New benchmark tests show that Intel's new Iris integrated graphics chip can push pixels for Apple's latest laptops between 40 and 60 percent faster than its predecessor.

Cinebench r15's OpenGL benchmark clocked frame rates 45 to 50 percent higher than the previous MacBook Pro generation, while Unigen's Heaven benchmark notched a 65 percent improvement on Apple's latest hardware, reports Macworld. The publication compared results from a 13-inch 2.6-gigahertz Haswell-equipped Retina MacBook Pro against those from an early 2013 vintage 2.6-gigahertz Ivy Bridge edition.

CPU performance also increased, gaining eight percent in Wolfram Research's MathematicaMark 9 test, while Cinebench's CPU exam edged up by five percent.

Surprisingly, the Haswell-based notebooks did not exclusively show what were expected to be significant gains from their new PCIe-based flash storage. Though intra-disk file copy operations were 33 percent faster on the newest high-end model's 256-gigabyte drive, the 128-gigabyte version came in level with its Ivy Bridge sibling.

Additional storage tests using a disk benchmarking tool from Blackmagic returned mixed results.

Early benchmark results from popular test suite Geekbench, which does not include GPU performance in its scoring system, matched the results from Macworld's testing. Most models showed modest two to four percent gains on CPU and memory tests, with high end models notching up to eight percent improvements.

The new Haswell-based Retina MacBook Pros bring more than just performance increases to the market. Combined with the latest rendition of Apple's desktop operating system, OS X Mavericks, the updated models boast battery life of up to nine hours, an improvement of two hours over their previous maximum.