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mleggat

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 3, 2012
2
0
Hey, I am in the market for a new MBP and deciding if I need quad core or if dual core will do the job for me. I am a photographer and spend a lot of time using Aperture, Photoshop and a few other photo apps. Will I see a marked improvement with qcore or will dcore (13 inch MBP) do the job. I am leary of spending for top-of- the- line, as top- of- the- line changes so quickly.
 
I think both Aperture and photoshop will take advantage of the extra cores. I'm running both on a core 2 duo machine and the performance isn't bad, but I think it will really fly on a quad core.
 
Its more a question of form factor.

If you want 13" or smaller, there is no quad core option due to thermal/power limitations.


If you can live with a larger machine, quad core WILL be faster. Plenty of stuff takes advantage of more cores. Video encoding, multitasking, etc. Image processing is one of those "embarrassingly parallel" tasks. If apps don't take advantage today, they need to be re-coded, and will be in the very near future.

Apple has put a lot of focus on multicore performance (grand central was one of the Snow Leopard "big features") and taking advantage of multiple cores in OS X development is relatively trivial. The future is multi core.
 
Another point to consider, is the display size. I found my 13" MBP a bit small when working with photoshop and Lightroom/aperture.
 
Quad core. Some editing programs are ram intensive while others are CPU intensive. My 2010 dual core is holding its own but quad core is much better especially since camera companies are pushing higher and higher pixel counts (not needed but more is better for marketing) and that means bigger files so more power.

Get a quad core and you can then relax.
 
Thanks for all the great thoughts!

I am leaning towards the 15" inch pro, 2.3 gig. I saw the Retina display next to the regular and there is a big difference, but it is pricey, and I am apprehensive about not being able to do upgrades in the future. I usually replace my hard drive at three years (precautionary move) and am hoping that ssd will be more affordable at that point. All of your comments were a huge help and greatly appreciated.
 
I am leaning towards the 15" inch pro, 2.3 gig. I saw the Retina display next to the regular and there is a big difference, but it is pricey, and I am apprehensive about not being able to do upgrades in the future. I usually replace my hard drive at three years (precautionary move) and am hoping that ssd will be more affordable at that point. All of your comments were a huge help and greatly appreciated.

There may be companies offering SSD upgrades by the time you come to upgrade your hard drive in a few years time anyway. There's a company in the states called OWC that offer Macbook Air SSDs for example.
 
Hey, I am in the market for a new MBP and deciding if I need quad core or if dual core will do the job for me. I am a photographer and spend a lot of time using Aperture, Photoshop and a few other photo apps. Will I see a marked improvement with qcore or will dcore (13 inch MBP) do the job. I am leary of spending for top-of- the- line, as top- of- the- line changes so quickly.

If you have the budget, Quad-Core.
 
Its more a question of form factor.

If you want 13" or smaller, there is no quad core option due to thermal/power limitations.

Are you sure about that? Nope, you must not be. The reason I say that is because there are 35w TDP quad core, i7 mobile CPUs on the market.

http://ark.intel.com/products/67356/Intel-Core-i7-3612QM-Processor-(6M-Cache-up-to-3_10-GHz)-rPGA

The reason there is no quad core 13" MacBook Pro is because of the increased cost of the CPU would not jive with the margins Apple likes to make on their products while keeping the same pricing.
 
If you're just going to use it for something like photoshop then a dual core processor (i7) would probably suffice. Retina display is usually nice for someone in that industry but it's completely up to you on the price point and the inability to upgrade.
 
I have a 8 core MacPro and it is very rare to see a program use more than two cores for the main task. Not even Final Cut Pro! Which I find quit depressing. So in my experience 2 cores is enough for almost everything. It is in fact not easy to program for multicores.
 
In Aperture you'll see a better improvement by having a real GPU than 2 extra CPU cores, but with the 15" Macbook Pro, you get both.
 
Are you sure about that? Nope, you must not be. The reason I say that is because there are 35w TDP quad core, i7 mobile CPUs on the market.

http://ark.intel.com/products/67356/Intel-Core-i7-3612QM-Processor-(6M-Cache-up-to-3_10-GHz)-rPGA

The reason there is no quad core 13" MacBook Pro is because of the increased cost of the CPU would not jive with the margins Apple likes to make on their products while keeping the same pricing.


I was referring to apple products. What other manufacturers do is irrelevant as far as this thread goes. If you're talking about Macs (this is macrumors, and the OP is trying to decide on which MBP) and discussing purchasing options of Quad core vs Dual, then the fact that apple don't make a small quad core machine is relevant.

That processor has also been out for only a couple of months., and I will wager that it is not available in the sort of volume apple shifts MBAs at.

Handbrake fills all 8 threads on my MBP 15". As does quicktime X conversion, and a number of other CPU intensive tasks. This trend will only continue. Apps that can't take advantage of multiple threads will adapt or be replaced by those that can - clock speeds aren't going to be going up much faster, the way ahead is more cores.
 
I was referring to apple products. What other manufacturers do is irrelevant as far as this thread goes. If you're talking about Macs (this is macrumors, and the OP is trying to decide on which MBP) and discussing purchasing options of Quad core vs Dual, then the fact that apple don't make a small quad core machine is relevant.

That processor has also been out for only a couple of months., and I will wager that it is not available in the sort of volume apple shifts MBAs at.

Handbrake fills all 8 threads on my MBP 15". As does quicktime X conversion, and a number of other CPU intensive tasks. This trend will only continue. Apps that can't take advantage of multiple threads will adapt or be replaced by those that can - clock speeds aren't going to be going up much faster, the way ahead is more cores.

What the hell are you going on about? I am talking about Apple. You said the product doesn't exist because of thermals. The fact of that matter is, the current CPUs in the 13" are rated for 35w TDP, and they are dual core and there are 35w TDP SKUs, from Intel (you know, the company Apple buys it's CPUs from) that are quad core.
 
What the hell are you going on about? I am talking about Apple. You said the product doesn't exist because of thermals. The fact of that matter is, the current CPUs in the 13" are rated for 35w TDP, and they are dual core and there are 35w TDP SKUs, from Intel (you know, the company Apple buys it's CPUs from) that are quad core.

You mean the CPU that has been "available" for all of about 1-2 months, and likely not in the volume apple requires?
 
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