I can benchmark 2015 m3 vs 2017 i7

[sunapple]

Geekbench 4 2017: 4180/8171
Geekbench 4 2015: 2787/4885

Geekbench 4 2017 OpenCL: 19216
Geekbench 4 2015 OpenCL: 11629

Disk speed: [Note different SSD capacity and I have filevault enabled on both devices]
2015 (256gb) 437/433
2017 (512gb) 1247/1324

Impressive difference the new i7 makes.

I've owned the low-end 2015 as well and it was decent at doing everyday tasks or even light Illustrator and SolidWorks work. The new one must be able to do those things a lot better, not yet replacing my 15" MBP though of course, but still.

Why did you go for the i7 and not just the i5? Is it a big difference?

 

[Ynk]

Why did you go for the i7 and not just the i5? Is it a big difference?

I didn't know the difference when I ordered, when I moved from the Air to the MB 2 years ago I made a big tradeoff in performance to take the retina display. 2 years later the 8GB ram and poor GPU were the main reasons for me wanting to upgrade to the 2017 model. Going to the i7 is not great value for money and more of a nice to have, since I was spending so much to go for the 16GB and 512 SSD I thought why not on the i7....

The ram and GPU performance improvements are the highlights for me personally, if you are in a position where 10-15% CPU improvements are critical you're buying the wrong laptop

 

[palmwangja]

2 years later the 8GB ram and poor GPU were the main reasons for me wanting to upgrade to the 2017 model.

In what circumstances, did you feel pain that is specifically coming from the poor GPU?

 

[Ynk]

In what circumstances, did you feel pain that is specifically coming from the poor GPU?

The UI lag on the 2015 I could easily notice compared to my iMac in almost every application. Even basic things like scrolling web pages in safari, sliding the dock with magnification turned on etc - Don't get me wrong, it was fine you could still use everything normally but personally I could really notice the low frame rates and it used to irritate me

 

[palmwangja]

The UI lag on the 2015 I could easily notice compared to my iMac in almost every application. Even basic things like scrolling web pages in safari, sliding the dock with magnification turned on etc - Don't get me wrong, it was fine you could still use everything normally but personally I could really notice the low frame rates and it used to irritate me

Thanks, I also felt the same sort of uncomfortable experience with the 2015 machine, even though mine was CTO, and I'm not sure whether it's due to CPU or GPU.

If the UI lag was mostly from the lack of GPU power, then I'd go and max out 2017 version again.