Processor clock speed drop?

[rbrandish]

I've been getting ready to buy a new MacBook Pro and have been looking at the last version for a while now in anticipation for the new ones. I noticed that in the last generation, the base clock speed was 2.3 GHz and in the new ones it's 2.0 GHz. Does the amount of work done in each clock cycle of the new processors just enough to make up for the clock speed drop? Maybe even make them better? Or is there actually a loss of processor power in the new generation (on the base level)?

And as a bit of an aside, I would appreciate any advice on any addons to the new computer. I'm planning on a 15 MacBook Pro (Retina). I'm someone who meticulously closes/quits programs I'm not currently using. However, I'm likely to be usually running 3 (sort of heavy) programs concurrently: Xcode, Eclipse, and Chrome. Since these will almost always be the only programs I have running, I'm thinking an increase of processor might be more useful over the increase in RAM (especially given the price). Would upgrading to from 2.0 GHz to 2.3 GHz really show any improvement? Or should I just leave the computer with the base components?

Thanks!

 

[rbrandish]

This will be my first Mac ever by the way.

 

[safetravels]

Comparing clock speeds accross generations of processors is pretty much meaningless. Untill the benchmarks are out we won't know for certain but you can be fairly damn sure the baseline 2013 mbp will outperform the the baseline 2012 mbp.

Bumping clockspeeds on the same chip results in single digit percentage performance increases. Maybe a 10 minute compile would take 30 seconds less with an upgraded processor. You've got to decide if that's worth it for you.

 

[rbrandish]

Perfect, thanks. I'm guessing I'll just save the hundred dollars so that I'm that much closer to buying another one in a few years.

 

[RichardC300]

Comparing clock speeds accross generations of processors is pretty much meaningless. Untill the benchmarks are out we won't know for certain but you can be fairly damn sure the baseline 2013 mbp will outperform the the baseline 2012 mbp.

Bumping clockspeeds on the same chip results in single digit percentage performance increases. Maybe a 10 minute compile would take 30 seconds less with an upgraded processor. You've got to decide if that's worth it for you.

Interesting. So how much of an improvement would the 2.8 GHz i7 have over the 2.6 GHz i5 on the 13 inch?

 

[safetravels]

Interesting. So how much of an improvement would the 2.8 GHz i7 have over the 2.6 GHz i5 on the 13 inch?

going between i5 and i7 has other effects like the amount of cores, the L3 cache, hyperthreading, it's impossible to say. Wait for the benchmarks.