MacBook Pro Comparison

[whitty1001]

Hi. I was just wondering if anyone knows how much of a difference in performance there is from the pro 13" i5 2.7ghz currently on the Apple Store and the pro 13" i7 2.8ghz 2014? Obviously one is cheaper than the other.

 

[Maxx_Power]

The 2014 model is based on the Haswell architecture and the newer one (current) is based on the Broadwell architecture. Single thread performance between the two is about the same (higher IPC on the Broadwell, offset by the 4MB cache on the i7 vs. 3MB on the i5 and 100Mhz difference in speed). The i7 can do 4 threads in total vs. 2 in the i5 (through Hyperthreading), so there is a bit better multithreading performance.

Biggest difference is in graphics performance, since Broadwell is considerably faster than Haswell at graphics, and helped further by the faster memory in the newer machine, 1866Mhz vs. 1600Mhzs in the 2014 model.

Try also looking at Apple's refurbished stores for cheaper units. Unlike many other brands' refurbished goods, Apple's refurbs are identically new, squeaky clean and not a stain, scratch or hair to be found.

 

[snuffles-101]

I know some people are very set on getting a macbook for many reasons. But save yourself $1000 and do a little bit of research about other laptops on the market.

With that kind of money, you could get a laptop probably 2 times as powerful, or half the price. When you buy mac, you buy the brand not the specs. If you like the mac OS you can install that onto any pc with a little effort.

To answer your question, well, its hard to answer, what are you planning on doing with it?

I wouldn't worry to much about the .1ghz difference. Core i7 processors have larger cache (on-board memory) to help the processor deal with repetitive tasks faster when compared to i5's. But both are fine really.

Your spending alot of money, do an hour of research.