New model appears to sport 8GB RAM

Adding to prior evidence that a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro is in the offing, a new model of the high-resolution MacBook has shown up in another set of online benchmarks. As Mac Rumors details, the new model bears many of the same specs as the model spotted earlier this year, but with a few key differences. Apple has been thought to have a 13-inch version of its MacBook line of notebooks in the works for some time, and the computers are expected to ship later this year.

The new sighting comes from Geekbench, and it provides details on a supposed "MacBookPro10,2." The 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro shows up as "MacBookPro10,1" in benchmarks, so the identifier, at least, appears to be in keeping with the machine identifier format. Geekbench's tests saw the machine running a 2.9GHz Core i7-3520M processor, which matches the processor seen in the current high-end MacBook Pro. It runs Mac OS X 10.8.1, an as-yet-unreleased build of Mountain Lion that Apple is said to be preparing to seed to developers.

The machine achieved an overall Geekbench score of 7,756. When the 13-inch model was previously spotted, it scored slightly higher at 7,806. Top-of-the-line non-Retina MacBook Pros have been known to score higher, but the marks represent an improvement over the 6,000-level score of most previous 2011 models.

Apple has been expected to release a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro model for quite some time. The 15-inch model saw incredible demand upon its release, and only recently has Apple been able to meet that demand.

by MacNN Staff