Geekbench 2 was released about a month ago, and I’ve yet to post any sort of performance comparison using Geekbench 2 (there are plenty of performance comparisons over on Geek Patrol that use Geekbench 2006). So I thought I’d do a performance comparison of Apple’s Intel-based Macs using Geekbench 2 and the results from the Geekbench Browser.
I’ve included almost every Intel-based Mac Apple has shipped over the past couple of years, with the exception of the Intel-based Xserve due to a lack of results. I say this when the top Geekbench 2 score in the Geekbench Browser is held by a (modified) eight-core Xserve.
Setup
Results were collected from Geekbench 2 for Mac OS X running on Intel-based Macs with standard processors (i.e., no processor upgrades) and at least 1GB of RAM.
I’ve reported the average overall score for each model and processor combination, where 1000 is the score a Power Mac G5 @ 1.6GHz would receive. Higher scores are better.
Results
MacBook
| MacBook Intel Core Duo @ 1.83GHz |
2363 | |
| MacBook Intel Core Duo @ 2.00GHz |
2475 | |
| MacBook (Late 2006) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.83GHz |
2327 | |
| MacBook (Late 2006) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.00GHz |
2600 |
MacBook Pro
| MacBook Pro Intel Core Duo @ 1.83GHz |
2333 | |
| MacBook Pro Intel Core Duo @ 2.00GHz |
2495 | |
| MacBook Pro Intel Core Duo @ 2.16GHz |
2711 | |
| MacBook Pro (17-inch) Intel Core Duo @ 2.16GHz |
2438 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz |
2825 | |
| MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz |
3034 | |
| MacBook Pro (17-inch Core 2 Duo) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz |
3044 |
Mac mini
| Mac mini (Early 2006) Intel Core Solo @ 1.50GHz |
1472 | |
| Mac mini (Early 2006) Intel Core Duo @ 1.66GHz |
2136 | |
| Mac mini (Early 2006) Intel Core Duo @ 1.83GHz |
2312 |
iMac
| iMac (Early 2006) Intel Core Duo @ 1.83GHz |
2373 | |
| iMac (Early 2006) Intel Core Duo @ 2.00GHz |
2556 | |
| iMac (Late 2006) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.83GHz |
2384 | |
| iMac (Late 2006) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.00GHz |
2654 | |
| iMac (Late 2006) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz |
2873 | |
| iMac (Late 2006) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz |
3095 | |
| iMac (24-inch) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz |
2877 | |
| iMac (24-inch) Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz |
3082 |
Mac Pro
| Mac Pro Intel Xeon @ 2.00GHz |
3926 | |
| Mac Pro Intel Xeon @ 2.66GHz |
5034 | |
| Mac Pro Intel Xeon @ 3.00GHz |
5611 |
Thoughts
There’s not a huge change in performance across most of Apple’s Intel-based Mac lineup (the high-end MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo is only 30% faster than the low-end MacBook Core Duo, for example). The only big changes occur at the low end with the (discontinued) single-core Mac mini, or at the high end with the quad-core Mac Pro.
Keep in mind, too, that Geekbench 2 only measures processor and memory performance; it doesn’t measure things like graphics performance, which is a hot issue these days considering both the Mac mini and the MacBook ship with integrated graphics.