The new MacBook Pros also garnered high scores in .

As those Xbench scores -- and real-life use -- demonstrate, the type and speed of the storage in your computer makes a big difference in how fast it is and how quickly you can complete the task at hand. CPUs and graphics chips are only part of the equation.

The default drive in all of the MacBook Pro models is a 5,400rpm hard drive. The advantage? Lots of room. As noted earlier, this laptop has three-quarters of a terabyte of space, room for a lot of digital videos, tunes, files and projects. But if speed is more your thing, I'd recommend opting for the faster 7,200rpm drive available for the 15-in. and 17-in. models.

You can still get a reasonable amount of storage -- 500GB -- and you'll notice the difference in daily use. And if you can afford to give up even more storage space for speed, you'll be blown away by how fast an SSD will make your laptop.