The 15" MBP with the quad core i7 2.0 GHz.
The only reason I ask is to convince myself the 13 inch isnt enough for me.
I want an AG screen, which i can get only on 15". I want to play games, so dGPU helps on 15". I also want to use as a desktop pc, so 15" is obv better. I just look back to the 13" because I would save £370, but as it will last a long time, im hoping that is less than £100 per year.
It just depends on what you do with the computer, because there isn't a straight up answer as to which is better.The only reason I ask is to convince myself the 13 inch isnt enough for me.
I want an AG screen, which i can get only on 15". I want to play games, so dGPU helps on 15". I also want to use as a desktop pc, so 15" is obv better. I just look back to the 13" because I would save £370, but as it will last a long time, im hoping that is less than £100 per year.
Definitely the quad core beast.
^
Grand Central Dispatch?
Doesn't compensate for it. Saw some benchmark where the 2.7 ghz i7 Dual Core won in single core performance.
So it's highly dependent on what you use![]()
That's surprising because the 2.0 should turbo boost the hell out of the processor and eat the 2.7 alive. Or does the low end 2.0 quad on the 15" not have turbo boost?
-baffled-![]()
It is actually that the 2630QM with its 2.0 Ghz is a sort of limited Quad Core. Kind of the low end that is artificially limited so people have a reason to pay for the 2720QM (2.2 Ghz).
The difference is mostly the Turbo boost. At the same clock speeds all Sandy Bridge cores are the same for all intents and purposes.
Cores Modelname default Clock Turbo bins
2 2620M 2.7Ghz 3.1, 3.4
4 2630QM 2.0Ghz 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9
4 2720QM 2.2Ghz 3, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3
4 2820QM 2.3Ghz 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4
This is all maximum Turbo and how long it can stay on which clock speed depends on the thermals and the TDP but still everyone can see, there is hardly any difference between the highend 2.2 and 2.3 GHZ Quads and both will finish or be at least as fast as the 2.7Ghz Dual Core but the 2.0 Ghz Quad just offers a comparably poor Turbo mode.
At the same Clock though the 2.2 Ghz Quad will always be faster because when it is running only 2 cores it is running them almost as fast but with twice the L3 Cache which gets shared among all cores if only one uses it or two than there is more than with the DC.
Everything that needs only one or two HT cores than the 2.7Ghz Dual Core will be almost as fast as the highend Quads or faster than the 2.0 Ghz Quad.
Highly threaded workload which means pretty much any heavy duty stuff will be faster on the DC.
In practice this means only in some benchmarks the DC might be better in real life the Quad always wins. The situations where the DC is slightly better in real world usage are really the unimportant ones where you won't feel the difference (like starting up a browser where the SSD matters more). When you require speed software today is always parallel enough and the Quad wins by a big margin.
The only reason I ask is to convince myself the 13 inch isnt enough for me.
I want an AG screen, which i can get only on 15". I want to play games, so dGPU helps on 15". I also want to use as a desktop pc, so 15" is obv better. I just look back to the 13" because I would save £370, but as it will last a long time, im hoping that is less than £100 per year.
Get the 15" with AG. You will be unhappy if you get the glossy screen when you know you don't want it.
I would definitely like to get another 13" for household use, but, the glassy 13" display bugs me. Most of Apple's marketing decisions make sense to me, but, the lack of AG option on the 13" is completely baffling.