Differences between i5 and i7

[jasin]

You said if you were encoding you would just buy an iMac. I provided you with proof that the performance when encoding is the same. The other specs are irrelevant to what I was referring to. I was talking about real world performance and not specs.

Oh, so now a faster cpu (i7) does not matter. First you said it makes all the difference and now you're saying its irrelevant.


By the way, the imac with the specs I posted was NOT on the list you provided. So you proved nothing.

 

[acedickson]

Oh, so now a faster cpu (i7) does not matter. First you said it makes all the difference and now you're saying its irrelevant.


By the way, the imac with the specs I posted was on the list you provided.

The only thing I spoke of as being irrelevant is:

1TB (7200 rpm) hard drive
AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 2GB of GDDR5 memory
27" screen
2560 by 1440 pixels

That has nothing to do with encoding speed.

Also, the iMac listed is the i5 and not the i7 so it doesn't have hyper-threading. If they had benchmarked the i7 it would have performed a little better because of the higher clock speed.

 

[cfedu]

I know it's faster, I agreed with that but it makes the computer faster at booting and read/writing of data. For me, those things are secondary to processing power because I encode video a lot.

I would never buy any computer by basing the first factor on those two things. They would be second on my list.



I'm not sure who you're referring to, alust or I. If me, I'm referring to the current lineup. I'll take the 15" w/o SSD over the 13" w/ SSD for what I do. I wouldn't experience any bottlenecks because the drive isn't related to my encoding speed, it's the processor.

Both factor into the user experience in different ways. While an SSD is faster than a HDD at doing the things it does, would you guys really prefer a 2 generation old MBP w/ SSD over any of the current models w/o? If so, your usage is probably pretty basic because the speed of apps opening is what's important to you. Obviously, that won't apply to everyone. I'm sure someone that transfers tons of data a lot might disagree but that's not the average user.

+1

if you just want things to open apps fast get a used macbook with an SSD.

Sure a 1.4 Ghz air boots faster then an imac with an SSD lol. The macbook air must be a faster computer, with more computations power then a 12 core 32 thread macpro.

stop feeding him.

 

[jasin]

The only thing I spoke of as being irrelevant is:

1TB (7200 rpm) hard drive
AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 2GB of GDDR5 memory
27" screen
2560 by 1440 pixels

That has nothing to do with encoding speed.

Also, the iMac listed is the i5 and not the i7 so it doesn't have hyper-threading. If they had benchmarked the i7 it would have performed a little better because of the higher clock speed.

No, you did not specifically state its irrelevant. However, you did state its performance is only marginally better. And that was misleading as you did not take in account that there is now an imac with a 3+ ghz i7 with hyper threading, 16GB of ram, 2GB video card, and a 1TB hard drive.

And, you did not acknowledge in your comments that on 1TB hard drives, when you stated it has nothing to do with encoding speed, that data is accessed faster on 1TB drives as there is more free space and the data is more compact. So it does play a role in video encoding. Maybe not in the actual process of the encoding itself, but it does in the data going to and from where it is stored prior to it being processed and encoded. It matters significantly in regards to that. There is that bottleneck factor too,we have already discussed that. You can not just have a super fast processor and ignore speed elsewhere as if its insignificant.

Nevertheless, 1TB hard drive aside. There are ssd options for the Imac too, so if the 1tb does not suit your needs performance wise then there is that. And as we have already established overall system performance does go up with ssd. Regardless of the hard drive not doing any encoding, overall system performance does go up with ssd. There is no denying that.


Lastly, that imac has far more system performance than any MBp that exists and you claimed the i7 Mbp was good for your video encoding. So I do not get why you are arguing a system with significantly better specs does not have enough system performance for video encoding. I just do not get that. You are kind of contradicting yourself. You are making very contradictory arguments.

+1

if you just want things to open apps fast get a used macbook with an SSD.

Sure a 1.4 Ghz air boots faster then an imac with an SSD lol. The macbook air must be a faster computer, with more computations power then a 12 core 32 thread macpro.

stop feeding him.

I never said an ssd drive would make up for a lack of cpu speed when there are cpu speed differences as significant as that. Your are exaggerating and taking my statements totally taken out of context!!!!! Which is something I find to be very misleading and deceptive on your part.

The cpu in your example would be the bottle neck, just as a really slow hard drive, in the example I gave, would be with a really fast processor.

I already discussed bottlenecks in general though and did previously state that there needs to be balance. Does not surprise me at all that you would ignore that fact. Does not surprise me one bit.

According to another thread on here, its in the buyers section, the only reason to choose an i7 over an ssd drive and additional memory on a Mbp with an i5 is because you can't easily just upgrade the cpu like you can ram and hard drives. It has nothing to do with the i7 increasing performance, most wont even notice any signifcant performance gains with the i7 over an i5; where as with the ssd drive and additional memory they would.

According to another thread on here, in the buyers section, the only reason to choose an i7 over an ssd drive and additional memory on a Mbp is because you can't easily just upgrade the cpu like you can ram and hard drives. It has nothing to do with the i7 increasing performance. According to that thread most wont even notice any signifcant performance gains with the i7 over an i5. Where as with the ssd drive and additional memory they would.

 

[KGWVU]

Hyper threading is the main difference. On the i7 its enabled nativly, where as on the i5 its locked. The i7 has more cores too. In windows on the mac it shows up as 8 cores.

Apple must of unlocked it within the firmware or had intel do it for them because it does not come enabled natively. Nevertheless, if this is true then the only difference is the cores and cache. The i7 has a few extra cores and a bit more cache, that's it. By the way, this is good to know because I am purchasing a macbook pro 13" this summer.

News to me. My 2010 i5 shows 4 cores in iStat and has since the day I bought it.

 

[acedickson]

According to another thread on here, its in the buyers section, the only reason to choose an i7 over an ssd drive and additional memory on a Mbp with an i5 is because you can't easily just upgrade the cpu like you can ram and hard drives. It has nothing to do with the i7 increasing performance, most wont even notice any signifcant performance gains with the i7 over an i5; where as with the ssd drive and additional memory they would.

Those would be those user's opinions. Those same users could probably just buy a used macbook and add an SSD and more RAM so that they could browse the web and email.

No, you did not specifically state its irrelevant. However, you did state its performance is only marginally better. And that was misleading as you did not take in account that there is now an imac with a 3+ ghz i7 with hyper threading, 16GB of ram, 2GB video card, and a 1TB hard drive.

1. Even the top of the line iMac would only be marginally faster. probably 5%, which over time would add up to a meaningful amount.

2. You referred to the i7 iMac after I posted all of those benchmarks and it isn't benchmarked. Even if it were he score wouldn't blow the others out of the water.

3. You keep listing specs that don't impact the encoding speeds. If we are talking about encoding stop throwing in the irrelevant specs. If we were comparing spec for spec then the other things would be valid. The processor would be most important followed by RAM.

And, you did not acknowledge in your comments that on 1TB hard drives, when you stated it has nothing to do with encoding speed, that data is accessed faster on 1TB drives as there is more free space and the data is more compact. So it does play a role in video encoding. Maybe not in the actual process of the encoding itself, but it does in the data going to and from where it is stored prior to it being processed and encoded. It matters significantly in regards to that. There is that bottleneck factor too,we have already discussed that. You can not just have a super fast processor and ignore speed elsewhere as if its insignificant.

The size of the drive doesn't impact encoding, even the speed is negligible. Look at all the users results in this thread here. If size was the case a 3TB would perform the best, if speed an SSD. The results speak for themselves.

Nevertheless, 1TB hard drive aside. There are ssd options for the Imac too, so if the 1tb does not suit your needs performance wise then there is that. And as we have already established overall system performance does go up with ssd. Regardless of the hard drive not doing any encoding, overall system performance does go up with ssd. There is no denying that.

What does that have to do with encoding? Again, we weren't talking about everything. We weere talking about the processors and encoding speed when you brought up the iMac.

Lastly, that imac has far more system performance than any MBp that exists and you claimed the i7 Mbp was good for your video encoding.

Benchmarks across the board show that the performance is better but not far more. If your car goes 3 mph faster is that far more? You said if you were going to encode you would just buy an iMac and I stated that a MBP performs very comparably and it's a mobile workstation so I'd much rather have it. I didn't say that people shouldn't buy an iMac.

So I do not get why you are arguing a system with significantly better specs does not have enough system performance for video encoding. I just do not get that. You are kind of contradicting yourself. You are making very contradictory arguments.

I don't feel anything is contradictory. they both fill a need for different kinds of users but the MBP performs in the same range as an iMac.

At this point, I'm going to agree with cfedu and just agree to disagree.

 

[SAVAGE5]

those would be those user's opinions. Those same users could probably just buy a used macbook and add an ssd and more ram so that they could browse the web and email.



1. Even the top of the line imac would only be marginally faster. Probably 5%, which over time would add up to a meaningful amount.

2. You referred to the i7 imac after i posted all of those benchmarks and it isn't benchmarked. Even if it were he score wouldn't blow the others out of the water.

3. You keep listing specs that don't impact the encoding speeds. If we are talking about encoding stop throwing in the irrelevant specs. If we were comparing spec for spec then the other things would be valid. The processor would be most important followed by ram.



The size of the drive doesn't impact encoding, even the speed is negligible. Look at all the users results in this thread here. if size was the case a 3tb would perform the best, if speed an ssd. The results speak for themselves.



What does that have to do with encoding? Again, we weren't talking about everything. We weere talking about the processors and encoding speed when you brought up the imac.



Benchmarks across the board show that the performance is better but not far more. If your car goes 3 mph faster is that far more? You said if you were going to encode you would just buy an imac and i stated that a mbp performs very comparably and it's a mobile workstation so i'd much rather have it. I didn't say that people shouldn't buy an imac.



I don't feel anything is contradictory. They both fill a need for different kinds of users but the mbp performs in the same range as an imac.

At this point, i'm going to agree with cfedu and just agree to disagree.

+1

 

[nomanstool]

i have the base model 13" i5, and I'm seeing 4 threads in my activity monitor

so yes, I can conclude that even the 13" mbp base model have HT

 

[Funkymonk]

ii

 

[Heavertron]

It's really simple:

MBP 13" 2011 i5 2.3 = 2 cores, 4 threads (has Hyperthreading 2 threads per core)
MBP 13" 2011 i7 2.7 = 2 cores, 4 threads (has Hyperthreading 2 threads per core)

MBP 15" - 17" i7 = 4 cores, 8 threads (has hyperthreading 2 threads per core)

So if you need quad core (8 threads) you can't have a 13". I have the base spec 13" MBP 2011 with an SSD and the 2 core 4 thread i5 2.3 is really ample for my needs. It's a huge step up from the 2010 model. I read somewhere a ~65% performance increase in CPU intensive tasks over last years model.

 

[John89]

It's a huge step up from the 2010 model. I read somewhere a ~65% performance increase in CPU intensive tasks over last years model.

Geekbench

13" 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo 2010: 3351
13" 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo 2010: 3645

13" 2.3 GHz dual i5 2011: 5900
13" 2.7 GHz dual i7 2011, 6796

 

[Macsavvytech]

+1

+1 to SAVAGE5 and i think thats probably a good idea ace. Some people never give up, even when they have been proven wrong multiple times.

 

[MrNomNoms]

Regarding hyper-threading, my MacBook Pro and iMac (both i7) say there are 4 cores but they don't say how many 'virtual cores' there are (4 cores, 8 threads) - is Apple going to update the 'System Profiler' to report the total number of physical cores versus the number if virtual cores? I hope so

 

[Chiuy]

Whoever said the i7 was a quad core in the mbp 13" is dumb. It's only dual core but it has 2 visual cores. Only difference is that i7 on mbp 13" is faster by 1.0 ghz and you won't notice the speed difference so it's not worth it if it going to cost you $50 or more.

 

[Heavertron]

Regarding hyper-threading, my MacBook Pro and iMac (both i7) say there are 4 cores but they don't say how many 'virtual cores' there are (4 cores, 8 threads) - is Apple going to update the 'System Profiler' to report the total number of physical cores versus the number if virtual cores? I hope so

They show in activity monitor as 4 threads (4 CPU activity indicator graphs (to dumb it down!))

Whoever said the i7 was a quad core in the mbp 13" is dumb. It's only dual core but it has 2 visual cores.

It has two cores. Each core is hyperthreading enabled, so each core can handle two threads at once. Therefore with two HT enabled cores you have capability for 4 simultaneous threads, but it still has two cores.

 

[nunes013]

i thought this would be a good thread to post. my gf is going to a pharmacy major next year. she is deciding between the base 13" mbp or the upper model 13" mpb. she wont be doing any high video encoding or anything. just music, safari, facetime, mail, and whatever pharmacy software she will get. she wanted just the base model but i keep insisting on the upper model however it is $300 more expensive and with applecare she would be spending almost 1800 even with the student discount. do you guys think it is worth it or would the base model suffice?

 

[Nielsenius]

i thought this would be a good thread to post. my gf is going to a pharmacy major next year. she is deciding between the base 13" mbp or the upper model 13" mpb. she wont be doing any high video encoding or anything. just music, safari, facetime, mail, and whatever pharmacy software she will get. she wanted just the base model but i keep insisting on the upper model however it is $300 more expensive and with applecare she would be spending almost 1800 even with the student discount. do you guys think it is worth it or would the base model suffice?

The base model will certainly suffice. This is the answer you'll get every time, unless the user plans on gaming, video editing, running other high intensity applications, or is simply a speed demon. In a few years she can get an SSD if it's too slow. By then SSDs will be a lot cheaper.

 

[jgz]

okay.... i read now a lot of things about the i5/i7 13" mbp.... its only worth, if you do a lot of cpu-intensive things.... my question is: how cpu-intensive is my software?

I (architecture student) will do:

CAD: Autocad/Vectorworks (OSX)
Render: Cinema4d (OSX)
Image/Layout: Indesign/Illustrator/PS (OSX)

Rhinoceros 4.0 with Grasshopper (Windows7 on VMware NOT bootcamp)

will the dualcore i7 give a performance boost or not?? Is my software comparable to Video Encoding etc?

ps: i know the 15" is faster for sure... but i would love the 13" size and whenever whereever I work, there's a 27" external display around.

 

[nunes013]

The base model will certainly suffice. This is the answer you'll get every time, unless the user plans on gaming, video editing, running other high intensity applications, or is simply a speed demon. In a few years she can get an SSD if it's too slow. By then SSDs will be a lot cheaper.

i figured it would suffice. i thought i might be able to squeeze the higher model out of her so i could play with it but it is pretty expensive for her

 

[dslrjunky]

okay.... i read now a lot of things about the i5/i7 13" mbp.... its only worth, if you do a lot of cpu-intensive things.... my question is: how cpu-intensive is my software?

I (architecture student) will do:

CAD: Autocad/Vectorworks (OSX)
Render: Cinema4d (OSX)
Image/Layout: Indesign/Illustrator/PS (OSX)

Rhinoceros 4.0 with Grasshopper (Windows7 on VMware NOT bootcamp)

will the dualcore i7 give a performance boost or not?? Is my software comparable to Video Encoding etc?

ps: i know the 15" is faster for sure... but i would love the 13" size and whenever whereever I work, there's a 27" external display around.

I could be wrong but wouldn't your 13" have trouble driving a 27" (whats the resolution anyway?) when you use CAD? and Indesign/PS/Illustrator?

 

[acedickson]

I could be wrong but wouldn't your 13" have trouble driving a 27" (whats the resolution anyway?) when you use CAD? and Indesign/PS/Illustrator?

okay.... i read now a lot of things about the i5/i7 13" mbp.... its only worth, if you do a lot of cpu-intensive things.... my question is: how cpu-intensive is my software?

I (architecture student) will do:

CAD: Autocad/Vectorworks (OSX)
Render: Cinema4d (OSX)
Image/Layout: Indesign/Illustrator/PS (OSX)

Rhinoceros 4.0 with Grasshopper (Windows7 on VMware NOT bootcamp)

will the dualcore i7 give a performance boost or not?? Is my software comparable to Video Encoding etc?

ps: i know the 15" is faster for sure... but i would love the 13" size and whenever whereever I work, there's a 27" external display around.

The 13" will drive a 27" monitor.

@jgz I think you would be happy with the 13" and it would handle your needs well. My biggest recommendation for you would be to start with a 13" and use it for a week intensively. See if it meets you needs and if it doesn't upgrade to the base 15".

Whoever said the i7 was a quad core in the mbp 13" is dumb. It's only dual core but it has 2 visual cores. Only difference is that i7 on mbp 13" is faster by 1.0 ghz and you won't notice the speed difference so it's not worth it if it going to cost you $50 or more.

The i7 in the 13" is only .4 GHz faster but I agree about not purchasing unless the price differential was lower.