Geekbench 2 was released about a month ago, and I’ve yet to post any sort of performance comparison using Geekbench 2 (there are plenty of performance comparisons over on Geek Patrol that use Geekbench 2006). So I thought I’d do a performance comparison of Apple’s Intel-based Macs using Geekbench 2 and the results from the Geekbench Browser.

I’ve included almost every Intel-based Mac Apple has shipped over the past couple of years, with the exception of the Intel-based Xserve due to a lack of results. I say this when the top Geekbench 2 score in the Geekbench Browser is held by a (modified) eight-core Xserve.

Setup

Results were collected from Geekbench 2 for Mac OS X running on Intel-based Macs with standard processors (i.e., no processor upgrades) and at least 1GB of RAM.

I’ve reported the average overall score for each model and processor combination, where 1000 is the score a Power Mac G5 @ 1.6GHz would receive. Higher scores are better.

Results

MacBook

MacBook
Intel Core Duo @ 1.83GHz
2363
 
MacBook
Intel Core Duo @ 2.00GHz
2475
 
MacBook (Late 2006)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.83GHz
2327
 
MacBook (Late 2006)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.00GHz
2600
 

MacBook Pro

MacBook Pro
Intel Core Duo @ 1.83GHz
2333
 
MacBook Pro
Intel Core Duo @ 2.00GHz
2495
 
MacBook Pro
Intel Core Duo @ 2.16GHz
2711
 
MacBook Pro (17-inch)
Intel Core Duo @ 2.16GHz
2438
 
MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz
2825
 
MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz
3034
 
MacBook Pro (17-inch Core 2 Duo)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz
3044
 

Mac mini

Mac mini (Early 2006)
Intel Core Solo @ 1.50GHz
1472
 
Mac mini (Early 2006)
Intel Core Duo @ 1.66GHz
2136
 
Mac mini (Early 2006)
Intel Core Duo @ 1.83GHz
2312
 

iMac

iMac (Early 2006)
Intel Core Duo @ 1.83GHz
2373
 
iMac (Early 2006)
Intel Core Duo @ 2.00GHz
2556
 
iMac (Late 2006)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.83GHz
2384
 
iMac (Late 2006)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.00GHz
2654
 
iMac (Late 2006)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz
2873
 
iMac (Late 2006)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz
3095
 
iMac (24-inch)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.16GHz
2877
 
iMac (24-inch)
Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.33GHz
3082
 

Mac Pro

Mac Pro
Intel Xeon @ 2.00GHz
3926
 
Mac Pro
Intel Xeon @ 2.66GHz
5034
 
Mac Pro
Intel Xeon @ 3.00GHz
5611
 

Thoughts

There’s not a huge change in performance across most of Apple’s Intel-based Mac lineup (the high-end MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo is only 30% faster than the low-end MacBook Core Duo, for example). The only big changes occur at the low end with the (discontinued) single-core Mac mini, or at the high end with the quad-core Mac Pro.

Keep in mind, too, that Geekbench 2 only measures processor and memory performance; it doesn’t measure things like graphics performance, which is a hot issue these days considering both the Mac mini and the MacBook ship with integrated graphics.