For a mechanical engineer who's going to be using software like ANSYS, NASTRAN (which are both CAE), NX CAD etc., which MacBook would be the ideal choice? The 13" one or the 15" one?
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Which MacBook?
- Thread starter StarOfDawn
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techguy9
macrumors 6502
If what you want is processing power, go for the 13", but if you need the extra 2 inches, go for the 15" one. But maybe the 13" would be enough for you since that was updated a few weeks ago.
Screen size is not really an issue. But won't the i7 processor inside the 15" offer more processing power compared to the i5 model? Also, could you tell me how much of a difference is there between Intel Iris and Intel Iris Pro as far as graphical processing is concerned?
Thanks!
The i7 in the 15" will make it at least twice as fast as the i5 (or even the dual core i7) in the 13".
Because of the eDRAM cache in the Iris Pro, it'll be around twice as fast as the Iris 6100 in the 13".
ZBoater
macrumors G3
A PC.
If you're dead set on a Mac, get the 15" with the nVidia GPU. The quad-core'll come in handy for any type of CAD or Simulation, same goes for CUDA.
You cannot compare the i5's and i7's from the 13" to the 15's, you are comparing dual cores with quad cores, entirely different animals. The quad cores are around twice as fast in multi-thread applications (if you do any kind of finite element analysis, twice as fast is good).
From another Mech. Engineer.
Or in actual multithreaded tasks like video editing, rendering, AutoCAD....
CAD is what the OP is doing.