For *heavy* web browsing, which CPU is enough?

[Lvivske]

I currently have a 2012 i7 quad core 2.6ghz and the bulk of my workload is in web-apps in firefox and chrome that involve *a lot* of live data and html5. (if you're wondering, it's for stocks)

Right now my system can get very sluggish when I have enough going on and need to upgrade. I also intend on having a 5k monitor and keeping the macbook itself open as a 2nd display.

Which CPU would be enough that I wouldn't experience any lagging / slowdown, and what's the cutoff for overkill where I wouldn't see the benefits for my use? (if there is any) Does six cores help me or is that just for video editors & rendering?

• 4-core i7 2.8ghz
• 6-core i7 2.2ghz (+$670)
• 6-core i7 2.6ghz (+$930)
• 6-core i9 2.9ghz (+$1170)

 

[Wreckus]

I would concentrate on making sure you get a build that has 16GB of RAM. With that said, how much RAM does the 4 core machine have?

 

[dallas112678]

How much ram do you currently have? I'd be willing to bet that is your current bottleneck rather than the CPU.

 

[Lvivske]

How much ram do you currently have? I'd be willing to bet that is your current bottleneck rather than the CPU.

I would concentrate on making sure you get a build that has 16GB of RAM. With that said, how much RAM does the 4 core machine have?

I currently have 16gb and never see it max out (today came close, 14gb, but I think it was a memory leak, otherwise it sits around 9gb during the day)

All the ones I listed were paired with 16gb ram to keep it all equal

 

[Wreckus]

In that case, might as well future proof yourself a bit and get the one of 6 core machines if you can afford it.

 

[dallas112678]

Today's quad cores are quite a bit faster performance wise compared to 2012, why not buy it and see if it's enough, and return it within the 2 weeks if not?

 

[Lvivske]

In that case, might as well future proof yourself a bit and get the one of 6 core machines if you can afford it.

So the extra cores are beneficial here? Chrome/firefox better with multi-threading over clock speed?

edit: Not sure if this indicates what the bottleneck is:

Today's quad cores are quite a bit faster performance wise compared to 2012, why not buy it and see if it's enough, and return it within the 2 weeks if not?

OTE]

I figured that was the case. I guess I could give it a shot, just would hate for it to be noticeably better by comparison to my untrained eyes, but actually not enough once I settle in to things.

 

[Aea]

Can you use Safari? Safari (despite not being a browser of choice) seems to be quite fast and performant compared to Chrome.

 

[zshane1125]

I think dual-core is enough for web browsing...with 16GB ram you can open hundreds of tabs..., but if you got more than 30 tabs open, your kind doing it wrong.

 

[mikethebigo]

I would go with the 2.6 15” with the 560X myself. Faster DDR4 RAM, more cores for multiple browser tabs, and you get a dedicated GPU to help push your external display.

The 2.2 would be fine too, but if you’re going for stock configurations at the store I’d be more into the 2.6.

All hypothetical for me, I got the 13” i7 and love it.

 

[Lvivske]

Can you use Safari? Safari (despite not being a browser of choice) seems to be quite fast and performant compared to Chrome.

Safari constantly gives me the "safari this page is using significant memory. closing it may improve the responsiveness of your mac" warning. I used to use it just dedicated for my trading platform, but gave up as it was seemingly the most sluggish. I couldnt imagine going all in on Safari at this point.

I think dual-core is enough for web browsing...with 16GB ram you can open hundreds of tabs..., but if you got more than 30 tabs open, your kind doing it wrong.

Well I currently have a quad-core...to be clear, I'm not talking about browsing forums and checking Facebook. The apps running in each tab are what's eating up the power (and its usually like 6-10?)

I would go with the 2.6 15” with the 560X myself. Faster DDR4 RAM, more cores for multiple browser tabs, and you get a dedicated GPU to help push your external display.

The 2.2 would be fine too, but if you’re going for stock configurations at the store I’d be more into the 2.6.

All hypothetical for me, I got the 13” i7 and love it.

Alright cool, thanks for the reply. I believe all the options I'm looking at have dedicated GPUs (is the ram in the 2018 faster than last years?). I wish there was a benchmark to go on here...

 

[smirking]

All the ones I listed were paired with 16gb ram to keep it all equal

Yeah, you should be fine with 16GB of RAM. The 32GB of RAM is mostly just for developers who are running virtual machines. Especially with the speed of the MBP SSD drives, the new Macs continue to work quite well even when you have too many programs competing for memory. I went from the exact machine you have to a 2016 MBP. You'll find the Web browsing to be much faster. If you want to drive a 5K display, having a GPU is a must.

My 2016 can handle driving the laptop screen and my 5K display at the same time just fine for things like Web pages, but not if it's for something more graphics intensive like my photo editing programs. When I run those on both screens, it really slows. I'm thinking of getting one of those new eGPUs to allow me to use two screens more freely.

I have a lot of tabs open at any given time. Most of the pages that I have open are pretty static so it's not very demanding to have them open, but I easily have a dozen tabs open at any given time and often have several dozen tabs open across multiple browsers even. It's not uncommon for me to have a dozen tabs in Safari, a dozen in Chrome, and a dozen in Firefox. I'm a Web Developer.

 

[jerwin]

I think dual-core is enough for web browsing...with 16GB ram you can open hundreds of tabs..., but if you got more than 30 tabs open, your kind doing it wrong.

56 tabs open at present.
sort of lost track.

14 percent cpu load
29 percent pressure--about 20 GB.

This is on a 2014 imac 5k, with 24 GB memory, and an i5

However, I don't really use chrome, or firefox. And the java script apps I do use tend to be well behaved.
Are any of these apps publicly accessible (for evaluation purposes, for instance?)

 

[Lvivske]

However, I don't really use chrome, or firefox. And the java script apps I do use tend to be well behaved.
Are any of these apps publicly accessible (for evaluation purposes, for instance?)

they are, sites like tradingview.com and investing.com, but it's the weekend so they arent active, and i suspect it's the live data which puts the strain on the system (which isnt public)

are the current cinebench numbers post-patch? either way, looks like the 2017 model would be only a 15% boost over my current system (which seems weak), and the 2.6ghz being only a hair better than the 2.2, so the 2.2 seems best performance increase for the money (if im reading all this right) unless I want to drop another $500 on the i9 (which may be overkill, still have no idea)

 

[12643]

The latest build of Firefox will give you significantly better performance than Chrome or Safari for your purposes. Try it out, even on your current machine.

 

[macintoshmac]

Today's CPUs (for reference I am counting even my Late 2011 MBP i7 as today's CPU) are not going to be a bottleneck. Get more RAM if possible, but since you have 16 already, perhaps there may be number crunching going on. In that case, I really do not think there would be much to gain from a faster desktop level CPU if you are into serious number crunching, but, again, I could be wrong. if this is not a hobby, consider a windows machine or something, with Xeon grade processors. That investment would perhaps pay off faster and be more satisfactory.

 

[gigatoaster]

Opera or Vivaldi are much better that FF or Chrome, you should try them, maybe it will be more suited to your usage.

 

[Vetvito]

I currently have a 2012 i7 quad core 2.6ghz and the bulk of my workload is in web-apps in firefox and chrome that involve *a lot* of live data and html5. (if you're wondering, it's for stocks)

Right now my system can get very sluggish when I have enough going on and need to upgrade. I also intend on having a 5k monitor and keeping the macbook itself open as a 2nd display.

Which CPU would be enough that I wouldn't experience any lagging / slowdown, and what's the cutoff for overkill where I wouldn't see the benefits for my use? (if there is any) Does six cores help me or is that just for video editors & rendering?

• 4-core i7 2.8ghz
• 6-core i7 2.2ghz (+$670)
• 6-core i7 2.6ghz (+$930)
• 6-core i9 2.9ghz (+$1170)

Doesn’t matter what CPU or RAM you upgrade to, it’s a poor work environment. Your problem is Chrome, and Firefox, but mostly Chrome.

For stocks, you don’t use a dedicated program? (I’m a day trader) I use TOS, and sometimes eSignal, and trade with DAS.

Back on topic, upgrading all of the above won’t fix your problem.

 

[Ma2k5]

Doesn’t matter what CPU or RAM you upgrade to, it’s a poor work environment. Your problem is Chrome, and Firefox, but mostly Chrome.

For stocks, you don’t use a dedicated program? (I’m a day trader) I use TOS, and sometimes eSignal, and trade with DAS.

Back on topic, upgrading all of the above won’t fix your problem.

Yep, an app or program which uses real time API’s is far more efficient (and arguably effective) than using a browser.

 

[MilKat10]

Hey @Lvivske, I agree with @Vetvito . I don’t really know what you are doing in tradingview : trading off the charts with live tick data or running pine script strategies ? I believe a dedicated trading software would work best but I don’t have the full story.

For the record I previously used Google sheets fetching delayed data and historical data for stocks via Google Finance in 100+ tabs simultaneously. There were then formulas for indicators in the spreadsheet to rrigger strategy alerts off this data. Sometimes I would run 2 or 3 similar spreadsheets in parallel for different markets in Chrome.

Too sum up, I can tell you that 16 gb of Ram was enough for this scenarios (and CPU was fine too). Sure 32 gb would have been a clear winner but for that workflow this would have spared me few seconds only for alerts.

The computer is a rMBP Late 2016 (touchbar) i7 quad core 2.6 ghz with 16 gb ram and 512 gb ssd.

I am now using a dedicated program for building strategies as I find these spreadsheets cumbersome to play with (compared to script and backtesting softwares).

Hope this helps tou (somehow).
/Milk
[doublepost=1532800872][/doublepost]

Doesn’t matter what CPU or RAM you upgrade to, it’s a poor work environment. Your problem is Chrome, and Firefox, but mostly Chrome.

For stocks, you don’t use a dedicated program? (I’m a day trader) I use TOS, and sometimes eSignal, and trade with DAS.

Back on topic, upgrading all of the above won’t fix your problem.

Hey @Vetvito I am hijacking the thread to ask you a question. I am using a backtesting software via paralells desktop but can only allocate 8gb-12gb ram to it atm (current machine is limited to 16gb ram). Do you think it’s worth it to get the new mbp 2018 i7 2.2 and bump the ram to 32 gb ram in order to use more ram for backtesting via parallels desktop ? would that even make a difference in genetic optimization ?

Thanks!
/MilK

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I think the only reason you're getting warnings from Safari but not from Chrome or Firefox is that Safari is telling you something the other browsers don't bother to tell you - that the sites you're viewing are resource-intensive. Resource usage on websites is primarily due to the website's programming, less upon which browser is rendering the website.

That said, it's fairly well known that Chrome for Mac and Chrome for iOS are resource hogs, and that Safari is among the most resource-efficient. I suggest running your sites in Safari for a while, ignore the warnings, and keep monitoring resource usage in Activity Monitor, comparing that performance to your Chrome performance. Don't depend solely upon %CPU - the CPU Load graph tends to be a better judge. Check RAM as well; again, Memory Pressure graph tends to be the best overall measure - the rest of the stats are more useful for the "deep dive" when memory pressure shows a problem.

In the end, your computer is a business tool, so if your trading activity is enough to earn you a living, then you should be able to afford whatever computer makes you happy. Maybe you'll end up learning that you have adequate power currently, and that more more doesn't change the situation. Maybe it'll actually make a difference (though I have my doubts).

When it comes to browsing you have to consider the speed of your internet connection and local network, as well as the computer. You have to consider the manner in which you use the browser (how many open windows/tabs, how much simultaneous streaming content vs. pausing that content when you're not viewing, the occasional need to clear caches/history, restart the computer, etc...). It's likely that there's more than one factor contributing to your issue.

 

[NoBoMac]

the sites you're viewing are resource-intensive. Resource usage on websites is primarily due to the website's programming, less upon which browser is rendering the website.

That said, it's fairly well known that Chrome for Mac and Chrome for iOS are resource hogs
[...]
Check RAM as well; again, Memory Pressure graph tends to be the best overall measure - the rest of the stats are more useful for the "deep dive" when memory pressure shows a problem.

You have to consider the manner in which you use the browser (how many open windows/tabs, how much simultaneous streaming content vs. pausing that content when you're not viewing, the occasional need to clear caches/history, restart the computer, etc...). It's likely that there's more than one factor contributing to your issue.

All this.

Any browser with just one tab open may eat a fair chunk of RAM. For example, I have Safari open with two tabs, Mac Rumors and a Google blog. Safari main process is 400MB, MR is eating an additional 169MB, the Google blog is 127MB. Safari support processes eating an additional 40MB. That's 700+MB for just two tabs doing nothing. Extrapolate this out to more tabs/pages open, some maybe really resource intensive and or poorly designed, things get bloated really quick.

Chrome, from my experience as well, has been real resource intensive. Additionally, they just rolled out Site Isolation in Chrome to deal with Spectre/Meltdown CPU flaws. And this causes even more performance hits. Google says:

cause Chrome to create more renderer processes, which comes with performance tradeoffs: on the plus side, each renderer process is smaller, shorter-lived, and has less contention internally, but there is about a 10-13% total memory overhead in real workloads due to the larger number of processes.

https://security.googleblog.com/2018/07/mitigating-spectre-with-site-isolation.html

Plugins/extensions in browsers can be wonky and or resource hogs as well. Personally, I try to keep my extensions to a bare minimum (ad blocker, cookie blocker, that's about it).

In the past, I've seen browser history bog down browsers, so, I have a 30 day history limit set on my browsers vs. a "never clear" policy.

Per the snap of Activity Monitor, it does look like one tab in Chrome is really eating into things. Maybe try spreading the workload across Firefox, Safari, and Chrome, so that Chrome is not doing all the work. Might help mitigate things a bit. If you can plug into a widescreen display, can spread the windows out a bit to get a usable layout.

 

[Lvivske]

The latest build of Firefox will give you significantly better performance than Chrome or Safari for your purposes. Try it out, even on your current machine.

Okay, I did a ton of testing today while today was heavy volume (great testing scenario). 4 tabs of tradingview each, on all 3 browsers.

Firefox sadly was the worst offender. In just showing the windowed processes, Firefox was bleeding through CPU use vs Safari and Chrome. It used more memory as well. When broken down to active processes, Firefox, Firefox CP Web Content (I figure each one represents a tab) both just gargled resources compared to the Chorme (Chrome Helper) and Safari (url) equivalents.

edit:

Now here's what I got with Safari vs. Chrome

Safari's individual tabs seemed to use more CPU *and* memory than Chrome. When just showing windowed apps, then Safari used half the CPU than Chrome. If I add up everything Chrome related vs Safari in the hierarchical view, then Safari is more efficient.

However...

I tried to make a quick capture video here of how it responds in real time. Safari when changing between tabs gives me a white screen and a delay. Chrome was more responsive, but the drawing rendering was about the same. (and just to note about Firefox here, but using my macbooks touchpad on here is just awful, and eliminates it by default)

And finally on threading:

In the tests, showing all processes had Chrome at 130 threads vs. Safari's 60. In windowed mode, Chrome did have 3x more threads than Safari going on. Firefox had a whopping 240 threads. When comparing the windowed mode above, Firefox had more threads than Safari at a 76:10 ratio.

Based on this, I'm feeling now that a 2018 6-core CPU would help with all these tabs and threads going on at least. There seems to be a correlation between threads used by a process, and CPU% (duh), so more lanes could give me breathing room here. Coincidentally, Safari had the least threads and was also the least responsive.

[doublepost=1532964851][/doublepost]

Today's CPUs (for reference I am counting even my Late 2011 MBP i7 as today's CPU) are not going to be a bottleneck. Get more RAM if possible, but since you have 16 already, perhaps there may be number crunching going on. In that case, I really do not think there would be much to gain from a faster desktop level CPU if you are into serious number crunching, but, again, I could be wrong. if this is not a hobby, consider a windows machine or something, with Xeon grade processors. That investment would perhaps pay off faster and be more satisfactory.

FWIW, I went to a store on the weekend and they had a 2017 4-core i7 15" on display. Lower spec model. I just fiddled around with the usual sites I use on it, and it was noticeably more responsive than my current Macbook. This is without the live data feed, just using the trackpad to zoom in and out of charts, change timeframes, etc. Maybe faster RAM helps here too? Either way, it felt nice and there's definitely a bottleneck coming from my 6 year old laptop, which isn't surprising.

Doesn’t matter what CPU or RAM you upgrade to, it’s a poor work environment. Your problem is Chrome, and Firefox, but mostly Chrome.

For stocks, you don’t use a dedicated program? (I’m a day trader) I use TOS, and sometimes eSignal, and trade with DAS.

Back on topic, upgrading all of the above won’t fix your problem.

It may be a bad setup, may be subjective. My broker (Questrade) has a dedicated program but it's Windows only, and the web interface is much better and actually updated. TOS seems to be American only. eSignal looks interesting, but doesnt seem to offer anything that Tradingview and my broker's interface doesnt (unless we're just talking performance).

And then we're talking double/triple dipping on L2 / market data for yet another platform...I dunno. I'll look into it more, thanks for the recommendation.

Yep, an app or program which uses real time API’s is far more efficient (and arguably effective) than using a browser.

Both would be real-time, so it's moreso down to efficiency.

Hey @Lvivske, I agree with @Vetvito . I don’t really know what you are doing in tradingview : trading off the charts with live tick data or running pine script strategies ? I believe a dedicated trading software would work best but I don’t have the full story.

Too sum up, I can tell you that 16 gb of Ram was enough for this scenarios (and CPU was fine too). Sure 32 gb would have been a clear winner but for that workflow this would have spared me few seconds only for alerts.

The computer is a rMBP Late 2016 (touchbar) i7 quad core 2.6 ghz with 16 gb ram and 512 gb ssd.

I am now using a dedicated program for building strategies as I find these spreadsheets cumbersome to play with (compared to script and backtesting softwares).

Hope this helps tou (somehow).
/Milk

Live data, no scripts at the moment. Thanks for the info!

 

[macintoshmac]

If you felt marked improvements without even the live feed, then you should just go and grab one with your eyes closed. You will most certainly benefit from them.

 

[Lvivske]

If you felt marked improvements without even the live feed, then you should just go and grab one with your eyes closed. You will most certainly benefit from them.

I think at the very least I'll feel a decent base level improvement with any option, but multi-threading seems important here. A 4-core 2.8ghz will be a 15% improvement on multi, but the 2.2ghz 6-core is 73% improvement (based on geekbench scores). I'm heavily leaning on the 2.2 2018 at this point.

Not sure what was driving the "feeling good" snappiness in the store model. GPU? Just better CPU clock speed eliminating any stutter? Faster ram? Either way, felt nice, but that was with zero load involved.