Apple just sprung a secret upgrade on the world in the form of MacBook Pro notebooks with Core 2 Duo processors. The two notebooks affected are the 15- and 17-inch models and offer up to 39 percent boost in performance, all told.

Every MacBook Pro features the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB of shared L2 cache, which is up to 39 percent faster than the previous 2.16 GHz MacBook Pro and more than seven times faster than the 1.67 GHz PowerBook G4 running industry standard benchmarks. Apple has enhanced Mac OS® X to take advantage of the technology advances from Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors, resulting in increased performance in professional applications like Aperture(TM) 1.5, Final Cut Pro® 5 and Logic Pro 7.

It’s very interesting the way Apple is pumping out these upgrades with little fanfare. At this rate the MacBook Pro will run at five billion gigaflops per second by 2008.

Apple MacBook Pro Notebooks Now With Intel Core 2 Duo Processors [PR Newswire]