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Yet another 2.3 vs 2.6 thread but on Battery life..

ducatiti

ducatiti

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 18, 2011
932
153
I have been reading the past threads but none have concluded the battery life difference between the two. Some have speculated that the 2.3 lasts 90 mins longer, as per a review of an outside source.

Has anyone actually compared or experienced both systems? I am only concerned about how long the battery last from a full charge, nothing else. It's OK if there is not much difference performance wise. It's just my personal preference.

I will be purchasing one later today and would like to hear from you guys
 
A 2.3 GHz processor will not be running at 2.3GHz for the entire time - most of the time, it will throttle back to 400MHz or so to save power. The GHz rating is just a measure of how many clock cycles the processor is capable of.

It's just like a power supply - Just because my PC has a 1 kilowatt PSU doesn't mean it's absorbing 1KW of electricity all the time.

So unless you run your processor as hard as it can go on battery power, you won't see a difference. The processors are virtually identical except for small differences in cache memory size.
 
w00t951 said:
A 2.3 GHz processor will not be running at 2.3GHz for the entire time - most of the time, it will throttle back to 400MHz or so to save power. The GHz rating is just a measure of how many clock cycles the processor is capable of.

It's just like a power supply - Just because my PC has a 1 kilowatt PSU doesn't mean it's absorbing 1KW of electricity all the time.

So unless you run your processor as hard as it can go on battery power, you won't see a difference. The processors are virtually identical except for small differences in cache memory size.
Click to expand...

would u say its worth the extra 100 for the 2.6ghz?
 
iLikeTurtles! said:
would u say its worth the extra 100 for the 2.6ghz?
Click to expand...

I say yes. Its $100 for a difference noticeable when doing intensive work and others. If the change was for a 100mhz increase then I say no. But between the 2.3 and the 2.6 there is a wider difference. Cache size is the same. The 2.7Ghz option has 2Mb more of cache and is the option I'd choose but its $350 more so it may not be worth it.
 
Jacksteruk309 said:
While theoretically what you say should be absolutely right, in practice Engadget's testing found the 2.3GHz model to have a notably longer battery life than the 2.6GHz model.

Would be interesting if there were any other benchmarks, or an explanation as to why the 2.3GHz model should have such a substantial increase in battery life.
Click to expand...

While I would like to examine those reports for myself, I try to steer clear of Engadget - would you please link me to that page?

I can think of no possible reason other than possibly more RAM installed, or possibly an SSD in one and an HDD in the other. Maybe the brightness was messed up or there was a software glitch during their testing.

Whatever it is, those results should not be.
 
w00t951 said:
While I would like to examine those reports for myself, I try to steer clear of Engadget - would you please link me to that page?

I can think of no possible reason other than possibly more RAM installed, or possibly an SSD in one and an HDD in the other. Maybe the brightness was messed up or there was a software glitch during their testing.

Whatever it is, those results should not be.
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retina macbooks dont use an HD LOL
 
w00t951 said:
While I would like to examine those reports for myself, I try to steer clear of Engadget - would you please link me to that page?

I can think of no possible reason other than possibly more RAM installed, or possibly an SSD in one and an HDD in the other. Maybe the brightness was messed up or there was a software glitch during their testing.

Whatever it is, those results should not be.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Engadget honestly isn't that technical of a site. They're more flash than substance.
 
iLikeTurtles! said:
leave me alone!
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Are you 5 years old? You bought the machine, you clearly do not need the extra power. I am not sure you could reason yourself into opening a door at this point.

Asking the same question over and over again in various threads is extremely annoying. Either spend the $100 or shut up. Better yet, go out and do some extra work and use that to foot the extra $100 to give you piece of mind.
 
calderone said:
Are you 5 years old? You bought the machine, you clearly do not need the extra power. I am not sure you could reason yourself into opening a door at this point.

Asking the same question over and over again in various threads is extremely annoying. Either spend the $100 or shut up. Better yet, go out and do some extra work and use that to foot the extra $100 to give you piece of mind.
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i still havent gotton the macbook yet
 
Simply search, you will see that the performance between the three CPU`s is negligible;

The difference you will see is time save at full performance, the 2.7 is useful to those that rely on their Mac`s for businesses, if you can reduce your render times by say an arbitrary figure of 8%, you can therefore moniterize the time saving, increase your productivity etc. 2.7 with the 8Mb L3 will really only be of significant benefit to certain applications that can address the additional L3 cache, essentially you will see no tangible benefit unless applications can utilise the additional cache.

For the average user the 2.6 and even the 2.7 will offer little if any real world increase in performance, a few fps in a game etc, even the base 2.3 is an extremely powerful machine by portable standards. The 2.6 or 2.7 are simply not going to kick in and "smoke" the 2.3, dont get me wrong the 2.6 & 2.7 are faster the only question is will you ever notice that difference being so small? Hardly anything, certainly nothing worth shouting about

Geek Test Mid 2012 Retina Benchmark`s

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012)
Intel Core i7-3820QM 2700 MHz (4 cores)
12229

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012)
Intel Core i7-3720QM 2600 MHz (4 cores)
11774

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012)
Intel Core i7-3615QM 2300 MHz (4 cores)
10770

My own 2.3 consistently bench marks over 11K (32bit) further narrowing the margin further. I know it`s very cliched, however if you need to ask, you likely don't need the performance increase...
 
Some people just enjoy having a blazing fast laptop with awesome specs whether they put them to use or not. It's like owning a crazy-fast sports car. Are you ever going to drive 200 MPH? Probably not, but that doesn't take away from the coolness factor. Nothing wrong with that...
 
ivoruest said:
I say yes. Its $100 for a difference noticeable when doing intensive work and others. If the change was for a 100mhz increase then I say no. But between the 2.3 and the 2.6 there is a wider difference. Cache size is the same. The 2.7Ghz option has 2Mb more of cache and is the option I'd choose but its $350 more so it may not be worth it.
Click to expand...

thank you
 
I was in the same boat, but went with the 2.6 in the end as the extra memory on the graphics card in that version seems to make a noticeable difference in some apps.
 
I highly doubt you'd see a 90 minute difference in real world usage. Maybe like 5-10 minutes*

*educated opinion.

P.S. Where are the mods in this thread? You've clearly got a bad seed running a muck stealing threads and starting flame wars. To the rest of you, I know its hard but resist feeding the trolls.
 
No

hvfsl said:
I was in the same boat, but went with the 2.6 in the end as the extra memory on the graphics card in that version seems to make a noticeable difference in some apps.
Click to expand...

Not true the graphics card in the retina is the same for both only different on the macbook pro unibody.
 
Queen6 said:
Simply search, you will see that the performance between the three CPU`s is negligible;
............
Click to expand...

I thoroughly agree with this post. Why do people constantly think of the hypothetical and not the real when it comes to their computational devices? It baffles me and only strengthens the position of those who believe people who buy Apple devices only want to be flashy and want what is perceived to be the best. It's all extremely irritating.

@OP, just use basic logic (like the majority of people): They both have the same battery. The difference is the processor. If a processor can operate at higher speeds, it most likely requires more energy. Higher energy consumption means lower battery times. The only thing left to consider is: How likely are you to operate at near-total utilisation?
 
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Fed said:
I thoroughly agree with this post. Why do people constantly think of the hypothetical and not the real when it comes to their computational devices? It baffles me and only strengthens the position of those who believe people who buy Apple devices only want to be flashy and want what is perceived to be the best. It's all extremely irritating.
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So you have irritated yourself over some concern over why others buy the same thing that you do? If someone was buying an upgraded CPU to be flashy it wouldn't work too well. It's not like the 2.6 and 2.7 come in a special color.

I think I'll be irritated by the self important folks that feel the need to have everyone make the same choices that they did.
 
brentsg said:
So you have irritated yourself over some concern over why others buy the same thing that you do? If someone was buying an upgraded CPU to be flashy it wouldn't work too well. It's not like the 2.6 and 2.7 come in a special color.

I think I'll be irritated by the self important folks that feel the need to have everyone make the same choices that they did.
Click to expand...

No. I have absolutely no concern or interest in what other people buy. My aim was to urge people that, when buying, you should focus on what your actual requirements are. From what I can gather on these forums, people are doing the complete opposite. They're seeing something new and then asking the question "What is there to buy with it?" (which is obviously the wrong question).

It was intended to be an observation to accompany my agreement with another post. Nothing more (and certainly no attempt at self-importance).
 
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