Can someone please explain to me how important Processor Speed is?

[MovieGuy34]

Can someone please explain to me how important Processor Speed is?

Because currently you can get a 13 inch rMBP with a processor up to 3.0ghz with a turbo boost up to 3.7

But the 15 inch rMBP only lets you get a processor up to 2.8ghz with a turbo boost up to a 3.8.

Now obviously to a layman like myself I would think more is better. So how come the 13 inch can offer more than the much more power 15 inch? Or does it not really matter? I mean it must right....? That's why Apple charges you to upgrade to a faster processor speed?

Can someone help?

 

[Count Blah]

Dual core versus quad core is one reason

 

[thundersteele]

The 13'' is a dual core, each core can deliver ~3 GHz.
The 15'' has four cores, with 2.8 GHz each... so it is almost twice as powerful.

Applications that are not optimized for multiple core machines can indeed benefit from the higher clock rates on the 13'' dual core. But for overall performance and multi-tasking the quad core is more powerful.

 

[PDFierro]

Well the important thing here to take into account is that the 15-inch has a quad-core CPU while the 13-inch only has dual-core. Secondly, a higher clock/processor speed does not always equal better. The Haswell processors will have a lower clock speed, but are not a decrease in performance.

 

[MovieGuy34]

Ahhhh

Thanks smart people!