before I order.

@tothemoonsands, I think is whom you mean to quote?

 

[Scottsdale]

16.5 percent faster... my humble opinion is that it’s not worth the $ 500 difference.

And it tells nearly everyone to buy the base model and upgrade the RAM only. Anything else is probably a waste of money when this is a stopgap product.

I don’t want to load up a $3k 13” MBP when I will have to replace it in a year if I want the real redesigned model with potentially a real professional-level GPU in the next update.

People should really only update now if they need to. Apple didn’t include WiFi6, or really any major reason to believe this is a long-term solution. The rumors of a 14.1” MBP make waiting highly desirable for anyone who plans to spend 16” MBP pricing on a lowly 13” MBP with inferior everything inside it. I would even say the only compelling reasons to buy this computer are the Magic Keyboard that should have been in place since 2016 and macOS.

 

[Wayfarer]

If you fell asleep in 2012 with your internet browser on the Apple's Macbook Pro page, woke up in 2020, and refreshed your page, you would think you napped for a couple hours.

Well, you're not wrong!

 

[christcc2]

Great explanation for the base model specs.

 

[MauiPa]

Of course the first thing one must question is the “average” scores in the geekbench database. The population used in the statistics does not throw out obvious outliers, and many scores are ridiculously low. Why someone would run geekbench simultaneously with handbrake and why primate labs can’t screen these out or adjust for cpu load is a mystery

a better way to get the real score is to search on the cpu. I usually grab the higher scores (because really, if my computer actually ran at the lower end, I would take it back). My MBP 2014 runs 20%better than the “average” score posted by primate labs.
This is basic, wish they would fix it, or explain why the ridiculous scores are really valid

 

[falainber]

Brilliant...too bad the usual suspects still don’t get the fact that AMD would choke on Apples contract requirements and volume expectations, especially given any other contract obligations AMD must fulfill with other PC OEMs.

This point actually exposes one of the weaknesses of Apple strategy. Dell buys way more processors from Intel than Apple does but they do not stick with a single vendor policy. They release computers with both AMD and Intel CPUs (and AMD and Nvidia GPUs). Tim Cook being a supply chain manager, he always goes with a solution based on the chain optimization.

 

[firewood]

If it is possible for a person that bills $50/hr for using their computer for work to do 16.5% more in the same time, then the $500 difference will be paid off in 60 hours.

And this is why a real pro who bills $200/hour and up can afford the new Mac Pro, perhaps even with a spare set of wheels.

 

[deconstruct60]

Yes, hi, Tom Boger here. I'd like to order three million Ryzen CPUs for the coming three years or so.

— Sorry, what? Boger. Tom Boger. Yeah, I manage Mac Product Marketing at Apple.

— sure, I'll hold.

— yes, my name is Tom Boger. Your Ryzen Mobile 4000 CPUs sound very impressive. …mhm! Yeah. No, nothing to announce on the ARM front. But we like to have options, y'know?

— yeah. No, your assistant is right, I did say three million. No, not for three years. Not total. No, no, I meant per quarter over three years. Yes, 36 million. Yeah.

— wait, why?

— uh, sure, we'll pay you a premium. I can offer 40% upfront?

— because your CPUs sound impressive is why.

— you… you can't?

And that's how Apple chose Intel yet again.

There is a current rash of AMD 4000 mobile laptops announced over the last 2-10 days. Lenovo just did some T14 , T14s , X13 and None of the them feature Thunderbolt.

Lenovo ThinkPad T14, T14s & X13: AMD Ryzen 4000 versions do not feature Thunderbolt after all

When Lenovo announced the new 2020 ThinkPad lineup in late February, the addition of Thunderbolt 3 to the AMD versions of the new ThinkPad T14, ThinkPad T14s and ThinkPad X13 was big news. Two months later and close to the release of the new devices, it turns out that the initial spec-sheet was...

www.notebookcheck.net

All the Ice Lake 10th generations do, but just about every laptop "flagship" that AMD has been crowing about doesn't. For example

"... : Breaking into desktop was relatively easy for AMD. For laptops, Intel has been circling the wagons for a while, so what are some of the challenges for AMD in this space? Can you address Thunderbolt 3 and CNVi-based Wi-Fi 6?
....
LS: We've always thought it would be a deliberate rollout of technology. So with desktops and servers all about the CPU and took advantage of chiplet technology. As you go into the notebook form factor, we’ve integrated the CPU and the GPU and we’re pushing boundaries on battery life. ...
We presented a couple of designs today with the Lenovo Slim 7 as well as the ASUS Zephyrus G14. There are a lot more machines coming out, in very nice form factors, all using the full power of the Ryzen 4000 series. "

AMD at CES 2020: Q&A with Dr. Lisa Su

www.anandtech.com

Note how completely ducks the Thunderbolt 3 issue. It isn't "can't get Intel chips either" because many of these AMD 4000 laptops are coming with Wi-Fi 6 via ..... Intel chips.

AMD doesn't have to provide the Thunderbolt chips themselves ( heck their PCH-I/O chips are largely just outsourced ASMedia designs ), but they do have to cross the t's and dot the i's in terms of reference board design , firmware development support , and issue troubleshooting. AMD has a "old school" laptop port product. That isn't going to cut it for the MBP.

In contrast, the Ice Lake 10th generation come with baseline 4 port Thunderbolt build in. The four port MBP 13" is an relatively tight match to the system specs. That is highly likely contributed significantly to why it won. The 8th in the two port money probably wins on the Scrooge McDuck factor for Apple because it minimal work to ship ( tweak the case slightly , new keyboard , and reuse the "practically already paid for" R&D of last years.

Part of AMD's lock out lies in fact that 3-4 years ago they were "hating" on Thunderbolt. Until something comes along to help them crawl out of that hole they dug they still have work to do. When AMD has a creditable USB 4 infrastructure that passes the Thunderbolt 4 litmus test they'll have a substantively stronger hand.

 

[chucker23n1]

a better way to get the real score is to search on the cpu.

The CPU isn’t in Ark yet.

 

[R3k]

16.5 percent faster... my humble opinion is that it’s not worth the $ 500 difference.

Thats 16.5% faster per day for 34 cents per day over its 4 year lifespan

 

[Teehan]

On the fence regarding the 16" i9 MBP or the new 13" i7 MBP. Can anyone comment on speed differences between the two? I'm upgrading from a 2016 13" i5 MBP. I'm sure both will be much quicker and I want the speed for video processing (kids sports videos) but a bit worried about the size of the 16" as it will double as my work laptop.