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Retina MacBook Q&A
Published May 11, 2015
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How fast are the "Early 2015" 12-Inch Retina Display MacBook models compared to one another? How fast are these models compared to the 11-Inch and 13-Inch MacBook Air models? How fast are they compared to the 13-Inch Retina MacBook Pro?
Please note that all Macs mentioned in this Q&A have been discontinued. However, this Q&A is up-to-date and can be quite useful for anyone considering one of these models on the used market.
In the company press release for the "Early 2015" Retina Display MacBook models -- the MacBook "Core M" 1.1 12-Inch, "Core M" 1.2 12-Inch, and "Core M" 1.3 12-Inch -- Apple only mentions "performance" once and it is simply to brag that the notebook was "designed from the ground up to be the first fanless Mac notebook for silent, efficient performance."
With no relevant mention of performance at all, it's a safe bet that the "Early 2015" Retina Display MacBook models are not going to set any speed records. Likewise, with slower processors and graphics processors, it's a safe bet that they are slower than recent MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, as well. Exactly how much slower, though, requires benchmarks and real-world testing.
Photo Credit: Apple, Inc. (Retina Display MacBook)
General Performance Overview
For a solid overview of the performance difference between the "Early 2015" Retina Display MacBook models and other notebooks, EveryMac.com's own Ultimate Mac Comparison makes it quick to compare side-by-side 32-bit and 64-bit Geekbench benchmark averages with all other G3 and later Macs for thousands of possible performance comparisons.
For example, the Geekbench 3.0 benchmark shows that the standard high-end model -- the MacBook "Core M" 1.2 12-Inch -- is around 3% faster in single core and 11% faster in multicore tasks than the entry-level MacBook "Core M" 1.1 12-Inch model. Likewise, the custom configured model -- the MacBook "Core M" 1.3 12-Inch -- is between 14%-18% faster than the entry-level model and 6%-11% faster than the standard-high-end model. As this custom processor option costs 20% more than the entry-level model and 9% more than the standard high-end model, it is a decent value, but particularly as an upgrade for the standard high-end model.
Compared to the "Early 2015" MacBook Air models, Geekbench 3.0 demonstrates that the standard Retina Display MacBook models are between 13% and 34% slower:
| Early 2015 11" MBA | Early 2015 13" MBA | Early 2015 12" MBr | Percent Slower |
| "Core i5" 1.6 11" | "Core i5" 1.6 13" | "Core M" 1.1 12" | 18%-34% |
| "Core i7" 2.2 11" | "Core i7" 2.2 13" | "Core M" 1.2 12" | 13%-27% |
Obviously, given how much faster the Retina Display MacBook Pro models are than the MacBook Air models, it should not be surprising that even the fastest custom-configured Retina Display MacBook -- the MacBook "Core M" 1.3 12-Inch -- is roughly 18%-23% slower than the slowest entry-level Retina Display MacBook Pro -- the MacBook Pro "Core i5" 2.7 13-Inch -- despite the fact that the non-Pro MacBook costs at least 20% more.
Other Benchmarks & Real-World Test Results
Geekbench provides a solid overview of overall performance, but other benchmarks and application tests also can be worthwhile for a complete perspective, particularly given that the "Core M" processor in the Retina Display MacBook is designed to "burst" and can reach much higher clockspeeds than default on some brief tasks before cooling is an issue and it has to throttle down.
In a concise analysis, Macworld nicely summarizes the Retina Display MacBook accordingly:
It's not designed to be fast, and by the standards of all of Apple's other current laptops, it's not. It's not fast by the standards of last year's models. Or those of the year before. I pulled out every laptop in my house dating back four years and the base model MacBook is slower than all of them -- though to be fair, my four-year-old MacBook Air is the top-of-the-line model. Still, it's not a stretch to say that the MacBook is bringing 2010 performance to 2015.
Although the publication used a variety of application tests, PCMag reported similar results:
It took 3 minutes 39 seconds to complete our Handbrake video encoder test and 5:24 for the Adobe Photoshop CS6 test. . . A faster Core i5 processor helped the Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (2:38 on Handbrake; 4:17 on CS6). . . speed through the tests in less time. The MacBook's score of 208 points on CineBench is good, but, again, it's lower than Core i5-equipped laptops and tablets.
The always reliable AnandTech performed the site's trademark detailed testing, and came to much the same conclusion, albeit with an important difference between simple "burst" tasks and tasks that require more muscle:
In both single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads [the Retina Display MacBook] is well behind the pack, though in different ways. Single-threaded performance is essentially on par with the 2012 11" MacBook Air (Ivy Bridge), and even as recent as the Core i5-equipped 2014 13" MacBook Air the 2015 MacBook is within 10%. In this case what we're seeing is a case where a lighter workload allows one of Core M's CPU cores to stay highly clocked (remember, it turbos up to 2.4 GHz), which means it's actually rather competitive with recent Ultrabooks. Unless forced to throttle, Core M is still Broadwell, and Broadwell flies.
Which means that when Core M is forced to throttle under the multi-threaded workloads, the performance gap widens. Ignoring the rMBP and its 4 cores, where exactly the MacBook places depends in part on the generation of the MacBook it's compared against, followed by the CPU configuration. The base Core i5s in the MBAs and 13" rMBP are quite capable, with the most powerful of these surpassing the MacBook by upwards of 20%. In that respect the new MacBook is offering multi-threaded performance between the 2011 and 2012 MacBook Airs.
The "old school" BareFeats additionally has helpful "shootouts" comparing the Retina Display MacBook to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro that may be of interest.
Performance Summary
Ultimately, the 12-Inch "Early 2015" Retina Display MacBook is slower and costs more than the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines and is a better choice for someone who mostly wants a beautiful screen in a very sleek package rather than performance.
If performance, battery life, or price, are higher priorities, you would be better served by a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.
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