MacBook Pros get new processors, pricing

Jake Widman
Wednesday, 14 April 2010 05:23

Business IT - Technology

Apple has given its MacBook Pro notebooks faster CPUs and graphics chips, while lowering the price of the highest-end models.

The smallest MacBook Pros, the 13-inch models, still come with Core 2 Duo chips, but they get slight speed boosts, from 2.26 to 2.4 GHz for the entry-level model and from 2.53 to 2.66 GHz for its sibling.

More significantly, both models now include 4 GB of RAM, and they have bigger hard disks as well -- 250 GB and 320 GB, respectively. The prices are unchanged -- US$1,199/AU$1,499 and US$1,499/AU$1,899.

The 15-inch MacBook Pros now come with Core i5 chips running at 2.4 or 2.53 GHz or a Core i7 chip running at 2.66 GHz; and the 17-inch model gets a Core i5 chip running at 2.53 GHz.

According to Apple, these new processors make the MacBook Pros up to 50 percent faster than the previous generation.

Furthermore, they support Hyper-Threading, which lets the operating system use four virtual cores rather than just the two physical cores; and Turbo Boost, which can increase the speed of the processor when needed by a demanding application. Turbo Boost can make the 2.66 GHz chip run at 3.33 GHz, according to Apple.

For more on the new specs and pricing, see Page 2.