New Penryn MacPros get benchmarked

Now this is more like it. Earlier this week, we had to settle for the benchmarking figures published by Apple but today, the folks at Primate Labs (developer of the Geekbench benchmarking app) have a series of independently-conducted benchmark tests for us to drool over. Though they only sprang for the eight-core 2.8Ghz model (as opposed to the high-end, 3.2Ghz monster), their series of comparisons to an older, eight-core 3.0Ghz model demonstrates that the overall improvements to the MacPro's architecture offer a significant performance boost. "I'd expected that the new Mac Pro would make a respectable showing, but would still be slightly slower than the old Mac Pro, since the new Mac Pro's processors run at a lower clock frequency," the developer wrote. "So I'm surprised that the new Mac Pro is faster in almost every area (floating point performance being the exception) than the old Mac Pro." Given that the new MacPros are quite a bit cheaper than comparable older models, it sure sounds like they offer a better bang for your buck.

For the full benchmark results:
- see this post on the Primate Labs blog