2018 mbp 13 vs 15 virtualization

[snagnyou]

How does the 2018 mbp 13 run virtual machines with the i7 quad core? Would the 15 be a better option? I typically like to run 2-3 VMs using VirtualBox.

Also, how does the 13" display look in "More Space" mode compared to Default. 1680x1050 vs 1440x900 ? Does the quality go down? I like the portability of the 13" for traveling, and it looks like a good option with the quad-core.

 

[afir93]

CPU-wise the 2018 13" should well be able to handle it, but consider that you should go with at least 16GB of RAM for that. Having too little RAM can oftentimes become more of a bottleneck for running simultaneous virtual machines than the pure CPU power. Depending on what you're going to use the virtual machines for, you might even want to consider if it's worth it going with the 15" for the 32GB RAM option (but if you don't do a lot of heavy lifting within those virtual machines, then I'd personally say 16GB should be fine – I'm oftentimes running Windows via Parallels on my 16GB 2018 MBP, mostly for light tasks, and have yet to run into any RAM management issues).

About the second question, everything will of course look a bit less sharp, but personally I think it should still be very usable. It depends a lot on what you're going to do with it, how much stuff you're going to have open simultaneously, and so on. When having lots of windows open side-by-side, having 15" instead of 13" can be worth a lot, but for most thinks, the 13" variant is screen- and resolution-wise still pretty good.

 

[snagnyou]

I will be definitely going with 16GB of ram. 1440x900 is not a lot of real estate and I typically like having multiple windows on a desktop. Decisions..... :/

 

[jerryk]

I will be definitely going with 16GB of ram. 1440x900 is not a lot of real estate and I typically like having multiple windows on a desktop. Decisions..... :/

When you cost out a 13" upgraded with 16GB and 256 GB SSD you start getting close to the based 2.2 GHz 15". And the 15" has a 6-core processor, bigger screen, and a dGPU. The 6 vs 4 core is considerably faster (no suprisingly about 33% faster on multi-core benchmarks).

 

[snagnyou]

When you cost out a 13" upgraded with 16GB and 256 GB SSD you start getting close to the based 2.2 GHz 15". And the 15" has a 6-core processor, bigger screen, and a dGPU. The 6 vs 4 core is considerably faster (no suprisingly about 33% faster on multi-core benchmarks).

The i7 quad-core with 16GB and 1TB is a good option, but expensive. I tested one out with VirtualBox, Fusion, and Parallels. VirtualBox performance was not that great with video, Fusion was excellent along with Parallels. VirtualBox seemed like it was more of a resource hog especially during installation with high I/O. Temps were up to 96C during VM installation.

I think 15" laptops are a bit too large for traveling and working in small places like data centers etc. I would hope the 15" would perform better than a 13" 🙂