Macbook Pro i5 or i7..?

Tyler138

Tyler138

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Alex Tyler
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Looking at grabbing a macbook pro soon and was wondering if i would notice the difference between the i5 and i7 processor on the 2 lower end MBP models.

I would be using it a lot for photos and videos in the future. But after a bit of looking up it seems that the i5 will be good and better with a HD upgrade to a 7200 rpm as appose to the 5400 one they offer.

So anyone have the i5 and do a lot of photos and a bit of video work and can say how it runs..?

Thanks,

Tyler
 
You're throwing money down the drain paying for an i7 and having a stock 5400RPM HDD. Get the i5, and put the money towards a SSD. You'll be amazed at the difference.

I have an i5 2500k and an OCZ Vertex 3 SSD in my desktop. It absolutely flies.

I have an i7 in my Thinkpad laptop, with a 7200RPM HDD, and it's achingly slow in comparison.
 
Just to add, buy your own SSD, get one of the latest crop like the OCZ Vertex/Agility 3 ~550MB/sec. I don't know what Apple ship, but it's a fair bet it's older, cheaper, less reliable kit.

Changing the HDD is a piece of cake on a Macbook Pro. Remove six screws, take bottom panel off, pop disk out, replace, done. Takes 5 minutes and no technical nous.
 
Tyler138 said:
Looking at grabbing a macbook pro soon and was wondering if i would notice the difference between the i5 and i7 processor on the 2 lower end MBP models.
Click to expand...
Judging by this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge#Mobile_processors

that means the processors are the i7-2620M and i5-2410M (assuming you are looking at the 13" MBPs).

Flat out, they will turbo to 3.2GHz and 2.6GHz which means the i7 will be about 20%-25% faster flat out. Given they are essentially identical processors internally (well, you have an extra 1M cache in the i7 and a 10% faster graphics core which is neither here nor there) £300 is an awful lot to pay for 20%-25% boost in performance IMHO.
 
mid_gen said:
You're throwing money down the drain paying for an i7 and having a stock 5400RPM HDD. Get the i5, and put the money towards a SSD. You'll be amazed at the difference.

I have an i5 2500k and an OCZ Vertex 3 SSD in my desktop. It absolutely flies.

I have an i7 in my Thinkpad laptop, with a 7200RPM HDD, and it's achingly slow in comparison.
Click to expand...

I have an i3 and an SSD, and even that is awe inspiring in how quick it is.

The i5 and other hardware upgrades is probably the best bet. With an SSD and a lot of RAM the "tuned up" i5 computer will run circles around Apple's stock i7 configuration. Heck, my i3 probably would run circles around it in certain tasks, purely because of the SSD and RAM.

the only slight prob with using SSD on Macs is that I don't think OS X properly supports and implements TRIM yet. Apple sure have been dragging their heels on that one.
 
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