Looking to upgrade - Please help with comparison to my current machine

[LixLev]

Hi, I'm looking to upgrade to a new 12 inch 2017 Retina Macbook, and just wanted to get some advice from people with knowledge.

I am currently running a MacBook Pro 13 inch early 2011 model. It runs a Sandy Bridge Dual Core i5 2.3GHz Processor. I was wondering if anyone knew how that compared to the i7 KabyLake processor in the 2017 12 inch Retina MacBook.

I know very little about processors and would be keen to understand from someone with knowledge a bit more about whether or not I would be jumping up in processor speed.

Many Thanks in advance!

 

[Stefan johansson]

The new machine is a lot faster,and if that's what you want,you will be surprised when you see the difference.
A 2011 Mac is of course a good computer,but it's clearly slower than the new Kaby lake machines.

 

[oreganoinferno]

Hi,

coming from the same generation&spec, I've been looking into the matter as well.

When only checking the CPU, you have the following benchmark according to cpubenchmark.net

i5-2415M@2,3 GHz: 3298
i7-7Y75@1,3GHz: 3908 (can't find stats for the 1.4GHz version, extrapolating would result in approx. 4200)

=> 28% increase in CPU performance (approx.!)
Also important, the rMB relies on a fan-less cooling design, wich means the power above might not be available all the time due to heating up of the system.

For the overall system, look at the Geekbench results (short-term benchmark only, too):

MBP 2011: 4765
rMB 2017: 8100 (give or take 200 points)

=> 70% performance boost

So, considering the nice screen, higher resolution, better portability, fresh battery, there's quite a nice overall performance gain. Anyway, if it comes to CPU performance only, it would not be worth it for me (after heavily considering all rMB variants, I went with the MBP nTB baseline instead, have it since 5 days now and love it already! Approx. 74% in CPU and 92% in overall performance gain...)

 

[Stefan johansson]

Hi,

coming from the same generation&spec, I've been looking into the matter as well.

When only checking the CPU, you have the following benchmark according to cpubenchmark.net

i5-2415M@2,3 GHz: 3298
i7-7Y75@1,3GHz: 3908 (can't find stats for the 1.4GHz version, extrapolating would result in approx. 4200)

=> 28% increase in CPU performance (approx.!)
Also important, the rMB relies on a fan-less cooling design, wich means the power above might not be available all the time due to heating up of the system.

For the overall system, look at the Geekbench results (short-term benchmark only, too):

MBP 2011: 4765
rMB 2017: 8100 (give or take 200 points)

=> 70% performance boost

So, considering the nice screen, higher resolution, better portability, fresh battery, there's quite a nice overall performance gain. Anyway, if it comes to CPU performance only, it would not be worth it for me (after heavily considering all rMB variants, I went with the MBP nTB baseline instead, have it since 5 days now and love it already! Approx. 74% in CPU and 92% in overall performance gain...)

Benchmark tests is not everything,unless you're a hardcore geek or gamer. My old and kind of slow i5 MacBook Pro works well,and one or two seconds extra when processing large tasks like RAW photo editing,does not really bother me.

 

[oreganoinferno]

Benchmark tests is not everything,unless you're a hardcore geek or gamer. My old and kind of slow i5 MacBook Pro works well,and one or two seconds extra when processing large tasks like RAW photo editing,does not really bother me.

Hm, OP's initial question was about performance increase, that's what I delivered information on, because I had the same question... Otherwise, OP's motivation is not clear, perhaps interested into the weight drop of more than 1kg?

Otherwise, I agree with you; I would not have moved up from my old machine for another 2 or 3 years either, but last summer I had a terrible beer spill accident, which damaged the logic board. Despite some "hacker style" software fixes found in dubious online forums, it wasn't the same machine anymore (laggy & hot even when running basic tasks only).
My wife has the 2012 classic 13" MBP, now with SSD upgrade; I expect that to still be around in the early 2020ties.

 

[Stefan johansson]

Hm, OP's initial question was about performance increase, that's what I delivered information on, because I had the same question... Otherwise, OP's motivation is not clear, perhaps interested into the weight drop of more than 1kg?

Otherwise, I agree with you; I would not have moved up from my old machine for another 2 or 3 years either, but last summer I had a terrible beer spill accident, which damaged the logic board. Despite some "hacker style" software fixes found in dubious online forums, it wasn't the same machine anymore (laggy & hot even when running basic tasks only).
My wife has the 2012 classic 13" MBP, now with SSD upgrade; I expect that to still be around in the early 2020ties.

Yes,SSD upgrade will give more noticeable performance jump than just upgrading processor,but SSD upgrades don't show fully in benchmark tests,as those tests mostly is focused on processor and RAM.

 

[oreganoinferno]

Sorry, I don't get your point. First you say benchmarks are not that important, then you say the subjective noticeable performance boost when upgrading older Macs to SSD does not effect benchmarks (I don't doubt that, but again, what is your point?). That's also why I posted CPU benchmarks (interesting for CPU-heavy tasks like rendering, or video encoding) and Geekbench, which looks on overall system performance (and is hence to be considered with caution, yes).

 

[Stefan johansson]

Sorry, I don't get your point. First you say benchmarks are not that important, then you say the subjective noticeable performance boost when upgrading older Macs to SSD does not effect benchmarks (I don't doubt that, but again, what is your point?). That's also why I posted CPU benchmarks (interesting for CPU-heavy tasks like rendering, or video encoding) and Geekbench, which looks on overall system performance (and is hence to be considered with caution, yes).

Ok,my point was that benchmark tests oonly are reliable for measuring processor capacity.