MBPr 2.3 vs 2.6 i7

[ct2k7]

Hi,

I'm going to be replacing my Late 2011 MBP with a new MBPr fairly, soon - has to be delivered by the 7th March.

I'll be getting the topmost MBPr however, I am trying to decide if it's worth spending an extra £170 to get the 0.3Ghz initial boost in clock speed.

I'm currently leaning towards no, simply because most applications I use and would normally have open at any time are:

• Xcode
• IntelliJ
• Safari
• IRC Client
• Sparrow / Mail
• Terminal
• iTunes
• Office for Mac
• maybe Minecraft
• Git Client
• Parallels Desktop

What do you think?

 

[Jeff Flowerday]

Storage
Memory
Processor

Is how I prioritize upgrades when ordering a machine.

 

[yjchua95]

Hi,

I'm going to be replacing my Late 2011 MBP with a new MBPr fairly, soon - has to be delivered by the 7th March.

I'll be getting the topmost MBPr however, I am trying to decide if it's worth spending an extra £170 to get the 0.3Ghz initial boost in clock speed.

I'm currently leaning towards no, simply because most applications I use and would normally have open at any time are:

• Xcode
• IntelliJ
• Safari
• IRC Client
• Sparrow / Mail
• Terminal
• iTunes
• Office for Mac
• maybe Minecraft
• Git Client
• Parallels Desktop

What do you think?

Well...the 2.3GHz rMBP gets about 13500 on Geekbench, while the 2.6GHz gets around 14900-15000.

The 2.3GHz will do you fine.

PS if you get the 1TB SSD, it's much faster because it uses a 4-lane PCIe connection, while all other capacities use a 2-lane PCIe connection.

You should get around 950MB/s - 1.2GB/s in reads/writes on the 1TB SSD, and around 650MB/s - 750MB/s on 512GB SM0512F (Samsung) SSDs.

 

[holyindian]

There is no word such as an Over Kill in the world of computers especially for the CPU. Get the best CPU, and the RAM. Storage is dirt cheap these days. External disk 3TB > 100 dollars, same with NAS. paying 500 dollars for 1TB flash disk is not wise. Just for storing files on a 500 dollar disk makes no sense. 512GB SSD is perfect for loading, strapping, or scratch disks. Store all your files on a NAS drive. Map your network drive to ur mac, and you'll have limitless storage. I have a 72TB media storage mapped to my mac.

After a few months, or probably a year u might realize the need of extra RAM or CPU power. People are waiting for the fourth quarter for the new more powerful CPU. Getting a 2.6Ghz will also earn you a spot with 3GHz of graphic memory for free.

 

[thekev]

There is no word such as an Over Kill in the world of computers especially for the CPU. Get the best CPU, and the RAM.

The difference between 2.3 and 2.6 in the same generation is trivial. If you're actually strapped for cpu power to the point where it's worth the additional cost, it's time to expand the search beyond notebooks. In terms of the OP's uses, it might shave 7 - 10% off compile time somewhere if that. Ram is a different issue. You can run more things including VMs before you start to encounter reduced performance due to increased disk access. Even with an SSD, I find the difference to be noticeable. Most of the time the only worthwhile cpu upgrade these days is the one that provides more cores, and even then it's relative to how well your software scales with core counts.

 

[dylin]

• Xcode
• IntelliJ
• Safari
• IRC Client
• Sparrow / Mail
• Terminal
• iTunes
• Office for Mac
• maybe Minecraft
• Git Client
• Parallels Desktop

with what you have listed, you don't really need the extra power. The 2.3 will be more than enough for you

but if you need the most high end machine and you're willing to spend, then go for it bro

 

[holyindian]

The difference between 2.3 and 2.6 in the same generation is trivial. If you're actually strapped for cpu power to the point where it's worth the additional cost, it's time to expand the search beyond notebooks. In terms of the OP's uses, it might shave 7 - 10% off compile time somewhere if that. Ram is a different issue. You can run more things including VMs before you start to encounter reduced performance due to increased disk access. Even with an SSD, I find the difference to be noticeable. Most of the time the only worthwhile cpu upgrade these days is the one that provides more cores, and even then it's relative to how well your software scales with core counts.

Do they have the 2.3Ghz mac with the 2GB Nvidia 750M DGPU?

 

[thekev]

Do they have the 2.3Ghz mac with the 2GB Nvidia 750M DGPU?

Of course they do. The base model is the 2.0. You're thinking of the 2012 and early 2013 models. The base model cpu in those was clocked at a default (non turbo) setting of 2.3.

 

[holyindian]

Of course they do. The base model is the 2.0. You're thinking of the 2012 and early 2013 models. The base model cpu in those was clocked at a default (non turbo) setting of 2.3.

If they have the 2GB extra dGPU on the 2.3ghz, that should be perfectly fine.
I brought the 15.4" 2.6Ghz with 16gb ram, 3gb gpu, 512GB f disk.. last week.. mainly for high CPU intensive tasks, mapped the 72TB Windows Home Server which is on FlexRaid.. setup CCC to backup the system on the raided disk.. all set.
Was thinking of installing windows 7 as well. What do you suggest.. on a different boot? or setup to use both the OS at the same time.. will it draw more CPU/Memory consumption if i run both the OS's at the same?

 

[thekev]

Was thinking of installing windows 7 as well. What do you suggest.. on a different boot? or setup to use both the OS at the same time.. will it draw more CPU/Memory consumption if i run both the OS's at the same?

Your VMs use as many cycles as they use. I haven't investigated whether Parallels or Fusion allow for explicit percentages to be set for max cpu time to be allocated to a VM. The extra vram isn't going to do much there beyond not requiring shared memory if it uses discrete graphics 100% of that time rather than switching to integrated to save power. VMs use varied amounts of memory depending on how you are using them. Some hardware features simply aren't supported regardless of what you're running, because there is no equivalent virtual hardware written. For example your windows vm won't see a 750m. It may not see an NVidia card at all, but that is dependent on the hypervisor, in this case Parallels or Fusion.

The actual cpu and memory consumption will be something along the lines of whatever OSX uses on its own + whatever the software hypervisor uses. Running Windows virtualized definitely won't give you the same level of performance. It's one of those things that you just have to test. If it's demanding enough, you would probably want to run one OS at a time regardless of the hardware. It may or may not work out okay. If it was me, I would test it.

 

[alphaod]

Yes to me. Probably not to you if you are asking.