Core 2 Duo VS Core i5

A huge difference? - doesn't seem so.

You get a slight performance improvement, I think you'll find. Beneficial, but not huge.

Does anyone have an opinion on the i7?

There are multiple other threads about this. Right now it looks like logic gets little if any boost from i5 or i7, but hopefully a future Logic update may help it take advantage of the extra power.

Well, I'm sure that the chaps at Apple are talking to the chaps at Apple about helping Logic to make use of the benefits of the i5 and i7 processors.

Logic 9.3, or Logic 10? 🙂

The i7's larger L3 cache (AFAIK the only actual difference between the i5 and the i7, apart from clock speed) should make a substantial difference over the i5.

I've read something on the order of almost 25% for certain types of processing.

How this translates into Logic performance, I don't know, but even if the difference isn't that big at the moment, it's bound to increase once Logic properly supports hyperthreading on these processors.

There are two lots of iCore chips. The iMAc has a quad core, laptops only have duo core. iMAcs are 45 nanometre, while the laptops are 32. So 32s should be a bit faster with less power use.

All the current laptops only have 2 ram slots. Icores can address 3. So, it seems taht m/boards and designs are in transition at the moment.

I'm hoping Apple will release a quad core laptop soon. That should really make things interesting.

Scorpi

Scorpii wrote:
There are two lots of iCore chips. The iMAc has a quad core, laptops only have duo core. iMAcs are 45 nanometre, while the laptops are 32. So 32s should be a bit faster with less power use.

So the laptops' 32 nm architecture is faster, except for the fact that it's not because they only have half the cores?

:scratches head:

All the current laptops only have 2 ram slots. Icores can address 3. So, it seems taht m/boards and designs are in transition at the moment.

All iMacs have FOUR slots - even the i5 and i7 models.

What on earth are you talking about?

And what does the comparison between desktop and laptop i5/i7 (which really have nothing much to do with one another) have to do with the original poster asking about the difference between the C2D and the i5 LAPTOPS?

hi spheric. 32nm will run faster because the distance is less. 4 real cores [iMacs i7] should perform better than 2 real core [laptops chips]

Icore chips address RAm in banks of 3, duo core chips address in banks of 2.

As far as not understanding what I'm writing, check the intel site.

Scorpi

** I'm hoping Apple will release a quad core laptop soon. That should really make things interesting.

Scorpi **
+1

Thanks GTBannah

Scorpi

Scorpii wrote:
hi spheric. 32nm will run faster because the distance is less. 4 real cores [iMacs i7] should perform better than 2 real core [laptops chips]

Icore chips address RAm in banks of 3, duo core chips address in banks of 2.

As far as not understanding what I'm writing, check the intel site.

Scorpi

Scorpi, FYI you might want to read the tests I ran and the research I did (with the assistance of a proper engineer who understands the technical stuff better than I do) in another very long and quite boring thread. Search my posts and you'll find it. I'm not disagreeing with you at all about the core range of CPUs used by Apple (mobile vs desktop versions), but there are significant details regarding Hyper Threading which are a big factor here too.

Scorpii wrote:
hi spheric. 32nm will run faster because the distance is less. 4 real cores [iMacs i7] should perform better than 2 real core [laptops chips]

Thanks for the clarification - I was obviously misunderstanding you.

Yes, the desktop chips are faster due to being quad-core - but getting a quad-core 32nm laptop chip should be faster still.

Unfortunately, there aren't any yet, AFAIK.

Icore chips address RAm in banks of 3, duo core chips address in banks of 2.

Ah - you were talking about RAM bus throughput, not total addressable banks.

Gotcha.

spheric wrote:

Scorpii wrote:
hi spheric. 32nm will run faster because the distance is less. 4 real cores [iMacs i7] should perform better than 2 real core [laptops chips]

Thanks for the clarification - I was obviously misunderstanding you.

Yes, the desktop chips are faster due to being quad-core - but getting a quad-core 32nm laptop chip should be faster still.

Unfortunately, there aren't any yet, AFAIK.

..and there are unlikely to ever be, not in this series of CPU in any case. The problem is heat dissipation and power consumption, neither of which are anywhere near a match for what Apple is aiming at with its notebooks. However, AFAIK, you can already buy notebooks from other vendors (can't remember where I read this, CNET?) which do use the physical quad version of the core series CPU that Apple only use in the iMacs. So, you can get a 'real' quad core notebook of some kind, however it won't have anywhere near the battery life of the MBPs (who cares?), and will be in a much less slim case with probably a lot more fan noise, to deal with the heat. Also, it will only, ahem, officially run Windows or Linux or whatever. Officially.

But don't rule out HT! I know I am a bleedin broken record on this topic, but when it's used on the mobile i5/i7, it really does just present itself to the software like it's a real quad core and it really does make a difference. Not on the same order as having totally discreet cores, but it does simply work as if it was and the difference is palpable. The ProTools tests I did in that other discussion really shows it in action. When PT sends work to 4 cores (on the desktop version of the i7), it can run a good whack more plug ins than when it just has 2 cores available to it. It's a pity that Logic seems to be currently ignoring it, but on the measure I demonstrated with PT, it looks like an 'almost' quad mobile CPU is actually a pretty decent tradeoff for a notebook system for the time being, at least for every other app except Logic.. 😟

I'm sure future generations of Intel hardware will probably eventually get more discreet physical cores into a mobile CPU that Apple will be happy to use. In fact I found some articles via a google search that suggested the generation of CPUs coming sometime in 2011/2012 will be able to get power consumption and heat down to do just that. But for now, HT is a very reasonable substitute. The other day I was able to easily get about 35 more reverb plug ins to run live on the mobile i7 than I could on my Core 2 Duo and I saw HT working right before my eyes, distributing the work across 4 cores in Activity Monitor. So it's clear that HT can make a significant difference if it's used, even if it will always be a bit less than having a real quad core.

I'd say the next generation of Apple notebooks will be when the number of physical cores gets upped. For now, they won't just shoe-horn a desktop CPU into their sleek notebooks and throw out all of the battery life and slim design principles. But other manufacturers have chosen right now to do this in notebooks, even given the extra heat and power consumption, so there are alternatives out there.. I think Dell and Alienware do notebooks using a desktop i7 (ie, with 4 full cores), but from what I saw I think they chose a lower clocked one so the things don't last 5 minutes on battery and melt down after one hour of use.

GTBannah wrote:
Well, I'm sure that the chaps at Apple are talking to the chaps at Apple about helping Logic to make use of the benefits of the i5 and i7 processors.

I would hope so, but considering they still don't support the latest 8 core MP that shipped 15 months ago, it could be a while.

spheric wrote:

Scorpii wrote:
All the current laptops only have 2 ram slots. Icores can address 3. So, it seems taht m/boards and designs are in transition at the moment.

All iMacs have FOUR slots - even the i5 and i7 models.

What on earth are you talking about?

I assume he's talking about how some chips can handle triple channel memory (like the xeon in the MP, which has 4 or 8 slots when it should be 6/9/12). Some i7 use the triple channel, but I believe the ones used in the imac are just dual channel ram.