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i5 vs i7 rmbp13/2015

For $200 extra any benefits are outweighed by the price. Simply not worth it but to be honest CPU upgrades are the least of your worries for the wallet since they are the same across all the notebook manufacturers. Top of the line CPU is always a lot more expensive than what it gives in return. Golden rule is to stay at the middle most of the time.

In Broadwell's case i7 is more of an marketing gimmick then what it used to be back in the Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge days. I would not even consider i7 over i5 unless its a quad core anyway.

rMBP are superbly engineered machines but closing down on the most common customizable areas like RAM and disk space gives them the window to charge arm an a leg. 8GB of RAM extra for $200 is insane especially since there are no performance gains of soldered RAM memory. SSDs are even bigger question mark. And then there is no dedicated GPU option at all. When you compare that to CPU options suddenly the most expensive CPU is not so expensive.

13 rMBP base MSRP is right on the money but add any other option to it and any value there was goes out of the window. 15 rMBP doesnt even have a business case if you ask me unless you are really a die hard OSX fan.

Bottom line: 2.9 i5 is the sweet place to be if you require CPU performance. If you don't require CPU then go with the base 2.7 i5.
 
I bought the 13" with 2.9 i5 not because I wanted the the extra 0.2Ghz speed but because it's the only 13" option that offers the 512GB SSD option. If the 2.7 offered it I would have just got that instead. The same way back in 2011 I bought the i7 Mac Mini not because I wanted that over the i5 but because it was the only one that offered a 750 GB HD and the Nvidia dGPU. Apple doesn't unfortunately offer more flexibility in configuration options so sometimes you have to go for other upgrades as part of the package even though you may not want or need them.
 
Mr.C said:
I bought the 13" with 2.9 i5 not because I wanted the the extra 0.2Ghz speed but because it's the only 13" option that offers the 512GB SSD option. If the 2.7 offered it I would have just got that instead. The same way back in 2011 I bought the i7 Mac Mini not because I wanted that over the i5 but because it was the only one that offered a 750 GB HD and the Nvidia dGPU. Apple doesn't unfortunately offer more flexibility in configuration options so sometimes you have to go for other upgrades as part of the package even though you may not want or need them.
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That's also a different use case than what the OP was asking about. To be perfectly honest, if you don't need the larger SSD, then you'd be fine choosing the i5 over the i7 for the 13: rMBP. There's just not enough of a significant difference in performance between the two parts to justify paying the extra money just for the processor bump.
 
This is more of a subjective thing than anything else. I assume the i7 chip in the 2015 13" MBP is an i7-5557U, and the i5 is an i5-3320M.

The i5 can handle 32 gigs of RAM, while the i7 only 16... but because the RAM is not upgradable, this isn't a big deal.

The i5 also only has (as per Intel's ARK) 1 lane of PCIe 3.0, while the i7 has 12 PCIe 2.0 lanes. For stuff I do (and again, this varies for people), I/O is more important than CPU, especially with virtualization, the 11 additional lanes of PCIe are useful.

Oddly enough, the i5 has more items like TXT and other new features, but the i7 is faster, so it is a trade-off.

The main reason I'm looking at the i7 is because I'm already going to be paying the price for a high quality machine, I might as well spend the two C-notes and get the fastest CPU available. I would guess the difference for most users would be negligible, but in tasks like virtualization, the i7 has the added PCIe lanes which help with shuffling data around the machine.
 
mlts22 said:
This is more of a subjective thing than anything else. I assume the i7 chip in the 2015 13" MBP is an i7-5557U, and the i5 is an i5-3320M.

The i5 can handle 32 gigs of RAM, while the i7 only 16... but because the RAM is not upgradable, this isn't a big deal.

The i5 also only has (as per Intel's ARK) 1 lane of PCIe 3.0, while the i7 has 12 PCIe 2.0 lanes. For stuff I do (and again, this varies for people), I/O is more important than CPU, especially with virtualization, the 11 additional lanes of PCIe are useful.

Oddly enough, the i5 has more items like TXT and other new features, but the i7 is faster, so it is a trade-off.

The main reason I'm looking at the i7 is because I'm already going to be paying the price for a high quality machine, I might as well spend the two C-notes and get the fastest CPU available. I would guess the difference for most users would be negligible, but in tasks like virtualization, the i7 has the added PCIe lanes which help with shuffling data around the machine.
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Nope it's an i5-5257U or Core i7-5557U (Which you said).
 
mlts22 said:
This is more of a subjective thing than anything else. I assume the i7 chip in the 2015 13" MBP is an i7-5557U, and the i5 is an i5-3320M.
Click to expand...

As someone else pointed out, the i5 is either a i5-5257U or i5-5287U. They have the same specs, aside from clock speed and L3 cache, as the i7-5557U.
 
FtrV8 said:
Great info in this thread. I am in the market for a new 13 inch and was set on the i7 config, but will save my $200!

I do run a Windows VM via Parallels, that was my only reason to get the i7. RAM will be maxed for sure.

Thanks for the great info all.
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Now that I've had my i7 for a while I think I would have been just as happy with the i5, and the extra $$$. My i7 is about as fast as the current i5's anyway, and Virtualbox runs just great. Having the 16GB memory and SSD is far more important. Even 8GB is fine if you're not running large VM's all the time.
 
ZBoater said:
So I take it having the fastest computer isn't worth $200 to you?

Ok.
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We all know what your concept of worth is, i.e throwing money out the window just for the sake of having the best.

I like getting what I feel is good value for my money. If a $200 price hike means only a marginal difference that would only be really perciptible in artificial benchmarks, then I'm not getting all that much value for my money.

Sure, you'd be getting the fastest. No one can say otherwise. But would it be noticeably faster apart from a lighter wallet and a warm fuzzy feeling knowing you got the top end? Heck no. Even if you worked with the computer professionally, any perceived difference would all be in your head. The two computers are pretty much dead even in terms of performance.

If I was all about the e-peen, then maybe. But I'm not.
 
snaky69 said:
We all know what your concept of worth is, i.e throwing money out the window just for the sake of having the best.

I like getting what I feel is good value for my money. If a $200 price hike means only a marginal difference that would only be really perciptible in artificial benchmarks, then I'm not getting all that much value for my money.

Sure, you'd be getting the fastest. No one can say otherwise. But would it be noticeably faster apart from a lighter wallet and a warm fuzzy feeling knowing you got the top end? Heck no. Even if you worked with the computer professionally, any perceived difference would all be in your head. The two computers are pretty much dead even in terms of performance.

If I was all about the e-peen, then maybe. But I'm not.
Click to expand...

It's ok if you want to rationalize not wanting to spend $200. But I don't get why'd you'd impugn somebody who does. So my computer is a little faster than yours. Does it really bother you that much? Those $200 are looking more worth it...
 
ZBoater said:
It's ok if you want to rationalize not wanting to spend $200. But I don't get why'd you'd impugn somebody who does. So my computer is a little faster than yours. Does it really bother you that much? Those $200 are looking more worth it...
Click to expand...

Actually, no, it isn't faster than mine. Mine has a quad core and discrete graphics. So really mine is about twice as fast as yours.

Now that we've compared our e-peen, no, it doesn't bother me one bit that you spent those $200. It's your wallet that is lighter for it, not mine. I really don't give a crap actually.

What bothers me is that you are advising people to spend more money than they need to when there are no tangible benefits to doing so. Those few extra points on a benchmark just don't translate into real world performance. What bothers me is that you are basically saying "buy the more expensive one just to have bragging rights". To me, that's just poor advice. If you have the disposable income to "overbuy", by all means, be my guest.

Your general attitude on here tells me you're probably one of those guys that'd buy a Lamborghini simply to drive it on the freeway at the speed limit, with absolutely zero intent on actually pushing the car to its limits on a racetrack, where it belongs.
 
ZBoater said:
It's ok if you want to rationalize not wanting to spend $200. But I don't get why'd you'd impugn somebody who does. So my computer is a little faster than yours. Does it really bother you that much? Those $200 are looking more worth it...
Click to expand...
This is where the conversation becomes childish. If you're comfortable with your purchase, move on.
 
What I wonder about is if the higher I/O and PCIe channels of the i7 bus would make it significantly better for virtualization than the i5.

This isn't something that the common user does, but it does come in handy if a machine can do this well.
 
mlts22 said:
What I wonder about is if the higher I/O and PCIe channels of the i7 bus would make it significantly better for virtualization than the i5.

This isn't something that the common user does, but it does come in handy if a machine can do this well.
Click to expand...

I don't think there's any difference in the I/O and PCIe channels between the i7 and i5. After all, they're from the same family (Broadwell-U).
 
T5BRICK said:
For the record, I recently purchased a 13" rMBP i7/16GB/512GB. It's a great computer, but the only reason I went with the i7 is because it was the only configuration available at the Apple Store with 16GB of RAM.
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exact same here
 
mlts22 said:
What I wonder about is if the higher I/O and PCIe channels of the i7 bus would make it significantly better for virtualization than the i5.

This isn't something that the common user does, but it does come in handy if a machine can do this well.
Click to expand...

I don't know where you're getting this information, but it is incorrect. The i5 and i7 are from the same family and have the same specs aside from clock speed and L3 cache.
 
dmccloud said:
That's also a different use case than what the OP was asking about. To be perfectly honest, if you don't need the larger SSD, then you'd be fine choosing the i5 over the i7 for the 13: rMBP. There's just not enough of a significant difference in performance between the two parts to justify paying the extra money just for the processor bump.
Click to expand...

I'm aware of that. My point was that there are certain cases depending on personal needs where getting a higher speed CPU is justifiable. I doubt very much that I would notice the difference in speed but the larger capacity SSD is important to me.
 
snaky69 said:
We all know what your concept of worth is, i.e throwing money out the window just for the sake of having the best.

I like getting what I feel is good value for my money. If a $200 price hike means only a marginal difference that would only be really perciptible in artificial benchmarks, then I'm not getting all that much value for my money.

Sure, you'd be getting the fastest. No one can say otherwise. But would it be noticeably faster apart from a lighter wallet and a warm fuzzy feeling knowing you got the top end? Heck no. Even if you worked with the computer professionally, any perceived difference would all be in your head. The two computers are pretty much dead even in terms of performance.

If I was all about the e-peen, then maybe. But I'm not.
Click to expand...

snaky69 said:
Actually, no, it isn't faster than mine. Mine has a quad core and discrete graphics. So really mine is about twice as fast as yours.

Now that we've compared our e-peen, no, it doesn't bother me one bit that you spent those $200. It's your wallet that is lighter for it, not mine. I really don't give a crap actually.

What bothers me is that you are advising people to spend more money than they need to when there are no tangible benefits to doing so. Those few extra points on a benchmark just don't translate into real world performance. What bothers me is that you are basically saying "buy the more expensive one just to have bragging rights". To me, that's just poor advice. If you have the disposable income to "overbuy", by all means, be my guest.

Your general attitude on here tells me you're probably one of those guys that'd buy a Lamborghini simply to drive it on the freeway at the speed limit, with absolutely zero intent on actually pushing the car to its limits on a racetrack, where it belongs.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your posts. I had this same discussion a while back with him as he was telling others to do exactly the same thing and throw money away for no good reason. Just because he likes getting the top of the line just to claim he has the best he seems to think it's OK for others and has a habit in these forums of telling people to do just that. Not everyone needs to max out their computer.

Hell I just bought an early 13" Retina MacBook Pro a couple of weeks ago and got just 8GB of RAM and the 512GB SSD. I could have got the 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM if I wanted to. I could have even gone for a maxed out top of the line 15" Retina MacBook Pro. I didn't because what I got was all I needed. I didn't even want to pay extra for the 2.9GHz CPU but had no choice as I needed the 512GB SSD. If I could have bought the 2.7GHz with a 512GB SSD I would have.
 
mlts22 said:
What I wonder about is if the higher I/O and PCIe channels of the i7 bus would make it significantly better for virtualization than the i5.

This isn't something that the common user does, but it does come in handy if a machine can do this well.
Click to expand...

You're confusing the desktop versions with the mobile versions. The mobile versions are identical except for clock speed and L3 cache sizes.
 
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