Apple's New Mac Pro Begins Showing Up in Benchmarks

While Apple offered a sneak peek at its dramatically redesigned Mac Pro at its Worldwide Developers Conference, the new machine is not scheduled to launch until "later this year" and the company has yet to reveal detailed specs and pricing information.

But if a new Geekbench result is authentic, it appears that the new machine is already starting to show up in public benchmarking databases. Rather than showing up as a "MacPro6,1" as would be expected for Apple's next-generation Mac Pro, the new machine is dubbed "AAPLJ90,1", perhaps a reference to a J90 code name following Apple's usual format.

mac_pro_2013_geekbench
Also supporting the authenticity of the entry is the listing of a custom build of OS X Mavericks, 13A2054, running on the machine. The listed motherboard ID is also one which was discovered in OS X Mavericks as corresponding to the new Mac Pro.

The machine in question is running a single 12-core processor from the upcoming Ivy Bridge-E family, specifically the Xeon E5-2697 v2 running at 2.7 GHz. It is also equipped with 64 GB of RAM.

A comparison of this new Mac Pro entry with Apple's current high-end 12-core Mac Pro running a pair of 3.06 GHz Westmere processors reveals improved performance on Geekbench benchmarks by most measures, ranging from slight improvements for certain tasks to substantial improvements for others.

mac_pro_2013_geekbench_comparison
We chatted with John Poole of Primate Labs, who highlighted the substantial improvements in many single-core measures and in memory performance, suggesting that lower multi-core scores later in the Integer Performance testing run could be indicative of thermal issues.

Poole notes that with a public launch of the new Mac Pro likely still many months away, it is entirely possible that Apple is still ironing out both software and hardware issues on the new Mac Pro and that the company's work could lead to even more substantial performance gains once those issues are addressed.

Update: Poole has now shared some of his thoughts on the Mac Pro result in a blog post.

...Apple's claim of "up to 2x faster" floating point performance may be optimistic. The new "Ivy Bridge" Xeon processor in the new Mac Pro has instructions that can process twice the amount of data as the "Westmere" Xeon processors in the current Mac Pro. The problem is that only certain kinds of software can take advantage of these instructions.

Related Roundup: Mac Pro
Buyer's Guide: Mac Pro (Neutral)
Related Forum: Mac Pro

Top Rated Comments

ImperialX Avatar
140 months ago
The benchmarks look kind of...underwhelming.
Score: 90 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SilianRail Avatar
140 months ago
So we waited 1500 days for an 8% boost. :(
Score: 64 Votes (Like | Disagree)
strausd Avatar
140 months ago
I was expecting overall geekbench scores to be much higher...
Score: 52 Votes (Like | Disagree)
clamnectar Avatar
140 months ago
Here's what's up -- lack of significant advancements in CPU technology is a real restriction. There just isn't much to do other than add more cores, and all those cores are hot, which then comes at the expense of clock speed. It's a tricky balance.

In light of that, Apple's decided that the big leap forward in the new generation of Mac Pros will come from the GPU side. Geekbench is a CPU-only test, so you're not seeing the important part. The important part is that on a GPU test it would obliterate any out of the box mac ever, probably by an order of magnitude. From here on out, it's all eggs in the GPU basket.

If the software creators don't take advantage of the dual workstation GPUs, it won't do anyone any good. If they do, then it'll make this new Mac Pro wipe the floor with the old model in real world use (not Geekbench).

Of course, you can always add GPUs to the old model. But it's the change in philosophy that I'm commenting on.
Score: 49 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ArchAndroid Avatar
140 months ago
Mac Pro 2013

Customer desires:
- Slightly smaller
- Exponentially faster

Apple delivers:
- Slightly faster
- Exponentially smaller.

Oh... and one more thing. You'll no longer be able to upgrade any of the internal components when Intel or AMD upgrade their processors.

Classic :apple:
Score: 33 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Sharky II Avatar
140 months ago
Umm... only 1000 points more, overall?
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iPhone 16 Camera Lozenge 2 Perspective Gray

Five Key Upgrades Coming to iPhone 16

Friday March 15, 2024 1:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone is Apple's top-selling product, and it gets an update every year. In 2024, we're expecting the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro lineup, with an arguably more interesting feature set than we got with the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Capture Button All four iPhone 16 models are set to get a whole new button, which will be...
airpods 3 orange

Two New AirPods 4 Models Expected to Launch in September or October

Sunday March 17, 2024 7:56 am PDT by
Apple suppliers will begin production of two new fourth-generation AirPods models in May, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Based on this production timeframe, he expects the headphones to be released in September or October. Gurman expects both fourth-generation AirPods models to feature a new design with better fit, improved sound quality, and an updated charging case with a USB-C...
When To Expect New iPads Feature 1

Apple to Announce New iPads on March 26, Rumors Claim

Monday March 18, 2024 4:02 am PDT by
Apple is widely expected to release new iPad Air and OLED iPad Pro models in the next few weeks. According to new rumors coming out of Asia, the company will announce its new iPads on Tuesday, March 26. Chinese leaker Instant Digital on Weibo this morning 日发布%23">claimed that the date will see some sort of announcement from Apple related to new iPads, but stopped short of calling it an...
iphone se 4 modified flag edges

iPhone SE 4 Expected to Depreciate Heavily

Tuesday March 12, 2024 9:04 am PDT by
Resale value trends suggest the iPhone SE 4 may not hold its value as well as Apple's flagship models, according to SellCell. According to the report, Apple's iPhone SE models have historically depreciated much more rapidly than the company's more premium offerings. The third-generation iPhone SE, which launched in March 2022, experienced a significant drop in resale value, losing 42.6%...
iOS 17 Passkey With Apple ACCOUNT Feature

'Apple ID' Expected to Change to 'Apple Account' Starting With iOS 18

Sunday March 17, 2024 7:13 am PDT by
MacRumors was first to report that Apple was planning to rebrand "Apple ID" to "Apple Account" across its software platforms and websites like iCloud.com as early as this year, and now Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has corroborated this change. A mockup of the new Apple Account branding In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the new "Apple Account" branding will start to be used later this...
General iOS 17 Feature Orange Purple

iOS 17.4.1 Update for iPhone is Imminent

Monday March 18, 2024 5:27 am PDT by
iOS 17.4.1 and iPadOS 17.4.1 should be released within the next few days, with a build number of 21E235, according to a source with a proven track record. MacRumors previously reported that Apple was internally testing iOS 17.4.1. As a minor update for the iPhone, it will likely address software bugs and/or security vulnerabilities. It is unclear if the update will include any other changes. ...