A new leaked benchmark points to the fact that Apple likely has a MacBook Pro 2018 in the pipeline, which is driven by an Intel Coffee Lake processor, backing up previous speculation that this is the case.
Like the leak from a month ago, this is a spilled benchmark from Geekbench, and so we have to take it with a generous pinch of salt – faking these sort of things is hardly beyond the realms of possibility.
But assuming it’s on the money, the benchmark shows scores for a ‘MacBookPro15,2’ laptop, which as Cult of Mac reports, would seemingly be a refresh of the MacBook Pro 13-inch (given that the current-gen model is ‘MacBookPro14,2’).
The CPU powering the notebook is the Core i7-8559U, which is a quad-core part that runs at 2.7GHz, and is capable of a beefy turbo to 4.5GHz. That’s quite different to the processor cited in the previous leak, which was the Core i7-8750H – that has six cores, but is clocked slower (2.2GHz with boost to 4.1GHz).
The i7-8559U boasts integrated Iris Plus Graphics 655 and has a TDP of 28W.
Multi-core monster
So how did this alleged revamped MacBook Pro 2018 perform in the benchmarks with the i7-8559U under the bonnet? The machine achieved 4,448 in the single-core test, and 16,607 in the multi-core benchmark.
That multi-core result is a big jump compared to last year’s MacBook Pro 13-inch, and indeed roughly speaking, it’s over 40% faster.
Incidentally, the previous leak of the six-core processor indicated a multi-core result of 22,316. The six-core could be the CPU powering the MacBook Pro 15-inch, then, with the quad-core i7-8559U destined for the 13-inch model.
But it’s all guesswork at this point, and indeed these rumors could simply be noise which eventually come to nothing. But if they are on the money, we’re looking at some considerably more powerful MacBook Pro machines which should be launching later this year.
We’ve speculated that the launch could come in September, and at least according to the latest rumor via Bloomberg, we’re expecting not just a refreshed MacBook Pro later in 2018, but a 12-inch MacBook packing new Intel silicon, plus a budget MacBook Air to tempt folks at the lower end of the market.
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