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Performance MBPr late 2013.

C

Chouhen

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 13, 2013
5
0
Hello friends,

I'm about to buy a new MBPr, and I was wondering if the difference between the 2.4/2.6 i5s and the 2.8ghz i7 is large, in terms of computation. I am not buying the laptop for consistent hard work but I am looking to use MATLAB extensively on it. Casual gaming would also be lovely. (only indie titles) but I was wondering if you guys have any recommendations to make about what would suit my needs.

Thanks very much,
Chouhen.
 
Most people won't notice a difference between the i5 and i7, yet I think matlab is one of those apps that could benefit.

Since you're using a computationally intensive app, I'd go with the fastest CPU you can afford
 
maflynn said:
Most people won't notice a difference between the i5 and i7, yet I think matlab is one of those apps that could benefit.

Since you're using a computationally intensive app, I'd go with the fastest CPU you can afford
Click to expand...

I don't think that would matter, because both the i5s and i7s in the 13" rMBPs have 2 cores and 4 threads. If I'm not mistaken, Matlab takes advantage of hyper threading (which wouldn't really be a difference between i5s and i7s in 13" rMBPs).

Now if it was between a desktop i5 and desktop i7 (both having 4 cores, but the i5 has 4 threads and the i7 has 8 threads), that's where the performance benefits come in from having the i7 (30-40% increase), mostly because of the extra threads in the i7.
 
For the dual core mobile chips used in the 13" rMBP, the i7 is maybe 5% faster than the i5. They are actually identical chips except the i7 has a slightly higher clock speed and 1MB additional cache. The laptop version of the i5 is basically just a dual-core i7 with less cache. The desktop i5 removes hyper threading support.
Intel's product marketing sucks because they make it so confusing.

Bump up memory and SSD first, then select the faster processor if you have the budget.
 
personally I'd go for the 2.6Ghz i5-4288U. I just think it has the best performance/value ratio.
Not only is it faster CPU wise than the 2.4 i5, but also has a 100Mhz faster GPU.
 
Thanks guys, these are some excellent and informative responses!:)
 
I have the rMBP 13" base model with 8 GB RAM and I run Matlab/simulink without issues (power electronics engineer here). The CPU upgrade is too expensive to be worth it imo.
 
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