Benchmark Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Primate Labs benchmarks new Retina MacBook Pro models

by Steven Sande (Feb 22nd, 2013)

Apple bumped the processors in the Retina MacBook Pro line last week, pushing the 15-inch model to the 2.4, 2.7 or 2.8 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 and the 13-inch to 2.5, 2.6, 2.9 or 3.0 GHz dual-core processors. As usual, Primate Labs grabbed a handy copy of their "flagship product" -- ...

Primate Labs posts new iMac benchmarks

by Steven Sande (Nov 30th, 2012)

The company that provides the amazing Geekbench benchmarking software, Primate Labs, has run its tests on the new 21.5-inch iMac and found that it's a pretty impressive piece of hardware. Primate Labs tested all of the configurations of the new iMac, but it's the top-of-the-line unit sporting ...

Macworld benchmarks Fusion Drive Mac mini

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Nov 14th, 2012)

Macworld has benchmarked a BTO Mac mini with a 1 TB Fusion drive, 2.6GHz quad-core Core i7 processor and 16 GB of RAM. The extra RAM cost them a whopping $300. (Why has Apple RAM always been so expensive? Does it contain unicorn tears?) The benchmarks are thorough, but I think this sums up ...

Ars reviews the new iPad: "power to spare"

by Steven Sande (Nov 6th, 2012)

While there has been plenty of press about the iPad mini, not many blogs seems to be paying attention to the faster, full-sized fourth-generation iPad that was announced at the same time. Chris Foresman at Ars Technica took on the challenge of running the new iPad through its paces, and found ...

iPod touch "significantly" less powerful than iPhone 5

by Kelly Hodgkins (Oct 15th, 2012)

Geekbench has some early benchmarks from the iPhone 5 and Apple's latest iPod touch. Though it's a nice improvement over previous models, the fifth-generation iPod touch didn't fare so well when compared to other Apple handhelds. The new iPod touch scored a 619, which places it right below ...

New iPad benchmark finds 1 GB RAM

by Kelly Hodgkins (Mar 13th, 2012)

Earlier today, Vietnamese blog Tinhte.vn released unboxing pictures and a video that supposedly showcases the new iPad. They also did some benchmark tests that suggest the iPad will ship with 1 GB of RAM. Recent reports from The Verge and iOS hacker Chronic claim the iPad had 1 GB of RAM, but ...

Geekbench scores benchmark iPhone 4S A5 at 800MHz

by Kelly Hodgkins (Oct 11th, 2011)

Here is some good news and bad news for prospective iPhone 4S owners. The bad news is that the iPhone 4S has a dual-core 1GHz CPU, but its clocked to 800 Mhz. The good news is that, even with slower clock speeds, the 4S still beats the pants off the iPhone 4 and other Android ...

Video reportedly shows Siri in action, settings, and benchmarks

by Steven Sande (Oct 10th, 2011)

Just as the sun always rises in the morning, every time a new iPhone is about to come out, somebody gets one just before the official launch and ruins the fun for the rest of us. In this case, a video from AppVV.com appears to show an iPhone 4S running some benchmarks and also demonstrates how to ...

Iomega Mac Companion: Your iMac's soulmate

by Steven Sande (Oct 7th, 2011)

A few weeks ago I wrote a review of the Iomega eGo Helium Portable Hard Drive. That review was very favorable -- the drive was relatively fast, very solidly built, and is designed to match the aluminum cases of Apple's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lines. The company has also released the Iomega ...

Macworld benchmarks i5 MacBook Airs

by Steven Sande (Jul 27th, 2011)

After one week on the market, the first good benchmarks of the new MacBook Air models are beginning to show up. Macworld ran benchmarks of the i5-based 11.6" and 13" MBAs and found them to be quite fast in everyday operations. The Macworld lab is in the process of fine-tuning their SpeedMark ...

Western Digital's 3 TB MyBook Studio perfect for pre-Lion backups

by Steven Sande (Jul 16th, 2011)

Are you about to upgrade your Mac to OS X Lion? One recommendation from the TUAW staff is that you do a complete backup of your Snow Leopard installation before you start. With many Mac internal drives nearing the 1 to 2 TB range in size, how do you back up the drive and still have a hard disk ...

Mac OS X 10.6.8 benchmark reveals graphic speed improvement

by Steven Sande (Jun 24th, 2011)

Sure, the (hopefully) last version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was released yesterday. Yes, it addressed a laundry list of improvements to both networking and Mac OS X Lion readiness. But did you know that installing Mac OS X 10.6.8 might also improve graphic performance on your Mac? Bill ...

Macworld experiences mixed results with MacBook Air SSD upgrades

by Steven Sande (May 24th, 2011)

Computers are like cars: while the vast majority of owners are happy to drive around in their car for years, exactly the way they came off of the dealer's lot, some people want to customize their wheels immediately. It's not surprising that for some owners of Apple's popular MacBook Air, the first ...

New iMacs 25 percent faster than previous generation

by Michael Grothaus (May 7th, 2011)

A few days ago, we reported on Macworld's benchmark results for the new Sandy Bridge-equipped iMacs. Macworld found them to be, on average, about 16 percent faster in the Speedmark 6.5 test than the previous generation. Now Primate Labs has put together a report detailing the iMac's speed ...

Macworld publishes first round of benchmark results for new iMac

by Dana Franklin (May 4th, 2011)

Macworld posted the results of its first benchmark tests for the newly updated family of iMacs this morning. The publication's tests found Apple's latest iMacs to be generally faster than previous iMacs, although certain build-to-order (BTO) models from 2010 still outperformed the new family of ...