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Speed differences between Mid 2010 macBook and New macbook pro top end

997.2

997.2

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 22, 2013
128
2
Knoxvegas
I was wondering what the major differences between my laptop and the one I am getting are. Is there going to be a big difference in speed and is the retina display as good as everyone says? I get 4 hours off of a charge.

My specs:

HgYqVOO.png


thanks for any replies
 
My previous machine was a A1278 just like yours, except I had a 256 MB SSD.

There's no comparison between the two laptops. The speed difference is astronomical. I get about 7-8 hours on the battery.
 
997.2 said:
I was wondering what the major differences between my laptop and the one I am getting are. Is there going to be a big difference in speed and is the retina display as good as everyone says? I get 4 hours off of a charge.

My specs:

Image

thanks for any replies
Click to expand...

In terms of processing power, the top end rMBP is something like 6x as fast as the 2010 Macbook (according to geekbench).

On the other hand, the white macbook is pretty usable for a lot of tasks if you install a SSD and max out RAM to 8 or even 16GB (if you deal with big image files or 2+ virtual machines). Snow Leopard would be the OS of my choice (and I'd enable the 64-bit kernel) since it has more compatible video drivers (e.g. your Geforce 320M supports CUDA on Snow Leopard, but it doesn't on Mavericks).

Anyway, if I needed a huge processing power I'd go for a Mac Pro. I'm convinced that I need a desktop machine for running heavy processing algorithms while the laptop would act as a remote client and for running simpler prototypes of my scientific work. I'm planning using my 2010 Mac Mini for running stuff that needs a day or more, but if I get very promising results maybe I'll get a Mac Pro for making the results coming faster.
 
997.2 said:
I was wondering what the major differences between my laptop and the one I am getting are. Is there going to be a big difference in speed and is the retina display as good as everyone says? I get 4 hours off of a charge.

My specs:

Image

thanks for any replies
Click to expand...

The newer MBPs are much much more powerful than your machine. But since you did not tell us what you use your computer for, there is no way for us to tell you if you'll even notice a difference.
 
Depends if by top end rmbp, you mean top stock configuration 13", top stock configuration 15", the true top end BTO 13", or the true top end BTO 15"...
 
yjchua95 said:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/503811?baseline=142404

The rMBP is 5.38 times faster.

But because the rMBP has a PCIe SSD, it's going to be more than 10x faster overall, compared to a 2.4GHz P8600 white MB with a 5400rpm HDD.
Click to expand...

thanks for taking the time to help me out like that. this is why I love macrumors - people like you. i saw a thread once that you explained all of your computers - fascinating collection. still got that computer chained to the table? lol! anyway, I'm thrilled to get my new macbook.
 
997.2 said:
thanks for taking the time to help me out like that. this is why I love macrumors - people like you. i saw a thread once that you explained all of your computers - fascinating collection. still got that computer chained to the table? lol! anyway, I'm thrilled to get my new macbook.
Click to expand...

You're welcome mate!

I remember that good ol' thread, where some guy saw my signature in detail and wondered why I had so many of them :D

I still have that computer chained to the table :)
 
Going from a mid 2010 mbp with ssd and 8gb ram to a top of the range i7 myself the difference is absolutely mindblowing in every way. Fair enough it is overkill at times but its nice having the performance in the bank if you can afford(or are stupid enough???) to spend all the money. You wont regret it.
And yes the disk speed is crazy, my old ssd was getting read and write speeds of about 250mbps, my mates 2012 gets about 450 and my new one is getting around 700mbps for read and write.
 
I've recently upgraded from a late 2008 Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz Macbook pro (with aftermarket samsung 830 SSD) to a late 2013 Macbook Retina 13 and the differences that have been **material** to my day to day use are:

1. Much faster wifi. I upgraded my old Airport Extreme with a netgear AC router and the read and write speed to my Synology NAS literally shot up from 10MB/sec to 90MB/sec (yes that is megabytes per second).

2. Retina screen. The quality, both in terms of colour accuracy and resolution is absolutely mind-blowing, while being able to display effectively the same resolution without any eyestrain (1440x900)

3. Processor speed (went with the i5 base model). I don't do much taxing work, mostly some lightroom raw editing, general browsing and web publishing so I did not notice too much of a difference, but the lightroom tasks complete much faster. However the old machine after upgrading to the SSD is pretty close to real performance feel.

4. AES encryption natively supported in the CPU. I always have my SSD encrypted as it contains work data and with the old C2D model, the CPU was spiking to 50%+ load when doing write intensive tasks. The rMBP on the other hand never goes over 5-10%.

5. Battery life. The old MBP could barely get over 2.5hours of light use. The rMBP can get quite easily with my workload 9h+ of continuous use and as I only use it outside my day job, it can go literally for 3-4 days without charging. Same for heat. The MBP would get quite warm just browsing the internet, while the rMBP is completely cool to the touch.

Surely my workload is not that intensive and I could get away with carrying on using the 2008 MBP but the above reasons (exceptional screen, super quick WiFi, battery life, heat and slightly overall improved perceived performance) made the upgrade worthwhile. Surely from a technical perspective its at least 5-10 times faster in terms processor speed and triple in terms of disk speed but the machine does not feel five times faster by any means, at least for my workload.

However due to this oversupply of processing speed I don't see upgrading this machine for at least 5+ years. That is at least if my evening work continues to be quite processor-light.
 
jgiannakas said:
I've recently upgraded from a late 2008 Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz Macbook pro (with aftermarket samsung 830 SSD) to a late 2013 Macbook Retina 13 and the differences that have been **material** to my day to day use are:

1. Much faster wifi. I upgraded my old Airport Extreme with a netgear AC router and the read and write speed to my Synology NAS literally shot up from 10MB/sec to 90MB/sec (yes that is megabytes per second).

2. Retina screen. The quality, both in terms of colour accuracy and resolution is absolutely mind-blowing, while being able to display effectively the same resolution without any eyestrain (1440x900)

3. Processor speed (went with the i5 base model). I don't do much taxing work, mostly some lightroom raw editing, general browsing and web publishing so I did not notice too much of a difference, but the lightroom tasks complete much faster. However the old machine after upgrading to the SSD is pretty close to real performance feel.

4. AES encryption natively supported in the CPU. I always have my SSD encrypted as it contains work data and with the old C2D model, the CPU was spiking to 50%+ load when doing write intensive tasks. The rMBP on the other hand never goes over 5-10%.

5. Battery life. The old MBP could barely get over 2.5hours of light use. The rMBP can get quite easily with my workload 9h+ of continuous use and as I only use it outside my day job, it can go literally for 3-4 days without charging. Same for heat. The MBP would get quite warm just browsing the internet, while the rMBP is completely cool to the touch.

Surely my workload is not that intensive and I could get away with carrying on using the 2008 MBP but the above reasons (exceptional screen, super quick WiFi, battery life, heat and slightly overall improved perceived performance) made the upgrade worthwhile. Surely from a technical perspective its at least 5-10 times faster in terms processor speed and triple in terms of disk speed but the machine does not feel five times faster by any means, at least for my workload.

However due to this oversupply of processing speed I don't see upgrading this machine for at least 5+ years. That is at least if my evening work continues to be quite processor-light.
Click to expand...

thank you for the reply! I appreciate it. cheers.
 
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