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Moving from a 2017 13" 28W i7 to a 2019/2020 13" 15w i5 - Will I notice a difference?

S

SSD-GUY

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 20, 2012
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Interstellar
Hi all

I'm currently issued a 15" MBP from work, however I find it too big and overkill for what I do (Product Manager). Before this, we had BYOD and I used my own personal 13" 2017 i7, which although a 28W processor, was a dual core.

Now work have two options, either the 15" or 16" MBP for developers (I somehow got one as they had a spare 2018 15" lying around), or the base 13" MBP with i5 (can upgrade RAM and SSD to 16GB/256GB). I'm going to ask for the 28W 2.4ghz version, however I may get rejected, therefore my question is:

For someone that is going from a 13" 2017 MBP with an i7 28W dual-core processor, to a 13" 2019/2020 15W i5 quad-core processor, will I notice a difference in speed going downhill, or will I in-fact see a speed increase, as the 15W processors are quad-core? Furthermore, what about fans/cooling? Do the 15W models only have one fan, yet the 28W models have two fans? Does this make a difference? Moreover, as the 15W has a lower base speed frequency then the 28W versions (1.4GHz vs 2.4GHz), am I going to see slowdowns when working?

My work consists mainly of JIRA, some design files (sketch), lots of office (word, ppt, excel), tonnes of safari tabs and a few applications in the background that are always open (Slack, some Zoom calls throughout the day etc). Time to time I do a bit of light video editing, some Lightroom work and photoshop, but nothing heavy)

Thanks
 
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You will definitely see a speed increase if you let turbo boost on on both machines. The 1.4 has almost the same Geekbench scores because it can Turbo Boost almost as much as the “bigger brother”. On everyday tasks not even the GPU difference will be noticeable.

Plus you may get a cooler computer. On everyday tasks you rarely stress the CPU on both machines anyway.

What I found odd is that the prices with similar specs (SSD size and RAM) are very close between the 2.4 and 1.4 and you will loose 2 ports that may be handy on the future. Think that one is for power and another for an external device you may have. If someone gives you a pen how comes?
Just my
 
I also think either will be similar in performance. The 28Watt may boost for longer (maybe...). But i was under the impression that both had the same cooling system, so under boost, both probably generate the same additional heat (above 28W).

However, something to consider: the current 13 inch laptops are somewhat overpriced at present (compared to the new 16 inch). The 16 inch brought an effective price-cut due to more included SSD storage. If you can hold off for a couple of months to order a 13 inch, you'd likely get more SSD, probably an updated keyboard (maybe even a 14 inch screen?) for the same prices listed today.

Currently if you price up an i7 13 inch with 512 SSD, 16 GB RAM it is more than a base 16 inch (with 6-core i7 processor, bigger screen, newer keyboard, and dedicated GPU!
 
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Spectrum said:
I also think either will be similar in performance. The 28Watt may boost for longer (maybe...). But i was under the impression that both had the same cooling system, so under boost, both probably generate the same additional heat (above 28W).
Click to expand...
One has only one fan that can be off. The other has two that are always on. So they are indeed different in terms of cooling.

However, something to consider: the current 13 inch laptops are somewhat overpriced at present (compared to the new 16 inch). The 16 inch brought an effective price-cut due to more included SSD storage. If you can hold off for a couple of months to order a 13 inch, you'd likely get more SSD, probably an updated keyboard (maybe even a 14 inch screen?) for the same prices listed today.

Currently if you price up an i7 13 inch with 512 SSD, 16 GB RAM it is more than a base 16 inch (with 6-core i7 processor, bigger screen, newer keyboard, and dedicated GPU!
Click to expand...

Fully agree. If you can hold two or three months to see what comes the better.
 
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pneves1975 said:
One has only one fan that can be off. The other has two that are always on. So they are indeed different in terms of cooling.
Click to expand...
Interesting - that makes sense, I jsut didn't realise. Is there a tear-down showing the difference?
For intensive (probably multicore) tasks, that ought to make a big difference in sustained performance if the two fans can cool at least 28W of power versus just 15W.
 
Spectrum said:
Interesting - that makes sense, I jsut didn't realise. Is there a tear-down showing the difference?
For intensive (probably multicore) tasks, that ought to make a big difference in sustained performance if the two fans can cool at least 28W of power versus just 15W.
Click to expand...

You can find them in ifixit. Surely makes difference in cooling the system down on more aggressive use cases.
 
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Thanks all, this is what I'm weary about as I'm happy to go for the 15W version, however worried about whether or not it can actively cool long, sustained workloads, especially when connected to two 1440p monitors etc.

And yes, I will be waiting for the updated models with the new keyboard

Are there any reviews out there of the 15W under sustained everyday load (preferably when also connected to a monitor) to see how it fares?
 
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