Apple this week updated its entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar and Intel's latest 8th-generation Core quad-core processors, and benchmarks for the 2019 model are now beginning to surface.
Geekbench 4 scores indicate the base 2019 model with an 8th-generation 1.4GHz quad-core Core i5 processor has up to a 6.8 percent increase in single-core performance, and up to 83.4 percent faster multi-core performance, compared to the base 2017 model with a 7th-generation 2.3GHz dual-core Core i5 processor.
Specifically, the 2019 model has average single-core and multi-core scores of 4,639 and 16,665 respectively based on eight Geekbench results, while the 2017 model averages 4,341 for single-core and 9,084 for multi-core.
The new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro is powered by Intel's Core i5-8257U processor, which appears to be a custom variation of its Core i5-8250U processor designed for Apple. The 15W chip is part of the Coffee Lake family and has a max Turbo Boost frequency of up to 3.9GHz.
The notebook can also be upgraded to an 8th-generation 1.7GHz quad-core Core i7 processor. This configuration uses Intel's Core i7-8557U, which is likewise believed to be a custom variation of its Core i7-8550U processor, with a TDP of 15W and a max Turbo Boost frequency of up to 4.5GHz.
Only one Geekbench result is available for the 1.7GHz configuration so far with single-core and multi-core scores of 4,835 and 15,515 respectively. There is room for variance here as more results come in, but this would be a performance increase of up to around 60 percent compared to the equivalent 2017 model.
Apple advertises the new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro as "two times more powerful" than the previous generation. The benchmarks approach this at up to 83 percent, but performance in real-world usage will vary.
Apple did not update the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro in 2018, which is why 2017 models serve as the previous-generation comparisons.
