Apple MacBook Pros Now Go Up to 8 Cores, Claims Fastest Mac Notebook Ever

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Apple today updated its 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pros with faster Intel Core processors, which the company says make the devices the fastest Mac notebooks ever. They're available today, starting at $1,799 for the 13-inch and $2,399 for the 15-incher.

Both will also come with an update to Apple's butterfly keyboard, which should prevent issues with letters being pressed multiple times, or not at all. You can read more about that here.

The 15-inch MacBook starts with a 2.6 GHz (turbo boost to 4.5GHz) six-core 9th-Gen Core i7 CPU, a Radeon Pro 555X with 4GB of GDDR5 memory and a 256GB SSD. A $2,799 model boosts the processor to a 2.3 GHz eight-core Core i9 (Turbo Boost to 4.8 GHz), Radeon Pro 560X with 4GB GDDR5, 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. Both have four Thunderbolt 3 ports and a Touch Bar with Touch ID.

As for the 13-inch version, the updates aren't as dramatic. The base Touch Bar model has a 2.4 GHz quad-core 8th Gen Core i5 (boosts to 4.1 GHz), has Intel Iris Plus 655 graphics, 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD. A $1,999 device has a bigger, 512GB SSD. It appears that the non-Touch Bar models remain unchanged. Those models still have dual-core 7th-Gen processors.

Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and Mastodon @FreedmanAE.mastodon.social.

  • Rdslw
    That 8 core is just as fast as 2018 one was without Meltdown. So its not "fastest" it's recovered.
    Reply
  • Wimpers
    Over here the prices are ridiculous, and people keep paying them, WTF?
    € 480 for 16 GB RAM extra!!! And the same amount per 512 GB SSD storage extra!!! So 4TB is € 3.500 extra.
    32 GB with identical specs for a laptop costs between € 160 and 250...
    Reply
  • littleleo
    Is that before or after you have to turn off HT?
    Reply
  • hftvhftv
    Wimpers said:
    Over here the prices are ridiculous, and people keep paying them, WTF?
    € 480 for 16 GB RAM extra!!! And the same amount per 512 GB SSD storage extra!!! So 4TB is € 3.500 extra.
    32 GB with identical specs for a laptop costs between € 160 and 250...
    Have you had a look at Razer laptops lately?
    Reply