Benchmarks of the MacBook Pro 2011 refresh are coming in, and they are incredibly fast. Maybe incredibly fast is an understatement:

The new top of the line MacBook Pro 2011 is faster than the existing Mac Pro desktop

The new ‘low-end’ base MacBook Pro 2011 13″ model is just as fast as last years top-end MacBook Pro models

Below are some GeekBench scores for the MBP 2011 refresh… to put these numbers in perspective, my MacBook Pro 13″ 2010 with 8GB RAM and a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo scores a 3128 in GeekBench:





These benchmarking tests focus on CPU and memory performance, and show that select new MacBook Pro models are about 3x faster than some of last years models. Notice that these tests do not use the GPU, so we’re still waiting to see real-world benchmarks of how the refreshed MacBook Pro stacks up against their predecessors in things like gaming and rendering.

The tests were found by MacRumors and 9to5Mac. MacRumors quotes PrimateLabs (their site is currently down) with the following:

The performance of the new MacBook Pros is amazing. The slowest MacBook Pro performs on par with the fastest previous-generation MacBook Pro, and the fastest MacBook Pro is 80% faster than the fastest previous-generation MacBook Pro. In fact, if you look at our Mac Benchmark charts, you’ll see that the fastest MacBook Pro is faster than a lot of Mac Pros (including the current generation of Mac Pros). The new MacBook Pros truly are portable workstations.

In other words, all the talk about Intels SandyBridge chips being blazing fast is true.

If you’ve been holding out for a MacBook Pro upgrade for some crazily fast performance, this just may be the update for you. We’ll post more benchmarks as they come in.