New Retina MacBook Pro Models Showing Up in Benchmarks

[downpour]

If you were considering a Macbook Air in the first place you weren't going to buy a Macbook Pro.

Actually I was thinking of getting an Air, but now the Macbook Pro is essentially the same price in the UK, you would be crazy to buy an Air.

13 Inch MacBook Air with 8GB RAM = £1,209.00
13 Inch MacBook Pro Retina with 8GB RAM = £1,249.00

That's just £40 difference

Clearly Apple should have dropped the price on the Airs as well.

 

[HurryKayne]

will wait for retina Macbook Air next year, also the battery life on these are nice but not impressed with the slight increase in benchmark scores

Me too.
But if Air jumps on the Retina,as well as Cinema Displays and Imac (maybe)
could be that MacBook Pro gains the Quad Core Cpu?
Or that Air label with Ipad and MacBook is introducing us to the Hybrid Laptop
which runs Ios and Osx (syrah?) with A8(or A7 quad or A9) and Broadwell (or Skylake.Skymont) and with a 12 inches detachable Ipad as display?
Just asking.

 

[HenryDJP]

All well and good - we got faster Macbooks. But, Apple still hasn't done squat in terms of introducing any new products since Steve Jobs passed. They're just drifting along aimlessly just like they did the first time after Jobs left.

How many products do you want a company to product until enough is enough? I mean that's what turns me off of a company when they try to be "Jack of All Trades" such as Sony. Quality gets hurt because of too many projects to focus on. Some of you guys expect too from Apple when other companies don't do diddly squat in terms of bringing something out new and innovative.

 

[QCassidy352]

If you were considering a Macbook Air in the first place you weren't going to buy a Macbook Pro.

That's silly. There had got to be huge overlap in terms of the market for 13" MBA and MBP. They are honestly not that different - pro has faster graphics and CPU, retina, and a few more ports. That's about it.

 

[HenryDJP]

Me too.
But if Retina jumps on the Retina,as well as Cinema Displays and Imac (maybe)
could be that MacBook Pro gains the Quad Core Cpu?
Or that Air label with Ipad and MacBook is introducing us to the Hybrid Laptop
which runs Ios and Osx (syrah?) with A8(or A7 quad or A9) and Broadwell (or Skylake.Skymont) and with a 12 inches detachable Ipad as display?
Just asking.

What do you by "Retina jumping on the Retina"?

 

[radiohead14]

Apples shift away from discs and never adopting bluray is kinda screwing them in the TV market. Its the perfect time for them to enter as the 4K transition is just beginning, they could release a 4K set, charge their normal high markups and it may slow their competitors race to the bottom and give them a couple of years of high market share like the iPad has enjoyed.

and why would us, the customers, want the prices to stay inflated? i'd rather have the usual competition going with everyone lowering their prices as the tech becomes more common. if apple does charge their normal high markup.. i don't think they will be able to compete anyway. samsung and sony own that market. even with apple's reputation.. being new to that market will not let them get away with marking up their tv's, if they even introduce one.

 

[Gudi]

Do I read it right that the 15" base performs twice as well as the 13" base?

Quad-Core versus Dual-Core. Twice as many cpu cores, should do twice as much calculations.
Also $1,299.00 versus $1,999.00 starting price. There is more than just 2-inches difference.

 

[Zodiac.mj]

Glad I bought the haswell air. I was wondering how the retina battery life would get bumped. I sold a 15" retina to get the 13" air and while the screen took some serious adjustment time the battery life is amazing

Did the same. Just to wait for new rMBP and I'm pretty disappointed. No IGZO, minor tweaks and I still wonder if max-out 15" will overhead like v1 version.

 

[dannys1]

As the owner of an 8 month old early-2013 rMBP 15", and especially as someone prone to new product envy, it's nice to see that the new models don't blow the old ones away in performance. I'm generally quite satisfied with the battery life on my existing computer, and Mavericks not only seems to have improved on this slightly (pending more extensive testing) but fixed a lot of the annoyances with this computer under Mountain Lion.

I'd ordinarily head straight for the "Waiting for Broadwell!" camp, but I'm happier with this computer than I have been with any other computer for quite some time.

Im in this camp too, although unlike all my rMBP friends (most of whom have 2012 edition) Im not overly happy with my machine. You know when you get a computer every so often that just seems slightly cursed? Everyone else says theres doesn't miss a beat, never jerks, doesn't slow down. Mine gets to a point after a period of being booted where its 16gb of ram have gone, its using a 10gb swap file and its beach balling, especially in Safari.

Now I do multi-task hard but I'm not hitting those CPU's overly hard and my iMac takes everything I throw at it silky smooth, including multiple VMwares - all I have to do is run the iPhone sim on here and the computer is crying. So either I expect too much (my iMac is 2011 and scores slightly less in geek bench) or this machine is a touch of a dud.

So with the A/C wifi, the improved battery, Thunderbolt 2 and most importantly getting rid of the Intel 4000 which I don't think was ever capable of moving retina pixels I was ready to take a hundred quid hit and upgrade, but like you Mavericks on initial inspection seems to have sorted a lot out, especially the smoothness and animation side of things. I can now jump into mission control at any time it seems and it animates properly rather than at 2 frames per second!

 

[HenryDJP]

That's silly. There had got to be huge overlap in terms of the market for 13" MBA and MBP. They are honestly not that different - pro has faster graphics and CPU, retina, and a few more ports. That's about it.

The Pro over the Air having faster graphics, faster CPU, Retina and more ports and you say they are not that different? How much more could be done on a laptop?

Also that wasn't the point I was making and I should've been more clear. It's always the case when Apple releases a new product that people say, "I'm going to hold out for next year". It's a like tired conditioned response in lieu of the words, "I don't have money to buy one this year so I'm just gonna hold off". Instead of saying that, some people just put down the existing latest product with criticism that it doesn't deserve such as your reply to me.

 

[Schurkenstadt]

Do I read it right that the 15" base performs twice as well as the 13" base?

Yes. 4 cores > 2 cores.

 

[Mike07335i]

You really think that? Why? Given that you could get an Ivy Bridge off Amazon yesterday for $2000, and there are plenty of people who would rather have the 650M dGPU, I see a strong argument for the older model. Sure, if you care about the extra hour (less in real world) of battery life, or the extra features like TB2 and 802.11ac, then I can see the argument...but for many people, the older model seems pretty compelling, especially if you can get a deal on it.

Ya exactly my point. The old base model is a pretty good when compared to the new base model. For some better for some worse. The 650M makes the old base model a better comp then the new base model, IMO, especially since thy reduced the clock speed by 300 on the new base model.

Mike

 

[Gudi]

Clearly Apple should have dropped the price on the Airs as well.

Do not ever drop prices!

Doing so gives your costumer the confidence that always the right time to order is right now.
There will never be a better deal, except maybe on black friday.

 

[Mattstrete]

Geekbench score comparisons:

Early 2013 rMBP 2.7 GHZ (top spec) - 13184
Late 2013 rMBP 2.6 GHZ (top spec?) - 12841

Hmmm.

 

[Woyzeck]

I bought a new 2013 Air this summer and planned to swap it for the MBP 13" once they became available. Now I love my Air so much that I won't do this. The battery life is awesome and the weight difference is still significant for me (I carry it around a lot). The only real limitation is the 8GB RAM.

Besides that the Air is nearly perfect.

What I don't get is why they don't beef up the 13" MBP a little bit more to increase the difference to the Air.

 

[mr.steevo]

This argument comes up in nearly every thread - No, Apple hasn't done anything really "new" since the iPad. But let us remember, the iPad was Apple's fastest "new innovation" being 3 years apart from the iPhone launch. iPhone was 6 years after the first iPod. Everything in-between those years was incremental.

We are still in the third year from the iPad launch. If there isn't anything new next year then I would be concerned - but Apple never was one to release new products in new categories every year (Or even every 3.)

The Mac Pro looks different to me.

 

[Xerotech]

As the owner of an 8 month old early-2013 rMBP 15", and especially as someone prone to new product envy, it's nice to see that the new models don't blow the old ones away in performance. I'm generally quite satisfied with the battery life on my existing computer, and Mavericks not only seems to have improved on this slightly (pending more extensive testing) but fixed a lot of the annoyances with this computer under Mountain Lion.

I'd ordinarily head straight for the "Waiting for Broadwell!" camp, but I'm happier with this computer than I have been with any other computer for quite some time.

I'm surprised it wasn't a silent refresh like before. There's absolutely nothing worth mentioning.

 

[Maflagulator]

Geekbench score comparisons:

Early 2013 rMBP 2.7 GHZ (top spec) - 13184
Late 2013 rMBP 2.6 GHZ (top spec?) - 12841

Hmmm.

Yeah...I got the same exact 13,184 score. Interesting. According to this article, the new model scores even worse.

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/136337

Everyone seems fixated on the CPU performance, but what really seems to interest me in the idea of getting the new model is the fact that the READ/WRITE speeds of the SSD are much faster. Your CPU can only crunch so much data when its waiting on the data to get/be delivered. If you're simply surfing the internets, then this wasn't your machine in the first place.

 

[koppie644]

Ya exactly my point. The old base model is a pretty good when compared to the new base model. For some better for some worse. The 650M makes the old base model a better comp then the new base model, IMO, especially since thy reduced the clock speed by 300 on the new base model.

Mike

I waited for almost half an year for Haswell. In the end, the base models are quite similar in performance and educational price

The refurbished 2.4GHz ivy bridge is at $1699. I don't know which one to choose

Does Haswell means that the Macbook body will feel cooler on my lap? much cooler when running OpenCL?

 

[arcite]

All well and good - we got faster Macbooks. But, Apple still hasn't done squat in terms of introducing any new products since Steve Jobs passed. They're just drifting along aimlessly just like they did the first time after Jobs left.

Retina?
Super battery life?
SSD across all products? ....no spinny disks.

None of this is revolutionary to you?

 

[applesith]

My now almost 3 year old early 2011 MBP will be getting replaced with the 2.6 GHz 15" configuration with the Nvidia 750M
Can't believe my battery is completely shot in my 2011 laptop already.

Image

That's a cool tool! I have a mid-2011 15" MBP. Will coconutbattery work if I install it now or is only useful if you install it when you first get the computer to monitor the battery?

I'm not sure if accesses OSX's logs or just monitors on its own.

 

[Gudi]

Now I love my Air so much that I won't do this. Besides that the Air is nearly perfect. What I don't get is why they don't beef up the 13" MBP a little bit more to increase the difference to the Air.

No mentioning of Retina means, you don't care about Retina, means the 13" Air is the right notebook for you. The 13" Pro is for us people who want the cheapest notebook with Retina display no matter how much non-faster it is. Thats why for me the -$200 price cut was the biggest feature regarding Macs at this keynote.

 

[shauniedarko]

If you were considering a Macbook Air in the first place you weren't going to buy a Macbook Pro.

Not true. I was waiting to see what the specs were on these. If they hadn't included the ability to bump the RAM to 16GB or increased the battery life significantly, I was planning to buy a MBAir. Many people don't need the processor in the MBP (I'm still on an 11" 2010 MBAir that's running just fine), but the price difference between the MBAir and the MBPr is so small now that, despite not needing a retina screen or faster processor, I decided to spring for one both because...why not? and to make sure I could get the best computer that met my needs so I'm not looking to upgrade again in a couple of years.

 

[cheesyappleuser]

Do I read it right that the 15" base performs twice as well as the 13" base?

It was always like that.
Probably why I'm going for the 15" rMBP. Still not sure because how much more expensive it is, but the difference in benchmarks is far too high to be ignored.

 

[Ryth]

Anyone know the deal with the displays? Are we going to be looking for Samsung displays over LG?