2.3 or 2.7 GHz (Primary usage Logic Pro)

Question

Level 1

4 points

2.3 or 2.7 GHz (Primary usage Logic Pro)

Hello everyone!

Have been looking around for this topic but havn't found SO Im posting my thing out here.

I am a long time Mac user with music production as profession and with Logic Pro as my primary program.

I am about to buy myself a new MacBook Pro and have to great choices but when it comes to the details I would be thankful for some guidance.

Choice nr 1 is the latest MacBook Pro 15¨ - Retina Intel QC i7 2,3 Ghz - 16 GB Memory - 512 SSD

Choice nr 2 is probably a little bit older but with the same specifications but with Intel QC i7 2,7 Ghz.

My following question is how big difference is it between 2,3 and 2,7 GHz? As I mentioned - music production and Logic Pro is my primary use with my computer and I know that when it comes to music - RAM-memory is the most important. The price difference is not so big but still enought for me to post this topic and - is there anything else than the GHz that have been improved in this latest MB Pro that matters to me here?

Very thankful for any thoughts or answears here. I will buy one of them and after what I have heard is it very little difference so I am probably going for the Choice nr 1 (since it is the latest) but what do you folks here think?

Cheers!

Posted on Jun 28, 2014 8:43 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jun 28, 2014 9:01 AM in response to SuperiusProd

Memory is not necessarily the lynchpin. I remember tracking 24 channels of 192/24bit audio simultaneously with 512mb of ram, SATA 1 5400RPM HDD with nary a hiccup. Nothing different about audio now, 14 years later. Same bits.

While music processing can be somewhat processor intensive if you use a lot of plug-ins, the difference between 2.7 and 2.3gHz will not be immense. It may be a matter of one or two plugin instances (depending on the plug). A lot of this will depend on how the plug-in is actually written as well as the number of cores on the CPU. This introduces a lot of uncertainty into looking at straight gHz.

Storage will be a factor here. Even at 512gb, you may find yourself cramped for space if you have lots of multitrack audio projects on the go. If you end up using an external thunderbolt drive this will negatively impact your performance (though probably not much, see my opening sentence).

The other factor to consider is the possibility of using external audio processors such as that which is available from Universal Audio and which take some load off your computer's CPU for processing effects. I've been using their UAD-2 PCI card on my Mac Pro and I love it. Great product, great effects.

You can also freeze tracks or commit the effect by doing offline processing which will release your CPU of some tasks.

Perhaps some more information about the exact type of projects you are doing would help. I primarily do multi-track (16 to 32 simultaneous inputs) recording and mixing (highly variable track count at mixing stage), which has very different demands on a system compared to say, someone who is doing multi-track midi sequencing and sampling.

Needless to say, both systems will likely be very good at handling whatever you are throwing at them.

Reply