Naturally, the higher the number the more operations your Mac can complete. All the contemporary CPUs are so fast that they are measured in gigahertz (GHz), or billions of cycles per second. In general, hertz (Hz) is a measurement of frequency or, as often defined, cycles (of something) per second. It denotes your processor’s generation.Īfter you’ve finally found out the exact specs of your Mac’s CPU, let’s break it down into specific details to be able to conduct a proper processor speed comparison.

Open Terminal from your Utilities folder in Applications.

There’s a special trick you need to know to find it: You might also notice that the generation of your processor is not specified. Now you can see that your MacBook could be running on a dual-core 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, for example.

Make sure to have the Hardware tab open.

Click the Apple logo in the menu bar ➙ About This Mac.

Here’s how to find out your Mac’s processor specs: You might be even wondering, “What processor do I have?” Which processor is in your Mac right now?ĭepending on how old your Mac is, its processor could have a completely different performance compared to what’s available in the Apple Store today. Let’s dive in each of those aspects in more detail and see how they compare to your current MacBook setup. To give you a real-life example, currently you can buy a 16-inch MacBook Pro with 2.4 GHz 8‑core 9th‑generation Intel Core i9 processor and Turbo Boost up to 5.0 GHz.

Hyper-threading allows to handle more independent tasks for the cores you have available.

CPU cache is essentially your processor’s memory.

Turbo Boost gives occasional acceleration to the processing speed.

Intel i5 vs i7 vs i3 vs i9 show the model of the processor itself.

Cores denominate the amount of independent CPU units.

GHz measure the raw processing speed of a single CPU unit.

Here’s a brief overview of all the variable parts that comprise a processor: Moreover, with new technological breakthroughs happening every year, a MacBook Air processor from 2021 is a completely different beast to the one made in 2016. Try free What Are The Different MacBook Pro Processors?Īs mentioned above, processors vary not only between Mac models but also within the same model too.

Apple 2017 mac pro i7 processor type