Geekbench 2 results for the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro are starting to arrive in the Geekbench Browser. The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro uses the same processor as the 13-inch MacBook Pro so the performance of the Retina model should be the same as the standard model. Let's see if that's the case:
| 13-inch Pro i7-3520M 2.9 GHz (2 cores) |
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| 13-inch Pro Retina i7-3520M 2.9 GHz (2 cores) |
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| 13-inch Pro Retina i5-3210M 2.5 GHz (2 cores) |
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| 13-inch Pro i5-3210M 2.5 GHz (2 cores) |
Performance of the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is within 0.5% of the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Let's see how the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro compares to the rest of Apple's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lineup:
| 15-inch Pro i7-3820QM 2.7 GHz (4 cores) |
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| 15-inch Pro Retina i7-3820QM 2.7 GHz (4 cores) |
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| 15-inch Pro i7-3720QM 2.6 GHz (4 cores) |
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| 15-inch Pro Retina i7-3720QM 2.6 GHz (4 cores) |
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| 15-inch Pro i7-3615QM 2.3 GHz (4 cores) |
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| 15-inch Pro Retina i7-3615QM 2.3 GHz (4 cores) |
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| 13-inch Pro i7-3520M 2.9 GHz (2 cores) |
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| 13-inch Pro Retina i7-3520M 2.9 GHz (2 cores) |
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| 13-inch Air i7-3667U 2.0 GHz (2 cores) |
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| 11-inch Air i7-3667U 2.0 GHz (2 cores) |
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| 13-inch Pro Retina i5-3210M 2.5 GHz (2 cores) |
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| 13-inch Pro i5-3210M 2.5 GHz (2 cores) |
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| 13-inch Air i5-3427U 1.8 GHz (2 cores) |
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| 11-inch Air i5-3317U 1.7 GHz (2 cores) |
Unsurprisingly the 15-inch MacBook Pros are still the fastest laptops in Apple's lineup by a large margin thanks to their quad-core processors. The 15-inch MacBook Pros are also the heaviest and most expensive laptops in Apple's lineup. What if you're looking for a smaller, lighter laptop? How does the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro compare?
The 13-inch MacBook Air is 0.6 pounds lighter and $500 cheaper than the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. However, the low-end 13-inch Retina is 10% faster than the low-end 13-inch Air and the high-end 13-inch Retina is 13% faster than the high-end 13-inch Air. The 13-inch Pro also comes with twice the RAM and the superior Retina display.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro is $500 cheaper than the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro. The 13-inch MacBook Pro also comes with an optical drive, an ethernet port, and a FireWire port. However, the 13-inch MacBook Pro comes with a slower hard drive and doesn't have the nicer Retina display.
So which 13-inch MacBook model would I recommend? If you can afford it, I think the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is the way to go. It's just as fast as the 13-inch MacBook Pro but it's lighter and has a much nicer display. If you're on a budget, the 13-inch MacBook Air, while slower, is also a great laptop.
What about the 13-inch MacBook Pro? Unless you need the 13-inch MacBook Pro's built-in optical drive or built-in ports I really can't recommend purchasing it. I think you'll be much more satisfied with the 13-inch MacBook Air's portability or the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro's display.