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BARE FEATS LAB - real world Mac speed tests

SHOOTOUT: 12" Retina MacBook
running Pro Apps and Games

Originally posted April 15th, 2015 by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist

We continue our testing of the 'early 2015' Retina MacBook 12" by seeing how well it can handle some pro apps and games -- compared to two MacBook Pros.

GRAPH LEGEND
L2013 rMBP 15" = 'late 2013' Retina MacBook Pro 15" with 2.6GHz Quad-Core Intel i7-4960HQ processor, 16GB 1600MHz DD3L SDRAM, 512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage, Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200 GPU, NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M GPU (2GB GDDR5 VRAM)
E2015 rMBP 13" = 'early 2015' Retina MacBook Pro 13" with 3.1GHz Dual-Core Intel i7-5557U processor (Turbo Boost to 3.4GHz), 16GB 1866Mhz LPDDR3 SDRAM, 512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage, Intel Iris Graphics 6100 GPU
E2015 rMB 12" = 'early 2015' Retina MacBook 12" with 1.2GHz Dual-Core Intel Core M processor (Turbo Boost to 2.6GHz), 8GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3 onboard memory, 512GB PCIe-based onboard Flash Storage, Intel HD Graphics 5300 GPU

The 15" and 13" MacBook Pros were running OS X Yosemite 10.10.2. The 12" MacBook was running OS X Yosemite 10.10.3.

FCPX Gaussian Blur applied to a 2 min 1080p sample clip (RED graph bar indicates FASTEST in SECONDS)

FCPX Aged Film Effect applied to a 2 min 1080p sample clip (RED graph bar indicates FASTEST in SECONDS)

FCPX Share to iPad 1080p format (RED graph bar indicates FASTEST in SECONDS)

Motion RAM Preview of Atmospheric - Open Template (RED graph bar indicates FASTEST in FRAMES PER SECOND)

Photoshop CC Iris Blur 500px applied to RAW image (RED graph bar indicates FASTEST in SECONDS)

Photoshop CC Noise Reduction with max settings applied to RAW image (RED graph bar indicates FASTEST in SECONDS)

Photoshop CC running digLloyd Medium Actions (RED graph bar indicates FASTEST in SECONDS)

Diablo III with best settings, no Anti-Aliasing (RED graph bar indicates FASTEST in FRAMES PER SECOND)

Batman Arkham City embedded benchmark with high quality settings but no Anti-Aliasing (RED graph bar indicates FASTEST in FRAMES PER SECOND)

GRID 2 embedded benchmark (RED graph bar indicates FASTEST in FRAMES PER SECOND)

Tomb Raider embedded benchmark with HIGH preset (RED graph bar indicates FASTEST in FRAMES PER SECOND)

INSIGHTS
I would not recommend the 12" Retina MacBook for running any Pro Apps or Games featured on this page. For example, only half of the Atmospheric 600 frame HD template could be previewed in the MacBook's 8G of RAM. When launching Tomb Raider, this message popped up: "This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for the game. You may be able to play the game, but are likely to see graphical glitches and/or stability issues."

You really should consider a MacBook Pro or Mac desktop if these apps are your normal regime.

However, the 12" Retina MacBook handles email, browsing the internet, calendaring, writing notes, etc., just fine.

MORE TEST RESULTS

The intial 12" Retina MacBook test page with Geekbench, Cinebench, Sunspider, Handbrake, LuxMark 3, GFXBench 3, Valley, AJA System Test, and QuickBench results.

The test page comparing the 12" Retina MacBook to multiple MacBook Airs.

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copyright 2015 Rob Art Morgan
"BARE facts on Macintosh speed FEATS"
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