Apple announces the first 8-core MacBook Pro

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Apple has announced its new MacBook Pro with Touchbar for professional users today. While this is more or less the same as the same MacBook Pro that debuted a while ago, this new iteration comes with a powerful 8-core processor, powered by Intel’s 8th and 9th generation chips.

The firm says that these new MacBooks will improve performance by 50% when compared to a baseline quadcore MacBook pro and 40% as much performance as a hexacore one.

“Whether it’s college students mastering a course of study, developers building world-class apps or video editors creating feature films, we’re constantly amazed at what our customers do with their MacBook Pro,” said Tom Boger, Apple’s senior director of Mac Product Marketing. “Now with 8-core processors for an incredible performance boost, along with its stunning Retina display, fast storage, all-day battery life and running macOS, MacBook Pro continues to be the world’s best pro notebook and we can’t wait to get it into our customer’s hands to see what they do next.”

The new MacBook Pro also comes with a new butterfly keyboard mechanism that is intended to counter the failure rates MacBook keyboards have been experiencing recently. Whether it actually does it yet to be seen, but that is Apple’s intention at this time.

Practically speaking, Apple offers illustrations of just how much this improved power will benefit users in their day to day life:

  • Music producers can play back massive multi-track projects with up to two times more Alchemy plug-ins in Logic Pro X.
  • 3D designers can render scenes up to two times faster in Maya Arnold.
  • Photographers can apply complex edits and filters up to 75 percent faster in Photoshop.
  • Developers can compile code up to 65 percent faster in Xcode.
  • Scientists and researchers can compute complex fluid dynamics simulations up to 50 percent faster in TetrUSS.
  • Video editors can edit up to 11 simultaneous multicam streams of 4K video in Final Cut Pro X

The new MacBook Pro starts at $1,799 and $2,399 for the 13 and 15-inch variants respectively and are available right now from Apple’s online website.

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