According to Benchmarks, it is faster, just by a bit. On multi-core, not as much (of course).
Is this really the case?
Would I benefit from upgrading?
Is this really the case?
Would I benefit from upgrading?
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Is the new rMB really faster than my '13 rMBP?
- Thread starter Hog Milanese
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I travel a lot, so the form factor is nice. And the battery life on my rMBP is starting to dwindle.
This might be the longest I've owned a computer, ha — but with the lag in tech improvements in processors over the years, I've been holding out. I'd also like to make sure I get maximum resell value for my rMBP before it gets too outdated.
For average use, under low cpu utilization, yes, it will probably feel faster as the Core-M is optimized for burst activity, and the SSD speed improvements since 2013 will pay dividends. For anything more computationally complex, where the processor is put under continuous load (manipulating large batches of photos, editing videos, compiling code, converting video, gaming, etc) your current machine will be much faster.
When traveling for work, mostly Google Drive/Gmail, Salesforce, Slack – things like that. Nothing really intense, though RAM is always important. I occasionally do work in Photoshop. The only (Mac) gaming I do is Hearthstone. I bought a Windows-based "gaming PC" for most of my gaming.
Which 2013 rMBP are you talking about? My late 2013 13" rMBP at 2.4 ghz i5 still benchmarks a bit faster than the new 1.2 ghz core m5. it's close though. The ssd on the new MB is certainly faster than mine.
Honestly I his moved from a 13 retina 2.9 8`gb 512GB to the new 2016 1.2 m5 8gb 512 and can't see much difference ... if anything using fusion to run windows 7 (Visio & MS project) starts faster and runs smoother
in my daily workflow mainly outlook powerpoint and Hugh spreadsheets ... is very much same same programs seem to start faster .... I've been using it for the last 3 days picked one up in London uk in the first hour they went on the shelfs so i guess im over the ..... new toy thing .....
if anything the battery is reporting a much better run time (Cloned via Migration Assistant) so the setup should be the same
start up from power to log in to all loaded is faster (SSD speed ?) and resume from sleep is also faster ..
only bug bear is the key board ... which kinds of reminds me of a old 90s IBM Thinkpad (from the typing noise) ... but still getting used to it
glad I did not pull the trigger last Monday on the "Old" 1.3 .... YMMV
in my daily workflow mainly outlook powerpoint and Hugh spreadsheets ... is very much same same programs seem to start faster .... I've been using it for the last 3 days picked one up in London uk in the first hour they went on the shelfs so i guess im over the ..... new toy thing .....
if anything the battery is reporting a much better run time (Cloned via Migration Assistant) so the setup should be the same
start up from power to log in to all loaded is faster (SSD speed ?) and resume from sleep is also faster ..
only bug bear is the key board ... which kinds of reminds me of a old 90s IBM Thinkpad (from the typing noise) ... but still getting used to it
glad I did not pull the trigger last Monday on the "Old" 1.3 .... YMMV
Nope. The 2016 m7 MacBook has more or less equal performance to 2015 MacBook Pro, even when the MacBook is under sustained loads, according to the benchmarks.
See here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/any-benchmarks-for-the-core-m7.1968663/#post-22829616
m7 Macbook multicore: 6212
i5 MacBook Pro: ~6300
Test was taken under a load to enable throttling.
I've seen the benchmarks, but if someone really thinks a 5w cpu with passive cooling is going to be as fast under sustained load they have no idea what they are talking about and/or their testing mechanism is flawed. Nothing has fundamentally changed in the Skylake M chips.
I'm confused all together.
I thought people were saying Core M to M5 was about 15-20% faster, yet people last year were saying how slow Core M is and that its a netbook ish proc,
How is m5 toe in toe with i5 on a retina macbook pro?
I'm not hating, I love my 2015 rMB as sole machine, but I thought the narrative was different?
I thought people were saying Core M to M5 was about 15-20% faster, yet people last year were saying how slow Core M is and that its a netbook ish proc,
How is m5 toe in toe with i5 on a retina macbook pro?
I'm not hating, I love my 2015 rMB as sole machine, but I thought the narrative was different?
Fundamentally both the core m and i-series chips are the same silicon, so they are both approximately the same speed in short bursts. This is why the rMB has perfectly acceptable performance for most general usage, because most office and casual work is not CPU intensive. You need a burst of CPU speed to perform a task, and it quickly then settles back to a low power state. In that scenario both chips will complete the work in the same time. However, the M-series chips do not have the thermal headroom to dissipate heat at the rate that the more powerful chips do. So if you have a workload that is computationally intensive, where the CPU is running at full speed for a sustained period of time, the M-chips will have to throttle more quickly because they have less mass and no fans with which to remove the heat. The i-series chips will be able to continue to run at the same speed for a much longer period of time. This capability is, in part, dictated by the power dissipation limits defined by Intel. For Core M that's about 5w. For i-series u-chips, used in the MBA and most PC laptops, that's 15w. For the 13" MBP, it's 28w, and the 15" MBP, it's 45w.
According to:
https://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks
The slowest 2015 Macbook Pro 13 benchmarks 6862 in 64bit multicore.
Damn it, I was accidentally comparing 32 bit to 64 bit.
Here is the 64 bit 2015 MacBook Pro i5 v. 64-bit 2016 m7 MacBook: https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/6197563?baseline=6203704
Single core: MacBook Pro scores 3128 vs. 3001 for MacBook. MacBook Pro is 4% faster than the MacBook
Multi core: MacBook Pro scores 6686 vs. 6707 for the MacBook. The MacBook matches the MacBook Pro speed.
And from this thread, the MacBook results under sustained loads: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/any-benchmarks-for-the-core-m7.1968663/#post-22829616
Single core: 2870. The MacBook Pro 15% faster
Multicore: 6212. The MacBook Pro 7% faster
So for non-sustained loads, which is nearly all computing tasks, MacBook seems to match the speed of the MacBook Pro. Under sustained loads, and especially multicore sustained loads, the MacBook Pro is marginally faster. Based on these results, under normal use, there shouldn't be a performance difference between the two notebooks. If you were timing video render speeds, the Pro would be slightly faster.
Again, those tests are not representative in any way of real-world sustained performance. Someone saying, 'yeah I ran a couple tests in a row' is interesting, but it's not a test.
For a quick look, you can see this chart from last year's macbook test.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9136/the-2015-macbook-review/9
![73534.png]()
that article goes into some of the details of why this is.
This article is much more specific to Core M. http://www.anandtech.com/show/9117/analyzing-intel-core-m-performance/
with something like this being much more representative of Core M's sustained performance (and note that this is only benched against the 15-watt U processors, not the much more powerful processors of the MBP's.
![73443.png]()
I'm as vocal a proponent of Core-M and the new Macbook as anyone here - I think it's ideally suited to much of the modern computing environment. But I'm also realistic and believe in the right tool for the job. Core-M is not intended for sustained load.
For a quick look, you can see this chart from last year's macbook test.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9136/the-2015-macbook-review/9
that article goes into some of the details of why this is.
This article is much more specific to Core M. http://www.anandtech.com/show/9117/analyzing-intel-core-m-performance/
with something like this being much more representative of Core M's sustained performance (and note that this is only benched against the 15-watt U processors, not the much more powerful processors of the MBP's.
I'm as vocal a proponent of Core-M and the new Macbook as anyone here - I think it's ideally suited to much of the modern computing environment. But I'm also realistic and believe in the right tool for the job. Core-M is not intended for sustained load.
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I remember the "Core M is rubbish.." bandwagon from last year. Almost stopped me from getting one..
I just thought it was from people who hadn't actually used it.
I mean, I'm running Logic Pro X on my 2015 12", and using Xcode...
Again, those tests are not representative in any way of real-world sustained performance. Someone saying, 'yeah I ran a couple tests in a row' is interesting, but it's not a test.
For a quick look, you can see this chart from last year's macbook test.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9136/the-2015-macbook-review/9
![73534.png]()
that article goes into some of the details of why this is.
This article is much more specific to Core M. http://www.anandtech.com/show/9117/analyzing-intel-core-m-performance/
with something like this being much more representative of Core M's sustained performance (and note that this is only benched against the 15-watt U processors, not the much more powerful processors of the MBP's.
Of course the laptop isn't intended for sustained loads. But 99.999999% of computing tasks aren't under sustained loads. Unless OP regularly sits around doing batch Photoshop edits for 30 minutes, the performance under sustained loads won't matter in the least. There are very few consumers that sustained load performance is relevant to. So unless OP is one of those few consumers, the MacBook is the most appropriate machine.
Gaming graphics performance matters to more consumers, but the 2016 MacBook runs at 22 fps, vs 28 fps for the 2015 Pro on Cinebench. Again, not a big difference, unless you're editing massive 4k video or game regularly (in this case, this notebook isn't for you).
And it's not as if the baseline 2015 MacBook in the speed test you linked to performed obscenely slow. 28 seconds for 2015 MacBook vs. 21 second for 2013 MacBook Pro. Given that the m7 seems to be between 30% and 40% faster than the 1.2 GHz 2015 MacBook, we'll likely see it's performance improve by a few seconds in the 2016 m7, to be comparable to or even exceed the 2013 Pro.
The problem with last year's Core M is that it took quite a while for it to ramp up to turbo boost speeds (maybe a fifth of a second). So a lot of people were complaining about lag on that computer. But that's been eliminated in the 2016 Core M family. All the testimonials I've seen thus far have indicated that m7 performance feels identical to the 13" Pro.