Apple Inc. today pulled back the curtains on new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pros that offer vastly more horsepower than their predecessors, along with an array of other enhancements.

It’s the 13-inch model, the more affordable of the two, that has received the biggest boost. Apple claims that the machine can provide as much as twice the performance of last year’s model. The new 15-inch MacBook Pro is touted as up to 70 percent faster than the previous iteration.

Most of the performance gains come from the eighth-generation Intel Corp. chips that Apple has included under the hood. Depending on the configuration, the 15-inch MacBook Pro packs a six-core i7 or i9 central processing unit with a base clock speed of 2.9 gigahertz. The CPU is paired with a standalone AMD Radeon Pro 555X graphics card.

The 13-inch model, in turn, offers a choice between quad-core i5 or i7 chips that run at 2.7GHz. Instead of a standalone graphics card, the laptop features a more economic Intel Iris 655 integrated graphics processor. There’s 32 gigabytes of memory and 2 terabytes of flash storage to go along, while the 15-inch version offers twice that in the most expensive configuration.

To make up for the new components’ increased energy requirements, Apple has equipped the laptops with bigger batteries. The expanded power capacity is one of several shared enhancements included in the new MacBook Pros.

Another is the inclusion True Tone displays, which automatically adjust their illumination based on the lighting in a room to reduce eye strain for users. They’re joined by an upgraded “third-generation” keyboard that Apple described as quieter than the one in earlier MacBook Pros.

A less noticeable but likewise significant addition is Apple’s homegrown T2 chip. The company originally developed the processor for the iMac Pro to handle disk encryption, camera management other system-level operations. For MacBook Pro users, it adds the ability to invoke Siri with a voice command just like on iOS devices.  

Both machines are available for order today. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,799, while the 15-inch model starts at $2,399, the same as their predecessors.

Apple launched the new models along with two accessories. The first is a leather laptop sleeve that comes in three colors, while the other is a so-called eGPU system it has developed in partnership with Australian firm Blackmagic Design Inc. The $699 system includes a 8GB Radeon Pro 580 graphics card that users can connect to their machines to speed up tasks such as video editing.

Image: Apple