Primate Labs today released figures regarding performance of the new Mac Pro versus the old eight-core model. The old model is configured with the eight-core Xeon X5365, running at 3GHz, while the newer model features the Xeon W5462 running at 2.8GHz per core. Both machines were tested using Mac OS X 10.5.1, with the new Mac Pro using 2GB of RAM, versus the former that uses 1GB. Primate Labs says that the tests that GeekBench 2 uses to calculate RAM scores relies more on the speed of the memory rather than the quantity, so it was deemed a fair test.

Despite using a slower clock speed, the new Mac Pro trumps the old in all tests except for Floating Point performance, which is also reflected in the Overall score. Using a 1.6GHz G5 as a baseline score, rated at 1000, Primate Labs found that the new model was approximately 8-percent faster than the former with respect to Integer Performance, while the previous Mac Pro excelled at Floating Point calculations, coming in at just over 11-percent faster.

Memory and Stream Performance showed large improvements over the earlier incarnation, earning 24- and 34-percent increases respectively. Overall performance for the new Mac Pro was measured at 7598, versus 7680 for the former – a 1-percent difference between the two.

Primate Labs says that the results were surprising, considering the new machine uses a slightly slower clock speed, but agrees that the upgraded architecture has contributed to these numbers. The review also mentions that the new Mac Pro is a much better value, only performing 1-percent slower (overall) than the last version at a significantly lower cost.