Dieter Bohn, writing for The Verge, took the new MacBook for a small test drive. From his writeup:
> Apple gave us the 1.2Ghz Intel Core m5 version to test, and though I can notice the difference, it’s small enough that it’s not an easy or automatic upgrade from the previous MacBook. I ran a few benchmark tests and have been poking around for the last twenty minutes or so — nothing too crazy — and here’s the long and short of it. Geekbench 3 pegs the speed improvements on raw processor operations at around 20 percent, but disk-write speeds using Blackmagic saw bigger improvements, as much as 80 or 90 percent faster (reading speeds look like smaller, incremental improvements). Overall, the thing feels about 25 percent faster to me.
Dieter tested the faster of the two new models (the other is 1.1Ghz). Apple advertises this model with a Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz. My understanding is that Turbo Boost is an overclocking mode that automatically kicks in (not something you can control) when the processor gets loaded.
For comparison sake, the high end MacBook Pro has a 2.9Ghz processor with a Turbo Boost up to 3.3Ghz. That’s about a 13.7% boost, compared to the new MacBook’s huge jump from 1.2Ghz to 2.7Ghz Turbo Boost, a rise of 125%. Someone check my math on this.
Obviously, the MacBook Pro starts at a much higher clock speed, so perhaps the big rise is due to a much lower starting point. But still, that’s a big difference. And looking at my shopping cart, I see that for an extra $150, I can upgrade to a 1.3Ghz processor with a 3.1Ghz Turbo Boost.
I do wish there was a 16GB option.
But, but, but… the high end MacBook Pro has quad-core Intel Core i7
Keep in mind that the MacBook isn’t going to be able to sustain those turbo speeds for very long before the processor has to dial itself back and cool off. This is one of the major compromises when you go with a fanless computer right now, but it might still be worth the tradeoff for a lot of people.
The comparison is difficult. Turbo Boost works very differently between 2-core and 4-core systems, and again a bit different between systems with or without hyper-threading (virtual cores). Turbo Boost is also not really classical overclocking, as 1) all these CPUs are underclocked and marked below their theoretical clock frequency to meet TDP / maximum power limitations (especially in mobile devices) and 2) even in Turbo Boost mode these CPUs will never exceed their TDP – they turn cores off for single-threaded applications and give the saved TDP to the core(s) now running at higher speeds. The maximum speed indicated for each model is the speed with only one core running. The main point though may be that the quad-core CPU in the MBP is already closer to maximum TDP than the Macbook’s when not using any boost. It does e.g. carry a much more powerful integrated graphics module that also adds heat… So many factors.
Comparison with MBP’s i7 doesn’t make a lot of sense. Just comparing clock frequency make little sense either.
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There’s also the 1.3 Gjz m7, which Turbo Boosts up to 3.1 Ghz, for $150 extra.