New 13-Inch MacBook Pro Sans Touch Bar is Marginally Faster But More Efficient Than Last Year's Base Model

Benchmarks for Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar are beginning to collect on Geekbench, providing a closer look at the notebook's performance improvements and energy efficiency.

The entry-level model, powered by a Skylake-based 2.0GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, currently has an average multi-core score of 6,970, indicating the notebook is only up to 7% faster than the early 2015 base model 13-inch MacBook Pro. Last year's comparable model, equipped with a Broadwell-based 2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, currently has an average multi-core score of 6,497.

The late 2016 model is also slightly faster than last year's mid-range 13-inch MacBook Pro, while slightly outperformed by the higher-end model.

The notebooks are each calibrated against a baseline score of 4,000, which is the score of Intel's high-end Core i7-6600U processor.

While the performance improvements are negligible, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro sans Touch Bar's 15-watt chip is more energy efficient than the 28-watt chip in last year's entry-level model. The lower power consumption gives the 2016 base model comparable battery life to last year's model despite having a smaller 54.5-watt-hour battery versus the 74.9-watt-hour battery in last year's comparable.

Given that the non-Touch Bar model's 6360U chip would typically be appropriate for the MacBook Air, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar should be a more accurate comparable to last year's base 13-inch model. However, it is also $500 more expensive. Benchmarks for that model should be available next month when Apple begins shipping the Touch Bar notebooks to customers.