Apple Upgraded MacBooks with New Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs

Following suit after upgrading Mac Pros, iMacs and MacBook Pros with Intel's latest Core 2 Duo CPUs, Apple released upgraded MacBooks with the Core 2 Duo CPUs running at 1.83GHz and 2.0GHz. Apple claims that MacBooks with the latest CPUs out-perform the original MacBooks with Intel Core Duo CPUs by up to 25 percent even though the clock speed is identical. The Core 2 Duo CPUs have twice the cache at 4MB, better vector math capability and can process 64-bit instructions rather than just 32-bit.

The price points and color remain identical at $1099 for the low-end 1.83GHz white MacBook, $1299 for the high-end 2GHz white MacBook and $1499 for the high-end 2GHz black MacBook. Only this time the black color of the high-end MacBook is only $50 extra rather than $150 extra of the previous MacBook models, a more reasonable premium, with a 120GB hard drive vs the 80GB drive in the high-end white model. The included hard drives are larger than in the previous MacBook models and the options go up to the latest 200GB 4200rpm drive.

The high-end MacBooks get upgraded with the same 6x double-layer SuperDrive as the latest MacBook Pros released two weeks ago.

Everything else is the same, including the Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics system. [Bill Fox]