The New 13-inch M2-powered MacBook Pro outperforms Mac Pro with 8-core Intel Xeon W CPUs

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 CPU appears to be faster in benchmarks than a base model Mac Pro but costs around $5,000 less. According to an apparent…

By Nivedita Bangari

June 17, 2022

2 min read

Comments

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 CPU appears to be faster in benchmarks than a base model Mac Pro but costs around $5,000 less. According to an apparent Geekbench 5 result published on Wednesday, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro has a multi-core score of 8,928, whilst the standard Mac Pro configuration with an 8-core Intel Xeon W CPU has an average multi-core score of 8,027. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro, which starts at $1,299, has up to 11% faster multi-core performance than the $5,999 base model Mac Pro, according to these findings.

Higher-end Mac Pro configurations, such as the 12-core model, can still outperform the M2 chip, but they come with a price tag of $6,999 and up.

The Mac Pro has other benefits like expandability, configurable GPU options, larger built-in SSD storage capacity options, and much more RAM, so this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, but the benchmarks are still a testament to the impressive performance of Apple silicon chips in more than affordable Macs.

A sample of average Geekbench 5 multi-core scores for various Macs including MacBook

Mac Studio with M1 Ultra: 23,366
Mac Pro with 28-core Intel Xeon W: 20,029
14-Inch and 16-Inch MacBook Pro with M1 Max: 12,162 to 12,219
Mac Pro with 12-core Intel Xeon W: 11,919
13-Inch MacBook Pro with M2: 8,928 (based on a single result)
Mac Pro with 8-core Intel Xeon W: 8,027
13-Inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with M1: 7,395 to 7,420

The Mac Pro and the high-end Mac mini are the only Intel-based Macs left in Apple’s lineup. During its March event, Apple hinted at a new Mac Pro driven by Apple silicon, with an announcement due before the end of the year.

Customers can order the new 13-inch MacBook Pro beginning this Friday, with delivery and in-store availability starting on June 24. Apple will sell a new MacBook Air with the M2 processor in July, which could outperform the base model Mac Pro while costing even less at $1,199.