The short version.The MacBook Pro 14-inch 2023 is the fastest laptop we've tested in our various benchmarks. Yes, the built-in M2 Pro chip is that powerful. And with the optional (but rather expensive) M2 Max chip, graphics performance is even better.

We just tested the MacBook Pro M2 Max chip for our review of the MacBook Pro 14-inch 2023, and thanks to our sister site Laptop Mag, we have access to the M2 Pro benchmark. Here are the two configurations we tested and the full results in Geekbench, photo editing, video editing, 3DMark, etc.

The MacBook Pro 14-inch starts at $1,999 / £2,149 / AU$3,199 and features a 10-core M2 Pro CPU, 16-core GPU, 16GB of unified memory and 512GB of SSD storage.

The M2 Max model we tested takes everything to the extreme: the $4,099/£4,349/ A$6,499 configuration has a 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, 64GB of memory, and 2TB of storage.

Thanks to our sister site Laptop Mag (opens in new tab), we also have test results for the M2 Pro version, which comes with a 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 32GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage for $3,299.

Results for the entry-level M2 Pro version of the MacBook Pro will be reported as soon as a MacBook Pro is available for testing.

For comparison, we tested a Dell XPS 15 with a 12th generation Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics for $2,299. We also tested an HP EliteBook 840 G9 business laptop with a 12th generation Core i7 VPro CPU, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and Intel Iris X graphics for $2,868.

Note that Intel 13th generation laptops offer faster performance, but they are not yet available for testing.

In Geekbench 5, which measures CPU performance, the MacBook Pro 14-inch M2 Pro version recorded a single-core score of 1,941, and the M2 Max version did the same at 1,926. In the multi-core test, both models cleared 14,900.

Overall, the MacBook Pro 14-inch improved single-core performance by about 9% and multi-core performance by about 17% over the previous M1 Pro. 2022 MacBook Pro 13-inch with M2 scored 1,899 and 8,911, falling far behind in multi-core speeds, lagging far behind.

The Dell XPS 15 and HP EliteBook 840 G9 fell below 1,800 on single-core and 12,000 on multi-core. To be fair, the Core i9 version of the XPS 15 should be faster, but was not available for testing.

For this test, we used the Handbrake app to transcode 6.5 GB of 4K video to 1080p; the new MacBook Pro 2023 with M2 Pro took only 4 minutes and 3 seconds to complete this task. Oddly enough, the M2 Max version was a bit slower at 4 minutes 6 seconds. [The Dell XPS 15 was over a minute and a half slower at 5 minutes and 42 seconds, and the HP EliteBook was nearly three minutes slower at 6 minutes and 58 seconds.

The new MacBook Pro M2 was about 18% faster, as the MacBook Pro M1 Pro took 4 minutes 51 seconds to complete the same task.

PugetBench's PhotoShop test assigns scores based on how effective the system was at using scripts to apply a series of filters and other adjustments to a large number of high-resolution photos. The test also measures the time taken by each system.

The MacBook Pro 14-icnch 2023 scored 988 with the M2 Pro chip and took 4 minutes and 20 seconds to complete the test; the M2 Max version scored 1,199 and was even faster at 3 minutes and 57 seconds The M1 Pro MacBook Pro scored a much lower 806 The M1 Pro MacBook Pro had a much lower score of 806.

The Dell XPS 15 (962, 5:42) and HP EliteBook 840 G9 (929, 5:16) were much slower, though not by much in overall score.

The PugetBench Premiere Pro test takes a 4K clip, applies the Lumetri Color effect, and adds 12 clips across four tracks in a multi-camera sequence.

The MacBook Pro 14-inch M2 Pro scored 942, beating out the Dell XPS 15 (616) and HP EliteBook 840 G9 (378); the M2 Max model scored an even higher 1,009.

Unfortunately, the MacBook Pro M1 Pro could not perform when this test was conducted in 2021, but the MacBook Pro 13-inch M2 scored 552. This means that the M2 Pro MacBook Pro is 52% faster than the 13-inch model.

The Blackmagic Disk Speed Test measures SSD performance by measuring both read and write speeds in MBps. and the M2 Max version was slightly faster at 5,319/6,402 Mbps.

Windows competitors again lagged far behind. Note that the M2 MacBook Pro 13-inch was about half the speed of the new MacBook Pro 14-inch; the M1 Pro MacBook Pro's read speed was similar to the M2 Pro version, but the new MacBook had faster write speeds.

We look forward to testing the entry-level MacBook Pro 14-inch M2 Pro to see if the SSD is as fast as Apple's more expensive configuration.

3DMark Wild Life Unlimited measures graphics performance and displays overall scores and frame rates (fps); it is not available for Windows, so we are comparing Macs only.

The MacBook Pro 14-inch M2 Pro scored 47,844 and had a frame rate of 287 per second. However, the M2 Max chip nearly doubled these results, recording 89,902 and 538 fps. In the more demanding Extreme test, the M2 Max model was nearly 9,000 points and 50 fps higher.

The MacBook Pro M1 Pro scored 38,406 points and 230 fps, which means the M2 Pro took a huge leap of about 20%.

**Resolution 1920 x 1080 **Resolution 3,456 x 2,160

To see how well the MacBook Pro 14" 2023 could handle mainstream games, we ran an older title, Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark was run; the MacBook Pro with M2 Pro recorded 48.6 fps at 1920 x 1200 resolution, compared to 39.3 fps for the 2021 model with M1 Pro.

The M2 Max version with a 38-core GPU recorded a much higher 73 fps at 1920 x 1200 pixels and 34 fps at a higher resolution of 3024 x 1964 The M2 Pro model only achieved 20.9 fps at this resolution, making it very unplayable The M2 Pro model only produced 20.9 fps at this resolution, making it very unplayable!

The Dell XPS 15 with an Nvidia GeForce 3050 Ti GPU recorded a fairly smooth 38.4 fps at 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, but only 11 fps at 3,456 x 2,160 pixels.

The MacBook Pro with M2 Pro largely lives up to Apple's hype with its new silicon; it is not dramatically faster than the M1 Pro, but it is noticeably faster in multiple benchmarks. Photo editing performance and video transcoding speeds are much improved, and the M2 Max chip has a much beefed-up GPU. That should be the case with the 38-core GPU we tested.

One thing is certain: Windows laptops have some catching up to do.