Mid 2012 MBP i7 vs i5

[FyerFyer]

Hi guyd

I hv a MBP mid 2012 i5 with ssd and maxed out ram. I’ve been offered the i7 model for £200.

Is it worth buying the i7 model for £200, swapping my ssd and ram into the i7? Would there be that much difference? Both r quite old now obviously

 

[ArkSingularity]

The i7 model has a 400mhz higher base clock and a 500mhz higher turbo clock, along with 4MB cache instead of 3MB. That's enough of a boost to be noticeable, but it's still a fairly old dual core processor. It would be well behind anything that's made in more recent years.

If it's an easy upgrade and you can afford it, I don't see why not. But 2015s are going for surprisingly good prices in the used market these days, they might be worth looking into if you can find a good one.

 

[AlixSPQR]

Hi guyd

I hv a MBP mid 2012 i5 with ssd and maxed out ram. I’ve been offered the i7 model for £200.

Is it worth buying the i7 model for £200, swapping my ssd and ram into the i7? Would there be that much difference? Both r quite old now obviously

According to Mactracker's benchmarks I would say no, not much difference.

 

[GigabitEthernet]

The i7 model has a 400mhz higher base clock and a 500mhz higher turbo clock, along with 4MB cache instead of 3MB. That's enough of a boost to be noticeable, but it's still a fairly old dual core processor. It would be well behind anything that's made in more recent years.

If it's an easy upgrade and you can afford it, I don't see why not. But 2015s are going for surprisingly good prices in the used market these days, they might be worth looking into if you can find a good one.

Problem with any of the Retina models is that they have delamination.

 

[FyerFyer]

Thanks for all your help guys.

As they are not retina models (I think) I should be able to skip the delamination issue.
Looking into the 2015’s. As long as I can update the ram and ssd I’d like to go as recent as possible, but my understanding is 2012&2015s is kinda where it stops for that…?

 

[GigabitEthernet]

2015s are all retinas, the unibody stopped at 2012.

IMHO, you either make do with the Retina delamination as you will find they basically all have it (unless you get very lucky and somebody never cleaned the display and/or put a screen protector on it), find a broken one and repair it (but note a replacement display is expensive), or try and find a high-res mid 2012 model.

For all intents and purposes, the mid 2012, late 2013 retinas perform basically identically to the mid 2012 unibody. After that you get better performance from a retina but then you're back to delamination.

 

[Amethyst1]

Is it worth buying the i7 model for £200, swapping my ssd and ram into the i7?

In my opinion, not at all. It's still a dual-core which is showing its age these days.
To offer some perspective, I recently bought a 13" 2012 retina MBP for the equivalent of £170. It came with a new battery and only very minor signs of delamination.

 

[FyerFyer]

My screen is cracked massively on my MBP so I may well buy the i7. My current model runs so well, even with Final Cut Pro and reason both open that it’s hard to justify buying an expensive one. Screen isn’t retina but most things I watch on my iPhone 11 and tv.