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XPcentric

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 16, 2008
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What is the difference between a 2.4GHz intel cored 2 duo and a 2.5GHz i5 ?
 
What is the difference between a 2.4GHz intel cored 2 duo and a 2.5GHz i5 ?

The same difference between a 5'3 grandma that weighs 260 lbs and a 6'8 LeBron James that weights 260 pounds. You can't just go by GHz. They are two completely different beasts.
 
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If you need to ask the question, you probably don't need the computing power of the i5.

To put it in simple terms, the i5 is roughly twice as powerful as the core 2 duo. Back in the days of the pentium 4 (roughly 10 years ago) all that mattered as a measure of power was the clock speed.

Now, with dual, quad, or even octo-core processors, hyper threading, turbo boost and all that jazz, other things come into play, and such a thing as clock speed(The GHz, if you prefer) is almost meaningless.
 
The same difference between a 5'3 grandma that weighs 260 lbs and a 6'8 LeBron James that weights 260 pounds. You can't just go by GHz. They are two completely different beasts.


Well said!
 
What is the difference between a 2.4GHz intel cored 2 duo and a 2.5GHz i5 ?

More info would be nice here. Which Core2 duo and which i5? The 2.5GHz i5 in the 13" MBP is only dual core, unlike a lot of the other i5s out there.

Either way, the i5 is going to be faster, but there are a lot of other factors here too. You can't just measure speed with MHz anymore.
 
Benchmarks can give an estimate of how fast a processor is. In that case, the 2.4GHz processor in the 13" mid 2010 MBP scores 3390 on geekbench while the 2.5GHz i5 in the 13" mid 2012 MBP scores 6690.
 
Think of the Core 2 as an old V8 that puts out 300 HP and the i5 as a V8 that puts out 600 HP.
 
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