Apple’s new MacBook Neo was designed as an entry-level Mac, but early benchmark results suggest it could be more powerful than many expected. The Apple A18 Pro chip-powered laptop has surprisingly managed to beat the older generation MacBook Air and even rival certain models in synthetic performance.
MacBook Neo surprises in the first benchmarks
The first Geekbench results for the MacBook Neo have appeared online, giving us our first look at the performance of Apple’s new budget-friendly Mac. According to the benchmark list, the notebook achieved 3,461 points in the single-core and 8,668 points in the multi-core test. It also achieved a Metal score of 31,286 points in the graphics benchmarks.
This is achieved with the A18 Pro chip, which also powers the older iPhone 16 Pros. While the MacBook Neo version of the chip uses a 6-core CPU configuration, it has one fewer GPU core than the iPhone version. Interestingly, these early numbers show that the Neo’s single-core and multi-core performance is better than that of the original M1 MacBook Air, which marked Apple’s transition to its proprietary silicon in 2020. While beating a 6-year-old laptop isn’t breaking news, this is a smartphone chip that outperforms a laptop processor.
For comparison, the M1 MacBook Air scored 2,346 points in single-core and 8,342 points in multi-score, with a metal score of 33,148. So while the M1 is still ahead in the graphics test, there is a big jump, especially in single-core performance. Even compared to the M3 iPad Air, the MacBook Neo performs better in single-core tests. However, the M3 is still ahead in the multicore and metal scores.
Note that these are early benchmark results and actual performance may vary depending on workload, thermals and software optimization. Still, the numbers suggest that the MacBook Neo could deliver surprisingly powerful performance for everyday tasks.
