Despite having only been released last week, the 2016 version of Apple's 12-inch Retina MacBook is already proving to be one of the more powerful laptops available in the market.
Initial Geekbench benchmark scores show that the Skylake-powered MacBook is significantly faster compared to its counterparts from last year. Depending on the user's preferred configuration, the new 12-inch Retina MacBook could run between 5 percent and 18 percent faster than the 2015 version.
According to the results, a MacBook equipped with Intel's 1.1GHz Skylake processor can provide a CPU performance of about 5 percent to 10 percent better than that of the earlier Broadwell-powered MacBook. The Skylake configuration resulted in a 2,534 single-core score and a 5,025 multi-core score on Geekbench.
Investing on a pricier MacBook with a 1.2GHz Skylake Core m5 configuration can give you an even better CPU performance, recording a Geekbench single-core score of 2,894 and a multi-core score of 5,845. This is a 15 percent to 18 percent faster performance compared to the 2015 MacBook model sporting the same specifications.
If you're still not convinced, you can opt for a 1.3GHz Intel Core m7-powered MacBook. This configuration produced a single-core benchmark score of 3,023 and a multi-core score of 6,430, making it 9 percent to 17 percent faster compared to the 1.3GHz Broadwell-powered MacBook from last year.
This may be a more costly build, netting somewhere between $1,549 and $1,749 depending on your preferred storage options, but it could prove to be a reasonable investment especially if processing speed is a particular concern for you.
The 2016 12-inch Retina MacBook is available in different colors. You can choose from the sleek Gold, Silver and Space Gray variants or opt for the new Rose Gold model.
As far as storage options go, this new MacBook comes in 256 GB and 512 GB editions. The 256 GB version fitted with a 1.1GHz dual-core Skylake processor costs $1,299 while the 512 GB comes with a faster 1.2GHz processor costs $1,599. You can also choose to upgrade the MacBook's processor to a 1.3GHz one.
