Apple Macbook Differences

[cambsno]

Have no idea about the different option on MacBooks

Basic 13" ones have 2.5ghz dual core i5 or 2.9ghz dual core i7 - so easy to see the 2.9ghz is better. But in the 15" you have a 2.3ghz quad core i7... so more cores (whatever that means) but lower speed??? So which one is 'best' the 2.3 i7 or 2.5 i5??

Am probably only wanting 13" anyway, but would like to know what it all means!!! How important is the better graphics on the 15" ones? I use LR, may use more Adobe stuff in future like PS and also use iMovie to edit, along with basic other stuff. No gaming

 

[neil_g]

personally id go with the i7. the i7 has more cores, a higher turbo and cache.

the only graphics performance (ignoring the different screen res) difference is the memory, its the same intel/nvidia chips. depends how much youll be hammering the GPU with HD processing or games.

 

[cambsno]

personally id go with the i7. the i7 has more cores, a higher turbo and cache.

the only graphics performance (ignoring the different screen res) difference is the memory, its the same intel/nvidia chips. depends how much youll be hammering the GPU with HD processing or games.

So basically while speed is a factor it's a bit like mp in cameras, don't read into the faster the better!

 

[Chappers]

If it's any help, I'm running a 2.3GHz rMBP and it handles all of the above without any problems. I've even done some short editing with Final Cut Pro without any difficulty.

 

[Kasalic]

MacBook Pro 13" and MacBook Pro Retina 13" do not have dedicated graphics chipsets, just the standard Intel 4000 integrated chipset.

The 15" MacBook Pros have dedicated graphics and the integrated graphics and will switch between them. As mentioned, the i7 processor is a quad core and will be faster for tasks and software that use multiple cores. For example I work a lot with running Virtual Machines on my MacBook Pro and I have 8 effective cores that I can assign to them, so I can run more VM's than I could if I had a dual core processor.

 

[cambsno]

MacBook Pro 13" and MacBook Pro Retina 13" do not have dedicated graphics chipsets, just the standard Intel 4000 integrated chipset.

The 15" MacBook Pros have dedicated graphics and the integrated graphics and will switch between them. As mentioned, the i7 processor is a quad core and will be faster for tasks and software that use multiple cores. For example I work a lot with running Virtual Machines on my MacBook Pro and I have 8 effective cores that I can assign to them, so I can run more VM's than I could if I had a dual core processor.

What are multiple cores?

 

[LongLensPhotography]

2 cores are like double speed of one core. It is not quite as simple, but close enough for a very basic comparison.
So yeah, 4x2.3 with more advanced instruction set is way better than 2x2.9, unless you use ancient applications that wouldn't use multiple cores.

i.e. get i7 if you are going to do more than just web browsing and emails. For majority users i5 is enough though.