Apple has finally updated their base 13-inch MacBook Pro after two long years
and it now packs some pretty incredible value with its quad-core processor and
some added features for the same exact $1300 price tag
now the question a lot of you guys are having is if you can go with the cheaper
$1300 MacBook Pro instead of the more expensive $1,800 model and get
performance that's good enough to do some professional tasks without having
to break the budget now the $1,300 model does come with only
128 gigabytes of nvme storage so if you want to upgrade to 256 gigs that brings
the price up to $1,500 now only 300 dollars cheaper than the higher-end
model so the question is how much more performance do you get for the extra
$300 and is it worth it and of course if you're totally ok with a 128 gig SSD
then that's a $500 savings by going with the new low-end model now before we get
into performance let's quickly discuss what's similar and what's different
between these two MacBook Pros they both have the new 4 generation butterfly
keyboard with the new keyboard switch materials which should be more reliable
they both have the same design the same trackpad in the same bright and color
accurate display with true tone technology and they both get the same
touch bar with touch ID in Apple's t2 chip which takes care of a bunch of
system controllers and helps with editing HEV see video footage and here's
the biggest difference the $1,800 model comes with two extra Thunderbolt 3 ports
which may be a huge deal for some but others might not mind since USB C hubs
are so easy to find on Amazon we also took the lids off the MacBooks and saw a
few differences the $1,300 model has only one fan so it may not perform as
well thermally the batteries also look quite a bit different and the speakers
look way different with some large down firing woofers being visible on the
$1,800 model so let's do a quick speaker test and see if we can hear any
differences [Music]
[Applause] [Music]
[Music] let us know if you notice any
differences down in the comments below other than that there's not much
different other than the processors and looking at Intel specs page for each CPU
they're basically the same exact processor except for two small changes
slower CPU clock speed and slower max clock speed on the integrated graphics
now before we get into a performance tests and benchmarks let's talk about
our sponsor Squarespace it's never been so easy to create your own website
there's a huge variety of templates to choose from and it's so easy that I
personally created this business site in no time just click to add basically
anything from image galleries to buttons and e-commerce products and then you can
easily arrange them so make it with Squarespace
check out Squarespace comm for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go
to squarespace.com slash Mac stack to save 10% off your first purchase of a
website or domain back to performance let's start with Geekbench fours multi
core tests as you can see we're getting around a 5% higher score on the eighteen
hundred dollar model which honestly isn't much at all and we're seeing an
even smaller difference in Geekbench fours OpenCL graphics tests only 4%
faster on the more expensive model now let's do a more realistic test Cinebench
are twenty which runs long enough to let the thermal stabilized so we can get a
good idea of the thermal performance shortly after starting the test the
$1300 Pro reached a peak of three point seven two gigahertz turbo boost while
the $1,800 pro reached four point zero one gigahertz which is closer to its
rate at turbo boost clock speed interestingly the fans started to spin
up about thirty seconds sooner on the eighteen hundred dollar model and they
ended up being louder than the single fan on the base model in near the end of
the test the temps on the base model were only two degrees higher so it's
doing a great job of staying cool and the most impressive part is that even
though the 1.4 gigahertz processor has a TDP of 15 watts it was actually running
at an average of 29 watts during the test and even crazier it stabilized at
around 3.0 to 3.1 gigahertz clock speed much higher than the 1.4
Hertz it's advertised as now the $1,800 model ran at an average of 32 watts only
three watts higher than the base model and the clock speeds stabilized at
around 3.3 to 3.4 gigahertz only around 300 megahertz higher than the $1300
model so the one gigahertz difference you see on Apple's website is completely
false realistically there's only a 300 megahertz difference under load and here
are the final scores in Santa Bench r20 the $1,800 model scored only 8% higher
than the base moving on we ran unige in heaven a realistic gaming benchmark into
our surprise they both got the same exact score and now let's run some more
realistic tests like video editing in Final Cut Pro starting with the Bruce
axe benchmark the $1300 Pro finished 5 seconds faster than the $1,800 Pro which
doesn't really make sense so let's move on to our 4k stabilization tests here
the higher-end model was only around 5% faster consistent with the difference
and graphics performance and now let's move on to editing common 4k footage
that most youtubers will be editing surprisingly there was an even smaller
difference here with the $1,800 Pro being only 2% faster in timeline
smoothness being perfect on both machines and here's where the t2 chip
comes in exporting a chibi see footage this time the higher-end model is around
9% faster which isn't that much and now getting into some heavy-duty tests we
exported our for by 4k project and saw basically the same difference 8% faster
this time and for timeline smoothness it was
basically the same at around 12 to 13 frames per second and now onto c200 bra
which is a very tough codec the $1,800.00 pro was only around 6% faster
and timeline smoothness was identical at 9 frames per second and finally
exporting 4.5 K read raw footage the $1,800 model was around 8 percent faster
consistent with our other results now let's get into photo editing with a
couple of tests using Lightroom classic importing 50 raw photos was just a bit
faster on the higher spec model and converting them to smart previews was
again just slightly faster and exporting the photos to JPEG once
again just a little bit faster around 8% so assuming that both of these models
are equipped with 256 gig SSDs we're getting around five to nine percent
faster performance for 20% more cash for the $1,800 MacBook Pro now if you're
okay with the 128 gig SSD that's 39 percent more cash for up to nine percent
performance that definitely does not sound worth it and yes you're getting an
extra fan on the eighteen hundred dollar model but all these tests factor in
thermal performance so the single fan isn't really bringing the system down so
as you guys can see the base model is really underrated and it's performing
much better than the spec sheet shows of course the eighteen hundred dollar model
is faster but is the small five to eight percent difference worth the extra three
hundred dollars honestly we don't think so
however we tested the SSD speeds and saw that the eighteen hundred dollar models
SSD is actually quite a bit faster and even if you do upgrade from 128 to 256
gigs the speed for some reason is still slower than the $1,800 models 256 gig
SSD so you've got to decide is around five to nine percent faster performance
to extra Thunderbolt three ports and faster SSD speeds worth the extra cash
to be honest we still don't think it's worth it most people will be really
happy with the $1,300 model and maybe an SSD upgrade but what if this much
performance isn't enough well if you're a video editor you should check out our
recent a GPU video where we got a massive boost in performance but if
you're a photo editor and each of you won't do anything for you but you can
upper get to 16 gigs of ram because that'll actually give you a really good
boost in performance and if this still isn't enough performance for your liking
we recommend skipping the $1,800 model altogether and going for the $2,400
15-inch MacBook Pro because it packs a more powerful 6 core processor a
dedicated graphics card and double the RAM we hope you enjoyed this comparison
and if you want to see more in-depth testing like compiling code and larger
photo editing jobs make sure to click the circle above to subscribe for a full
review of the new 13-inch MacBook Pro and if you enjoyed this video tap that
like button and check out that a GPU video right there thanks for watching
and we'll see you in the next one [Music]