Others have noted that there doesn't seem to be a big performance difference between i5 and i7. But I do want to discuss the idea that the resale value will be much better on the i7 vs i5, as I disagree with that.
IMO, of "upgrades" from base model that get you the best resale return, I feel like CPU upgrade is the worst. I feel like it's storage space, ram, video card, and then cpu, in that order (you could argue flipping ram and video card depending on the model).
Looking at illustrative numbers, the base 10th gen is $1,799. To upgrade the CPU is $200.
For round numbers, let's say in 2 years, you could sell the base model for $1,200 (eg. 2/3 of the price, lost 33% value).
I would actually suggest that with the i7 upgrade (and everything else equal), you could sell it for about the same (maybe $50 more). So assuming $50 more, the $200 upgrade, you've lost 75% (instead of 33% for the rest of the machine). Yes, overall you're getting more money on an absolute $ basis, but the "resale return value" of the CPU upgrade to me is probably quite a bit less than the "Base" part of the machine.
In general, I feel this is due to 1) people who buy on the secondary market are looking for a deal, and will generally compare your machine to what they could buy new, and they usually will compare to the base model. They typically won't pay up for a CPU upgrade, and 2) the buyer demographic who actually values the i7 upgrade is smaller than the overall market for your particular used 13" MBP. So more likely the ppl looking when you go to sell won't include those who value the i7.
