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anyone got the 13" i5 and wish it was i7?

M

MacCrackAddict

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 31, 2011
57
0
getting the 2011 13" in a few weeks and planning to get the i5

will be dabbling in cpu intensive things but not a heavy user, and whilst im not so much seeking advice, i was wondering if anyone else was torn between the two, went for the i5 and wishes they had payed the extra?

just wanted to get a feel for the satisfaction levels of people who got the i5?
 
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Happy with my choice. What's the difference between i5 and i7, cache? (not counting and Mhz bumps)
 
excluding these two, as far as i can find, nothing. just an average 5-15% boost on CPU intensive apps.

I wondered if the i7 was snappier at all, but the i5 sounds beastly enough! doesn't sound like it's worth the money :S

he benchmark tests show a very small difference between the two, but theres nothing better than user opinion,

loving karl lol!
 
i played with both b4 buying and didn't really notice any difference.

For a difference of $300 i think the i7 is a ripoff. $400 difference when you consider that i got my i5 at bestbuy for $1000 (matching MC's offer).

In the 15" mbps the higher model at least as a much better GPU for $400.

Go take the $300-$400 you save in buying the i5 and go get a SSD and 8 gb ram.

Im bought a 64gb ssd and 8 gb ram for roughly $200. So im $200 cheaper than the i7 base model and much much faster
 
Bought i5 via Apple Education Store yesterday, received today. Great machine, plenty of power :)

Don't worry about making the wrong decision...you won't regret it!
 
Thank you so much! even though you do not realise it, this is perfect info. nowhere can i find someone who has played with the two. i want to but the nearest apple store is too far away as im a student and will have to get it delivered! now you say you have played and hardly noticed the difference, ive found what i was looking for! i5 it is all the way :D
 
If you intent on doing stuff with encryption, the i7 2620M offers AES instructions whereas the i5 2410M does not. Also the i7 supports VT-d among a few other technologies (This is nice if you plan on running some VMs); the turbo boost on the i7 goes to 3.4GHz (compared to the i5 at 2.9GHz); finally there is 33% more cache in the i7 and the GPU is slightly faster.

Otherwise from the user perspective, there isn't much in terms of upgrading.
 
I'm very happy with my i5. I edit Raw AVCHD video straight from my Canon Vixia HD camcorder and iMovie has no issues chewing through it and rendering out a movie in 1080 resolution with multiple transitions and such. Much better than the late 2010 MBP I had, hands down!!
 
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I bought the 13" i5 when it first came out, and there's been a few times when I contemplated returning it and getting tje i7 instead. However, everytime I look at the benchmark results, the difference is very minimal. I think it's more of an ego thing for me to have the best of everything, even though like everyone says here, the i5 is plenty powerful for what I need. Keep your i5 and save your $300 for the next MBP in a few years. :)
 
SakBee said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

I think it's more of an ego thing for me to have the best of everything, even though like everyone says here, the i5 is plenty powerful for what I need. Keep your i5 and save your $300 for the next MBP in a few years. :)
Click to expand...

I think this is my problem too! but who is going to care what one we have apart from us :S and thanks to all the replie, sound advice i will definately be getting the i5. this forum rocks!
 
I think we should suggest a mega "I may or may not regret my future purchase" thread that is composed of all of these posts.
 
alphaod said:
If you intent on doing stuff with encryption, the i7 2620M offers AES instructions whereas the i5 2410M does not. Also the i7 supports VT-d among a few other technologies (This is nice if you plan on running some VMs); the turbo boost on the i7 goes to 3.4GHz (compared to the i5 at 2.9GHz); finally there is 33% more cache in the i7 and the GPU is slightly faster.

Otherwise from the user perspective, there isn't much in terms of upgrading.
Click to expand...

Oy. I was entirely planning on getting the i5, but I do intend to be doing a lot of VM'ing. Working on getting my Active Directory certification at the moment, and I wanted to run multiple VMs of Windows Server 2008 as various types of Domain Controllers to test out different network configurations.

What exactly is VT-d?
 
alphaod said:
the turbo boost on the i7 goes to 3.4GHz (compared to the i5 at 2.9GHz); finally there is 33% more cache in the i7 and the GPU is slightly faster.
Click to expand...

what do you need to do to benefit from these things? i know it makes me sound like i dont know anything but i am constantly using turbo.264 a LOT, FCE, rapidweaver, aperture and a little bit of PS CS5. Is there anything here that might make usage of the things you mentioned. sorry, just that cache and turbo boost are foreign to me
 
Ah, so it's just enabling the VMs to take control of individual pieces of hardware, like the graphics cards? Not a performance boost?
 
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