Apple introduced a 13-inch MacBook Pro that came without the Touch Bar and Touch ID functionality, but the company didn’t sacrifice the performance factor from the newly announced notebook. In fact, despite featuring a lower clock speed in the base model, the MacBook Pro is able to outperform its predecessor, according to these latest benchmarking results.
13-Inch MacBook Pro Is Able to Marginally Overtake the 2015 13-Inch Base Model MacBook Pro
To bring you up to speed, the 13-inch MacBook Pro features a dual-core Core i5 6th generation Skylake processor running at a speed of 2.00GHz. You’d think that the clock speed for a notebook belonging to Apple’s high-end laptop offerings would be running at something higher but turns out that the improved architecture is actually better than the 2015 base model of the company’s MacBook Pro. The 2015 version features a screen size of 13 inches and is running a dual-core i5 processor and has a base clock speed of 2.70GHz. That’s enough to get you convinced that the 2015 version should be faster than the 2016 version right?
Incorrect, because according to the latest Geekbench benchmarks, the 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro is approximately 7 percent faster than its predecessor despite featuring a much-lowered clock speed. With that slight performance increase, you’re also getting noticeably improved battery life. The TDP of the dual-core processor present in this year’s MacBook Pro is 15 watts, while the 2015 version’s CPU had a TDP of 28 watts. However, because of the lowered power consumption, not to mention the reduced thickness of the notebook, the 2016 version actually features a smaller battery compared to the 2015 version.
- 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro: 54.5-Wh battery
- 2015 13-inch MacBook Pro: 74.9-Wh battery
Supplementing the performance of the 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro, you get a massive trackpad that utilizes the same Force Touch tech that’s implemented on the 2016 12-inch MacBook. 8GB of RAM coupled with 256GB PCIe-based SSD is also found inside the notebook’s housing. Pricing of the base model is $1,499 and we agree that it’s a lot for a notebook of these specifications, but apart from the increased battery life, you also get improved performance.
