Early benchmarks for the 2019 Mac Pro have now started surfacing online — and they might be a disappointment for some.
The scores achieved by entry-level and mid-tier machines are similar to those you will get from a 2017 iMac Pro. In fact, iMac Pro and even the budget Mac mini achieve significantly higher scores in some tests.
The all-new Mac Pro is Apple’s most powerful machine to date — and the most customizable Mac we’ve had in a long time. But there’s a catch. You only get spectacular performance if you’re willing to spend big money.
Opt for the entry-level model priced at $5,999, or a mid-tier model for at least $6,999, and you might find yourself wishing you had picked up an iMac Pro instead.
Mac Pro benchmarks a little disappointing
You will currently find benchmark scores for the 8-core, 12-core, and 16-core Mac Pro chips in Geekbench 5.
The 8-core Intel Xeon W chip achieves a single-core score of 1,008 and a multi-core score of 7,606. That’s easily beaten by an 8-core iMac Pro from 2017, which achieves scores of 1,076 and 8,120, respectively.
The 12-core chip achieves a single-core score of 1,090 and a multi-core score of 11,599. The 16-core option, a $2,000 upgrade, achieves scores of 1,104 and 14,285, respectively.
In comparison, a late 2018 Mac mini with a 6-core Intel Core i7 can achieve a single core score of 1,131. An early 2019 iMac (non-Pro) with a 6-core Intel Core i5 can reach 1,137, while the 8-core model hits 1,253.
Photo: Geekbench
A 16-core Mac Pro will beat an 18-core iMac Pro in both single- and multi-core performance. But there’s not a huge difference in their scores. Certainly not enough to warrant the Mac Pro’s upgrade cost.
Not the full story
Splash out on a high-end Mac Pro and you will see the benefits. Its 16-core Xeon chip, which achieves a multi-core score of 14,285, outpaces every other Mac. The iMac Pro is second-fastest with 13,194.
It will be incredibly interesting to see how well the 24- and 28-core Mac Pro chips fair in these tests. It looks they will easily top the charts with scores that other Apple computers can only dream of.
Of course, benchmark tests like these don’t tell the full story. The new Mac Pro can be equipped with much beefier graphics that aren’t tested by Geekbench, and a whopping 1.5TB of RAM.
The Mac Pro is also customizable, which means when it does start to feel sluggish, users can swap out the existing RAM, GPUs, and more and install faster alternatives. That’s a luxury you don’t get with other Macs.
Via: MacRumors
