Retina MacBook Pro Benchmarks Show Minor Improvements

Some new benchmarks from Geekbench show that the new MacBook Pros with Retina displays only show a 3-5% increase from its predecessors. The new MacBook Pros received an upgrade to their processors, and some received increased storage space. Because of the launch of its new MacBooks, Apple has lowered the prices on its previous models. The previous models may appeal to those of you who want a MacBook Pro with Retina display, but don't necessarily need the extra 5% boost. You'll save hundreds of dollars as well.

First up is the latest gen 13-inch MacBook Pros with Retina displays. The 13-inch Macbook Pro with an i7-3540M 3GHz dual-core processor shows a 328 point increase compared to the last generation i7 13-inch MacBook. The 13-inch Macbook Pro with an i5-3230M 2.6GHz dual-core processor shows a 205 point increase from its predecessor.

For the 15-inch MacBooks with Retina displays, the 15-inch MacBook with the i7-3840QM 2.8GHz quad-core processor shows a 523 point increase from the i7-3820QM model. The i7-3740QM 2.7GHz quad-core MacBook shows a 332 point increase from the i7-3720QM model, and the i7-3635QM 2.4GHz quad-core MacBook shows a 424 point increase from the previous i7-3615QM model.

The benchmarks only show a minor performance boost for each upgrade, however some of the upgraded versions also feature a boost in either storage space or RAM. The 13-inch i5-3230M has double the storage space compared to its predecessor, and the 15-inch i7-3840QM MacBook features a whopping 16GB of RAM. Depending on your needs, if you just want a MacBook Pro that works efficiently, the previous models will do just fine.

[via MacRumors]