Please stop asking for quad cores in MBP unless you don't want children

[wankey]

I like to educate everyone who is jumping on the lets have more cores bandwagon. I own a dual core MBP and because of my incredibly heavy photoshop usage and movie editing (and the lets have more core bandwagon), I opted to get a Mac Pro but couldn't afford one. So I built myself an AMD 6 core 1090T with 16gigs of ram pc.

What is the difference? There is NONE. Talk about one of the biggest disappointments in my life.

Quad (or in this case HEXA) core just means your heat sink is about 10x that of a dual core while doing *specific* tasks better.

The only places (and I emphasize ONLY) where you see an improvement on speed is time critical rendering of complex scenes, unzipping gargantuan files, rendering HD movies (these things will probably make your mbp burn down and melt).

That's it. So unless you work in the film industry or you need to unzip massive files (which also impacts your harddrive speed) or you need to do enormous calculations that are time critical, get off your heads wrapped around one idea: heat and battery life.

The only people who need a quad core processor are 3D animators who see a big difference. Photoshop doesn't get much faster with quad core (at least it hasn't helped me with my work flow) and the problem isn't really speed anymore.

In the end, I realized that my core i7 Macbook pro on dual core is limited by me, the human operating it. If I optimize my workflow better, I can do work much faster than a quad core can help. The 6 core in my computer sure helped the various tasks like filters in photoshop, but it didn't help the overall result. Rendering a movie was a tad bit faster but still, it isn't justifiable to have so much less battery life and more heat.

So before everyone jumps on the lets put a freaking quad core lap warmer on my mobile computer, please consider what you're asking. Dual core works well because it allows you to keep using the computer while other tasks take up a core. That helps in workflow a lot, but having a quad core is pretty useless as not every program is written to utilize more than 2 cores.

Until they reduce the CPU TDP of a quad core to that of a dual core, I would stay the hell away from them. There is absolutely no need for a quad core, in fact a higher frequency dual core is often faster in every day apps than a quad core is.

So please understand what you're asking for and stop jumping on the marketing. Quad != better as much as dual was to single core.

Thank you

 

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

I own a dual core MBP and because of my incredibly heavy photoshop usage and movie editing (and the lets have more core bandwagon), I opted to get a Mac Pro but couldn't afford one. So I built myself an AMD 6 core 1090T with 16gigs of ram pc.

What is the difference? There is NONE. Talk about one of the biggest disappointments in my life.

I would be interested in seeing a dollar-for-dollar comparison of the workflow value of different investments: more memory (e.g. 8 GB instead of 4 GB), faster graphics, SSD (Apple, and High-Speed third party) vs 7200 RPM harddrive, and, more/faster CPUs (e.g. current MBP Core i5 and Core i7, C2D, and new Mac Pro Westmere. I wonder if anyone has published such comparisons to show where you get the most bang for the dollar.

 

[GGJstudios]

What is the difference? There is NONE. Talk about one of the biggest disappointments in my life.

That's only your experience. Other people will get varying results, depending on what they use a computer for.

The only places (and I emphasize ONLY) where you see an improvement on speed is time critical rendering of complex scenes, unzipping gargantuan files, rendering HD movies (these things will probably make your mbp burn down and melt).

No, those are only the situations you can think of. There are many others, as I'm sure posters here will be quick to tell you.

That's it. So unless you work in the film industry or you need to unzip massive files (which also impacts your harddrive speed) or you need to do enormous calculations that are time critical, get off your heads wrapped around one idea: heat and battery life.

The only people who need a quad core processor are 3D animators who see a big difference. Photoshop doesn't get much faster with quad core (at least it hasn't helped me with my work flow) and the problem isn't really speed anymore.

Again, you have a narrow view. There are many who use CPU-intensive tasks that aren't in 3D animation or in the film industry.

So before everyone jumps on the lets put a freaking quad core lap warmer on my mobile computer, please consider what you're asking.

Like many, if not most, I rarely use my MBP on my lap.

And, as a matter of fact, I DON'T want children!

 

[firestarter]

Talk about one of the biggest disappointments in my life.

You need to get out of the house more, er... wankey!

 

[seek3r]

Oh man do you sound bitter, I got a hint for you: all what you've just ranted about means *you* don't need that many cores.

The OS handles threads well even without multi-threaded apps. If you have enough stuff open, no matter your workload, you'll benefit (anyone doing something like having firefox running something with lots of JS and/or flash, excel, an HD video playing - something a lot of people do, to see a benefit from quad vs dual).

Then there are people who *need* it, and not all of them are in graphics or design. The work *I* do scales *exponentially* with the number of cores, and I can never have enough. Hell, my MP isnt even nearly close to big enough for a lot of my sims, I do my work on large clusters. If you need a workstation, you get a workstation. If you don't it's like buying a big rig truck and complaining it doesnt get you to the grocery store any faster than your sedan.

 

[DePaulBlueDemon]

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You don't need to work in the film industry to need a computer that can render HD movies quickly.

 

[Turian.Spectre]

That's only your experience. Other people will get varying results, depending on what they use a computer for.

No, those are only the situations you can think of. There are many others, as I'm sure posters here will be quick to tell you.

Again, you have a narrow view. There are many who use CPU-intensive tasks that aren't in 3D animation or in the film industry.

Like many, if not most, I rarely use my MBP on my lap.

And, as a matter of fact, I DON'T want children!

just wanna say, I love your posts! I like to read them, always funny

 

[SDAVE]

Doesn't SpeedStep technology throttle down the CPU so it eats less energy/reduces heat during non intensive tasks?

More cores are inevitable.

My Core 2 Duo MBP 2.66Ghz feels kinda slow now. Even though I have a plenty fast 7200RPM drive in there.

Even Photoshop/InDesign/Illustrator stuff is kind of slow.

I won't even mention Cinema 4D or After Effects. I rarely do that kind of work on my laptop.

 

[GeekGrrl]

i opted to pick up an encoder stick for my mbp 13. but having multicores is good for games... maybe you don't play them but some do.

 

[firewerk]

i opted to pick up an encoder stick for my mbp 13. but having multicores is good for games... maybe you don't play them but some do.

A higher clock speed dual core is way better than a quad core for gaming.. Just need to read any of the processor reviews on Newegg. All the custom game rig builders prefer the dual cores.

Quad cores will be the norm eventually. I kinda liken them to the PS3, we're just moving into the age of the developer understanding how to use them. Up until recently, most developers haven't bothered to find a use for the extra threads.

 

[saa001]

I have been involved with computers since 1972. Here is something that I have found out to be true: what you think is overkill today will become standard computer configurations within the next couple of years.

I remember a very expensive 40mb (yes megabyte) hard drive being touted as being all the memory you will EVER need (right now I have two 64GB flash drives in my pocket). Earlier than that I remember people talking about how people will never need home computers, only serious business users need any type of "desktop" computer.

I could go on and on. One thing has always proven to be true, the faster the CPU, the more RAM, the larger the hard drives that are available and programmers will write programs to take advantage of those things. So your saying that no one will need quad core CPUs except for industrial movie and photo manipulation is flat out wrong. Not only will quad core CPUs' be needed in the near future but also CPUs' with more cores will become available and programs will be written that will take advantage of what they offer.

It is a never ending cycle.

I like to educate everyone who is jumping on the lets have more cores bandwagon. I own a dual core MBP and because of my incredibly heavy photoshop usage and movie editing (and the lets have more core bandwagon), I opted to get a Mac Pro but couldn't afford one. So I built myself an AMD 6 core 1090T with 16gigs of ram pc.

What is the difference? There is NONE. Talk about one of the biggest disappointments in my life.

Quad (or in this case HEXA) core just means your heat sink is about 10x that of a dual core while doing *specific* tasks better.

The only places (and I emphasize ONLY) where you see an improvement on speed is time critical rendering of complex scenes, unzipping gargantuan files, rendering HD movies (these things will probably make your mbp burn down and melt).

That's it. So unless you work in the film industry or you need to unzip massive files (which also impacts your harddrive speed) or you need to do enormous calculations that are time critical, get off your heads wrapped around one idea: heat and battery life.

The only people who need a quad core processor are 3D animators who see a big difference. Photoshop doesn't get much faster with quad core (at least it hasn't helped me with my work flow) and the problem isn't really speed anymore.

In the end, I realized that my core i7 Macbook pro on dual core is limited by me, the human operating it. If I optimize my workflow better, I can do work much faster than a quad core can help. The 6 core in my computer sure helped the various tasks like filters in photoshop, but it didn't help the overall result. Rendering a movie was a tad bit faster but still, it isn't justifiable to have so much less battery life and more heat.

So before everyone jumps on the lets put a freaking quad core lap warmer on my mobile computer, please consider what you're asking. Dual core works well because it allows you to keep using the computer while other tasks take up a core. That helps in workflow a lot, but having a quad core is pretty useless as not every program is written to utilize more than 2 cores.

Until they reduce the CPU TDP of a quad core to that of a dual core, I would stay the hell away from them. There is absolutely no need for a quad core, in fact a higher frequency dual core is often faster in every day apps than a quad core is.

So please understand what you're asking for and stop jumping on the marketing. Quad != better as much as dual was to single core.

Thank you

 

[omenatarhuri]

just wanna say, I love your posts! I like to read them, always funny

Seems like you want to have his macrumoring children. No quad core for either one, sorry.

 

[Timur]

For audio production: More Cores = Better Performance!

This is because most audio applications are multi-threading capable and having a core spare also means that you can set the audio interface for smaller buffers/latency.