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2.6ghz i7 quad or 3.1ghz i7 dual - not sure which I need?

A

amanda1234

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 7, 2015
7
0
I'm having trouble deciding between a rMBP 15" 2.6ghz i7 quad core retina or a new MBP 13" 3.1ghz i7 dual core retina. They're about the same price, and both have 8G RAM and 256 flash storage. The rMBP comes with a GPU (NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory) and the MBP (13") doesn't.

I usually have the following things open (and am constantly flipping between them): MS word (with markups), MS excel, SPSS (several datasets) and/or R/Rstudio, preview, chrome (several tabs and windows), and MS powerpoint. I'd like to have this laptop for 5+ years.

No real gaming, photo editing or video editing needs.

Any advice on which is better suited to me? Thank you in advance!! :)
 
S

Samuelsan2001

macrumors 604
Oct 24, 2013
7,729
2,153
Either will be fine

amanda1234 said:
I'm having trouble deciding between a rMBP 15" 2.6ghz i7 quad core retina or a new MBP 13" 3.1ghz i7 dual core retina. They're about the same price, and both have 8G RAM and 256 flash storage. The rMBP comes with a GPU (NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory) and the MBP (13") doesn't.

I usually have the following things open (and am constantly flipping between them): MS word (with markups), MS excel, SPSS (several datasets) and/or R/Rstudio, preview, chrome (several tabs and windows), and MS powerpoint. I'd like to have this laptop for 5+ years.

No real gaming, photo editing or video editing needs.

Any advice on which is better suited to me? Thank you in advance!! :)
Click to expand...

For that use case it seems that speed is more important than cores, especially in RStudio (unless you custom tailor the software to leverage your multicores it runs on one core by default).

To be honest yoyr biggest concern will be screen size, massive data sets are easier to manage on a bigger screen.

The 13 inch will be good as the CPU is much newer and will be just as good in single core apps.

For once I'll reccomend more RAM the better for your use, but 8gb will be absolutely fine. Maybe take a look at a refurb 2013/2014 15 inch without the dGPU it seems best for your use.

This would be perfect....

http://store.apple.com/us/product/F...-22GHz-Quad-core-Intel-i7-with-Retina-Display
 
A

amanda1234

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 7, 2015
7
0
Samuelsan2001 said:
For that use case it seems that speed is more important than cores, especially in RStudio (unless you custom tailor the software to leverage your multicores it runs on one core by default).

To be honest yoyr biggest concern will be screen size, massive data sets are easier to manage on a bigger screen.

The 13 inch will be good as the CPU is much newer and will be just as good in single core apps.

For once I'll reccomend more RAM the better for your use, but 8gb will be absolutely fine. Maybe take a look at a refurb 2013/2014 15 inch without the dGPU it seems best for your use.

This would be perfect....

http://store.apple.com/us/product/F...-22GHz-Quad-core-Intel-i7-with-Retina-Display
Click to expand...

Ah ok I see. I'll opt for a newer CPU. Thanks so much!!
 
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