Intel Coffee Lake-bearing Apple MacBook Pros spotted on Geekbench

Is Apple finally preparing to update its ageing range of laptops?

Benchmarks spotted on the Geekbench website - uploaded on Monday - indicate that Apple is planning an imminent update to its MacBook Pro line-up of laptops.

The benchmarks on Geekbench 4.2.3 were spotted by Neowin and indicate an Apple MacBook Pro 15,2 bearing 16GB of 2133 MHz LPDDR3 memory and running an Intel Core i7-8559U. The device achieved a respectable score of 4,448 on single-core and 16,607 on multi-core.

Assuming that it is genuine, the benchmarks provide an indication that Apple is planning a MacBook Pro reveal at its next big launch, expected in September.

The Core i7-8559U was only released in the second quarter. The 14nm part offers four cores and eight threads running at a base frequency of 2.7GHz and a ‘turbo' of 4.5GHz. It has an 8MB cache and a TDP of 28 watts, compared to the 15 watt parts in the current MacBook range. It also supports 4K displays at 60Hz.

Currently, the only Apple laptop offering more than a measly two cores - measly, that is, considering the prices - is the 15-inch model, which starts at £2,249.

It could also be one of the last big Apple laptop launches featuring 'Intel Inside', if rumours that Apple is gearing up for a shift to in-house designed ARM CPUs prove correct.

The MacBook Pros - currently rated a ‘Don't buy' by MacRumours - are Apple's 13-inch and 15-inch top-of-the-range laptops. However, they were last refreshed a year ago, bearing the disappointing two-core Intel Kaby Lake CPUs and coming with a Touch Bar powered by an ARM co-processor.

The MacBook Pros currently start at £1,249 for the 13-inch device offering an absurdly small 128GB SSD for storage and 8GB of LPDDR3 Ram, with graphics powered by Intel's Iris integrated graphics.