What is the difference between a 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 and a 2.7Ghz dual-core Intel Core i7, in dumbed down terms, what differences would I see?
MacBook Pro
Nothing at all, unless you have some software optimized for the various faster cores of one versus another. http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ shows the i7 is the only one in the top 10 processors.
But remember, many a program are more graphics processor (GPU) dependent, or hard drive speed dependent, or RAM speed dependent. SSDs (Solid State Drives) are vastly faster than spinning hard drives, but their security when end of life come to them is not yet great, as no 100% certain means of totally erasing them exists. Thunderbolt once hard drives are released will be vastly faster than SATA, which is faster than ethernet, which is faster than Firewire 800, which is faster than USB, which is faster than 802.11n wireless. If you get a program that is GPU dependent in its specifications, that will trump performance of all other variables for that program, unless you don't have that GPU, or one that is only in its minimum requirements.
The 2.3 ghz i5 dual core scores 2091
The 2.7 ghz i7 dual core 620M scores 2787
So the i7 is about 33% faster.
what kind of of performance differnce between a dual core i5 chip running at 2.5 or 2.7 ghz and a quad core i7 chip running at 2.0 ghz?
You need to use Wikipedia, MacTracker, and these sites to determine the performance of video cards and CPUs in various Mac's you want to compare.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
http://www.cbscores.com/index.php?sort=ogl&order=desc
Once one gets a pair of scores, then divide the higher machine score by the lower machine score to get a performance percentage incease.
For instance the Intel HD 3000 is Open GL 11
The 6750M in the new Quad core MBP is 30
30/11 = 273% faster
Thank you that is great info. But how do I find out the model numbers for these chips? I see that in an earlier reply the 2.7 ghz i7 is a 620m chip. What is the model # for the 2.5 ghz i5 and for the 2.0 ghz quad core i7 chip.
What is the difference between a 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 and a 2.7Ghz dual-core Intel Core i7, in dumbed down terms, what differences would I see?
