8-Core Mac Pro Benchmarks - MacRumors
Skip to Content

8-Core Mac Pro Benchmarks

Barefeats has published performance benchmarks for Apple's latest 8-Core Mac Pro.

The initial report compares the 8-Core to the Quad-Core Mac Pro in Cinebench, GeekBench, Photoshop CS3, Aperture 1.5 and Quicktime 7.1.5 Exports.

A second report compares gaming frame rates between the two machines. They tested Doom 3, Quake 4, Halo, UT2004, World of Warcraft and Prey.

The 8-Core Mac Pro came out up to 40-55% faster on some tasks, such as Cinebench 9.5, GeekBench, and Quicktime Export speeds, but provided little advantage in the limited Photoshop CS3 and Aperture testing. The 8-Core also proved to be no faster across the board in the Gaming tests.

Barefeats speculates that the 8-Core Mac Pro maybe bottlenecked by the memory bus and also considers the possibility that Mac OS X Tiger may not be well optimized for the 8-Core Mac Pros.

Obviously some applications will be better suited to take advantage of multi-core Macs, so your mileage may vary, and decisions on 8-Core performance should be made based on the applications you use.

Buyer's Guide: Mac Pro (Don't Buy)
Related Forum: Mac Pro

Popular Stories

Classic Mac Pro Feature

Mac Pro Turns 20 Today, Five Months After Apple Killed It

Friday August 7, 2026 5:39 am PDT by
Apple announced the original Mac Pro 20 years ago today, with the anniversary landing five months after the company discontinued the machine for good. On August 7, 2006, Apple unveiled the first Mac Pro, powered by two dual-core 64-bit Xeon processors that Apple said made it up to twice as fast as the Power Mac G5 it replaced. It was the last Mac to complete Apple's transition from PowerPC...
Four iPhone 18 Pro Colors Mock Feature

iPhone 18 Pro: Pre-Orders and Release Date

Thursday August 20, 2026 8:00 am PDT by
Apple has yet to reveal when the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra will be announced and released, but the dates usually follow a familiar pattern. As usual, the iPhone event is expected to take place in the first half of September. Labor Day falls on September 7 this year. The last time the holiday was on that day was in 2020, but the iPhone event that year was delayed until October due to...
macOS 27 next to MacBook Pro Running macOS 27

macOS Golden Gate Marks the End of an Era

Thursday August 20, 2026 2:19 pm PDT by
macOS 27 Golden Gate is not compatible with any Macs with Intel processors, marking the end of an era. The update, which is currently in beta ahead of a release later this year, is limited to Apple silicon Macs with an M1 chip or newer. Last year, Apple said that macOS 26 Tahoe would be the final macOS release compatible with Intel-based Macs, so this was an expected development. Intel...