Beware: the Core i7 is probably not worth it this time

[steveLONDON]

For the sake of an extra 150GBP I think the i7 is worth it. I don't want to be in the position of asking myself, 2 years from now, "Hey I wonder how much faster this would be if I'd gone for the i7?" as I'm watching a progress bar or some stuttering video. Sooner or later i5 and then i7 will become 'minimum requirements' so you are buying longevity, as far as I'm concerned.

I know for sure I'm never gonna be sitting here in 2 yrs wondering about what I could have done with £150

 

[surlismo]

I know alot of people have been asking about the difference between i5 and i7 in relation to graphics and video editing but I'm wanting to get a Macbook (never had a mac before) primarily for making music on... using Logic and Ableton etc..

I was gonna go for the 15-inch: 2.66GHz i7...

But would a 15-inch: 2.4GHz i5 get the job done as I don't need the extra ram in the video card?

anybody? This is seriously doing my head in so any suggestions would be much appreciated

 

[wouwout]

For the sake of an extra 150GBP I think the i7 is worth it. I don't want to be in the position of asking myself, 2 years from now, "Hey I wonder how much faster this would be if I'd gone for the i7?" as I'm watching a progress bar or some stuttering video. Sooner or later i5 and then i7 will become 'minimum requirements' so you are buying longevity, as far as I'm concerned.

I know for sure I'm never gonna be sitting here in 2 yrs wondering about what I could have done with £150

I agree with you that the price difference is not that much.

However: reports that the i7 runs hotter (without corresponding performance increases) and therefor battery life is decreased, seems a bigger issue. Engadget has a review of the i7 15" MBP up, and they mention some heat issues.

You don't want to pay extra for possibly no improved perfomance AND decreased battery life.

 

[JaZzMaN251]

anybody? This is seriously doing my head in so any suggestions would be much appreciated

I'm about to do the same things you will (audio wise )
A friend of mine has the previous 15" MBP and works with Live without a problem.

I don't think the extra 153 Mhz will make lots of difference. More ram is always a plus, but I personally don't think the 2.53 will be noticably better than the 2.4.

I've ordered a 2.4GHz.

 

[Nuak]

Benchmarks appearing in Geekbench are somehow confusing compared to the analysis made by Notebookcheck, they show the i7 stronger.

I would still go for the 2.4GHz and spend the spare 300$ in something really meaningful other than 260MHz, 1MB of L3 cache, and 256 additional MB of VRAM.

 

[PaulDCarlucci]

seems the i7 is between 12% and 31% better than the i5 (there is no significant difference between the i5's).

but that measures only the processor. the impact on the overall system is certainly less since the HD slows everything down. unless you transcode or use handbrake it should not matter too much.

my early 2008 MBP scores 3100, the i5's are ~4800 and the i7 is 5400 (or 6300). so i guess i would get a nice speed bump if I go i5.

When comparing Geekbench scores, keep an eye out for if it's the 32-bit or 64-bit version. Some apps get a free 15-20% performance bump just for running a 64-bit binary on a 64-bit kernel and Geekbench is one of them. Comparing the 2.4 GHz i5 to the i7 for either 32-bit to 32-bit or 64-bit to 64-bit I'm seeing a 13% difference just randomly picking scores and comparing. I didn't do any kind of fancy averaging or anything though.

Now, that's for the 15" where we have a difference in graphics cards between the three models. If you look at the 17" models, the difference is isolated down to between i5 2.53 and the i7, we're looking at 7%.

I grabbed all the 15" 520 and 540 64-bit numbers. I threw away the bottom score outliers for each, averaged and then compared. It's a 4.5% difference between the two.

 

[ginandtonic]

You are correct. Besides the obvious video ram differences in the models the performance boost of the i7 versus the i5 is only about 5% so extremely negligible.

So if you are not going for the 512mb GPU pretty much best to just stick to the i5

Shame there is no option to buy i5 with 512mb gpu (for 15 inch MBP) - but for 200 bucks more you get i7 AND 512 mb gpu, so it would seem worth it for the 15 inch model.

 

[MBHockey]

When comparing Geekbench scores, keep an eye out for if it's the 32-bit or 64-bit version. Some apps get a free 15-20% performance bump just for running a 64-bit binary on a 64-bit kernel and Geekbench is one of them. Comparing the 2.4 GHz i5 to the i7 for either 32-bit to 32-bit or 64-bit to 64-bit I'm seeing a consistent 13%, and that's that.

Now, that's for the 15" where we have a difference in graphics cards between the three models. If you look at the 17" models, the difference is isolated down to between i5 2.53 and the i7, we're looking at 7%.

This is exactly what I'm seeing. Seems hardly worth the extra money.

 

[wouwout]

When comparing Geekbench scores, keep an eye out for if it's the 32-bit or 64-bit version. Some apps get a free 15-20% performance bump just for running a 64-bit binary on a 64-bit kernel and Geekbench is one of them. Comparing the 2.4 GHz i5 to the i7 for either 32-bit to 32-bit or 64-bit to 64-bit I'm seeing a consistent 13%, and that's that.

Looking at this chart:
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/chart/show/238776
You can clearly see the difference between 32 bit and 64 bit Geekbench scores

I've noticed a difference of on average around 15% between 15" i5 2.4 and 15" i7 2.66 (comparing 32 bit to 32 bit, and 64 bit to 64 bit).

I think this is a significant higher score and contradicts the earlier reports in this thread. There's defnitely more power in the i7 (or i7 and better graphics combined)

Now we need to find out if the i7 produces considerably more heat!

 

[modular]

I agree with you that the price difference is not that much.

However: reports that the i7 runs hotter (without corresponding performance increases) and therefor battery life is decreased, seems a bigger issue. Engadget has a review of the i7 15" MBP up, and they mention some heat issues.

You don't want to pay extra for possibly no improved perfomance AND decreased battery life.

Where are the reports of the i5 running hotter than the i7? link please.

As far as engadget, they only have the i7 and have not compared it to the i5. When talking about heat, they say it's about the same, if not improved from the C2D models,

engadget on new i7 mbp heat vs c2d: "Happily we can say the situation has been much improved in the new version"

 

[harmonica01]

i think we are going to have to wait for more real world results in apple's housing, they've tended to have better tweaks out of basic pc hardware from my experiences.

I went on and got the i7 15" with high res screen, I need the 512mb to help running my monitors and the large projectors I use for teaching

On my first gen (before built in battery) 13" unibody mbp 2.4 I've been getting consistent 6+ hours at half brightness which is higher than marketed, I imagine some tweaking 9hrs is attainable on even the i7 with basic email/pages open

 

[wouwout]

Where are the reports of the i5 running hotter than the i7? link please. ..."

The other way round. Page 1 of this thread.

 

[PandaOnslaught]

Wow, didn't know that the difference between the i5-520M 2.4GHz and i5-540M 2.53GHz was so small... like.. almost nothing for real life applications.

And the only other difference is the 320GB vs 500GB hard drive. I was thinking about the mid range 15", but now...

EXACTLY this was clearly the smartest purchase, i5-520M FTW

 

[ECUpirate44]

I would get the i7 just for the 512mb GPU .

Thats the only reason i did it

 

[Mark Booth]

Geekbench scores are starting to pour in for the new models. When looking at Geekbench scores, you have to be sure you are comparing 32-bit mode tests to other 32-bit mode tests and 64-bit tests to other 64-bit tests.

I took the first ten 32-bit Geekbench scores for each model and averaged them. Looking strictly at 32-bit scores, here are the results:

2.40GHz Core i5: 4753
2.53GHz Core i5: 4964
2.66GHz Core i7: 5429

So, looking strictly at CPU and memory performance (what Geekbench measures)....

The 2.53GHz Core i5 has a 5.2% faster clock speed than the 2.40GHz Core i5 but in Geekbench testing the 2.53GHz Core i5 is only 4.3% faster than the 2.40GHz Core i5. If you equip the 2.40GHz Core i5 with a 500GB 5400rpm drive, the price difference is only $100. That 5.1% price difference buys you 4.3% better performance and no difference in video memory.

The 2.66GHz Core i7 has a 9.8% faster clock speed than the 2.40GHz Core i5 and in Geekbench testing the 2.66GHz Core i7 is 12.5% faster than the 2.40GHz Core i5. If you equip the 2.40GHz Core i5 with a 500GB 5400rpm drive, the price difference is $300. That 13.7% price difference buys you 12.5% better performance AND double the video memory.

The 2.66GHz Core i7 has a 4.9% faster clock speed than the 2.53GHz Core i5 and in Geekbench testing the 2.66GHz Core i7 is 8.6% faster than the 2.53GHz Core i5. The price difference between those two is $200. That 9.1% price difference buys you 8.6% better performance AND double the video memory.

As you can see, the Core i7 is definitely faster. And not just because it has a faster clock speed.

The (so far) "missing link" is how much of a difference the Core i7 model's additional graphics memory will make for applications that take advantage of it. Me, I use Aperture 3 heavily, along with some Photoshop. Both of those apps love extra video RAM (and are CPU intensive anyway) so I have ordered the Core i7. My current MacBook Pro (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) is 3 years old. If I keep the Core i7 just as long, the $200-$300 price difference amortized over 36 months works out to $5-$8 per month. Chump change considering the additional speed. And, in 3 years, the Core i7 will net a higher resale value too.

Each person has to decide which model makes sense for them. But I think the 12.5% performance difference between the top of the line Core i7 and the bottom of the line Core i5 is significant enough to justify the money. Particularly given the upside potential for OpenCL and graphics due to double the video memory.

Lastly, to help put these figures in perspective, here are the Geekbench scores from two of my current Macs:

MacBook Pro 2.2HGz Core 2 Duo: 3110
Mac Pro 2 x 2.66GHz Xeon (four cores): 5628

That's a Mac Pro 1,1 model. A large, heavy, power hungry chunk of aluminum. Granted, it's also about 3 years old but look at that score and compare it to the new 2.66 Core i7. My new MacBook Pro is almost as fast as my Mac Pro! Freaking awesome!

EDIT: BTW, I ordered through my employer's employee purchase plan site. The discount on the more expensive models is slightly better. So my actual cost difference between the 2.40GHz Core i5 (with 500GB 5400rpm drive) and the 2.66GHz Core i7 is 11.8%. 11.8% more expensive to get 12.5% better performance. A no brainer for me.

Mark

 

[splitpea]

The trouble with benchmarks like Geekbench is that they are artificial measures, and don't reflect daily usage. They may be useful for gamers, but on the odd occasion that you do see a Photoshop benchmark, the results are often wildly different from video encoding, gaming, or generalized tests. I'm not counting on the i7 to show anywhere near a 12% advantage for Photoshop work. That said, I'll probably end up with one simply because I want the better GPU.

*Waits impatiently for Photoshop benchmarks to start appearing.*

 

[Lixia]

The trouble with benchmarks like Geekbench is that they are artificial measures, and don't reflect daily usage. They may be useful for gamers, but on the odd occasion that you do see a Photoshop benchmark, the results are often wildly different from video encoding, gaming, or generalized tests. I'm not counting on the i7 to show anywhere near a 12% advantage for Photoshop work. That said, I'll probably end up with one simply because I want the better GPU.

*Waits impatiently for Photoshop benchmarks to start appearing.*

do the new MPBs run the 64bit kernel by default? Is it worthwhile to have them run it if not?

 

[gazwas]

I'm not counting on the i7 to show anywhere near a 12% advantage for Photoshop work. That said, I'll probably end up with one simply because I want the better GPU.

*Waits impatiently for Photoshop benchmarks to start appearing.*

But Photoshop CS5 is going to be native 64bit and more importantly for the first time mutli processor aware so the i7 may be able to show it's power.

That is why I went for the 17" i7....... (crossing my fingers waiting for CS5 to drop on my door mat )

 

[DesmoPilot]

Thats the only reason i did it

That GPU is slow enough where the extra 256MB won't make any practical difference.

 

[therealseebs]

That GPU is slow enough where the extra 256MB won't make any practical difference.

People keep saying this, but I don't think that's how memory works.

It's like saying that the C2D is slow enough that 4GB of memory won't be faster than 2GB. Nonsense! What makes the amount of memory matter is the size of the working set, not the speed of the processor.

 

[DesmoPilot]

People keep saying this, but I don't think that's how memory works.

It's like saying that the C2D is slow enough that 4GB of memory won't be faster than 2GB. Nonsense! What makes the amount of memory matter is the size of the working set, not the speed of the processor.

That analogy doesn't really work, a GPUs relationship to its memory is different then a CPU to RAM. Technical reasons as to why the extra 256MB doesn't make any practical difference have been posted a few times on these forums already.

 

[Jaro65]

I know for sure I'm never gonna be sitting here in 2 yrs wondering about what I could have done with £150

Agree with that!

 

[maximus06]

Regarding supposed i7 heat issues:

1) The engadget review stated that their i7 ran COOLER than previous gen MBPs.
2) At least one user here reported their normal i7 CPU temperature of 41-42 C. My current gen macbook 2008 2.4ghz runs at an average of 45-50C under normal load.

To me it seems like the new i7s run considerably cooler than previous gens, though I don't know how they compare to i5s. Will test this out when I receive my MBP.

 

[wouwout]

Regarding supposed i7 heat issues:

1) The engadget review stated that their i7 ran COOLER than previous gen MBPs.
2) At least one user here reported their normal i7 CPU temperature of 41-42 C. My current gen macbook 2008 2.4ghz runs at an average of 45-50C under normal load.

To me it seems like the new i7s run considerably cooler than previous gens, though I don't know how they compare to i5s. Will test this out when I receive my MBP.

To clarify my earlier remarks: I don't really care how it compares to C2D models, it's the heat (and battery performance) difference between i5 and i7 that concern me. I'd like the i7 upgrade however it's a lemon if it decreases battery life.

Engadget mentioned the i7 still ran hot. They had "sweaty palms" (yuck)

 

[maximus06]

To clarify my earlier remarks: I don't really care how it compares to C2D models, it's the heat (and battery performance) difference between i5 and i7 that concern me. I'd like the i7 upgrade however it's a lemon if it decreases battery life.

Engadget mentioned the i7 still ran hot. They had "sweaty palms" (yuck)

Then let me clarify: 41-42 degrees is extremely cool as far as CPUs go, therefore the system should not feel hot. I believe the "sticky palms" comment was in regards to high system load (and hence, much higher temps). My MB at 55 degrees feels cool to the touch, so I doubt there's any issue.