Check the Specs. When you compare MacBench 4.0 scores for two systems, dig beneath the surface. Make sure you understand all the factors that contribute to one system's getting a better score than another. MacUser tests systems exactly as they ship to customers. Some people complain that this approach is unfair.
Vendors have reasons for configuring their systems the way they do.
Vendors that cut corners by putting a smaller, or no, L2 into their systems put a premium on price over performance. But that's why it's important for you to know why a particular system got the score it did on a particular test. Take MacBench's disk tests, for example. The main reason one system does better than another on these tests is because different drives have dramatically different performance characteristics. Of course, this eats up some of the physical RAM that would otherwise be available to run applications.