i5 and i7 constantly overclocking?

[claypigeon101]

hey there, i am considering a macbook pro for audio work, with Cubase, Reason, Logic etc, firewire mixers and a few bits and bobs like USB midi keyboards etc.
I have a great windows setup for music at home but i want a portable system and it's gotta be a macbook pro.

My question is...
the 2011 macbooks with the i5/i7, they have turbo boost which overclocks them to 3ghz+ in some cases when you really need it. well...
the 2010 macbook pro 13" (i like the little ones) has a 2.66ghz core 2 duo which is enough for what i need i think.
the 2011 mbp 13" has 2.7ghz i5 dual core, which is sweeter if anything.

however im looking for reasons to go for a 2010 13" 2.66ghz c2d partly because it has the nvidia 320m chip which i prefer

so my main question is, should i avoid the 2011 i5, because wont it be constantly turbo boosting throughout digital audio applications like cubase which can be cpu heavy? thus getting hot and bothered and not too happy. or doesnt turbo boost work like that?

i dont want to miss out on significantly better tech, but i dont want to buy 2011 for the sake of it if a 2.66ghz c2d is a better option for portable music work...

can anyone shed some light? thanks guys

 

[cmndr_andi]

Hi there,

Turbo Boost will only boost the clockspeed if the CPU is within its thermal limit. If you are running an application that isn't particularly CPU heavy, or just single-threaded then the turbo boost will kick in and give you a bit more clockspeed. However, if you are heavily stressing the cores and it has already reached its thermal limit at stock clockspeeds - then it won't turbo at all. The point being that just because turbo boost is enabled does not mean the CPU will melt when put under heavy stress.

As for the 2011 vs 2010 - the Sandy Bridge CPU (even the dual core one on the MBP 13in) is MUCH faster than a 2.66GHz core 2 duo, the performance jump really is rather big. As for the graphics, the onboard sandy bridge HD 3000 graphics is actually pretty powerful - however if you rely on GPU acceleration in the applications you will be running, it would be worth investigating whether this new integrated graphics chip can do the same job as the old 320m.

If your budget can stretch - the 2011 base 15in MBP is worth a look. This laptop now features a 2.0GHz Quad core Sandy Bridge CPU - so for applications that make use of this (like cubase) it will be a good deal faster than a dual core. Also, it has a discrete AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics core (alongside the HD 3000).

 

[Ev0]

I've not had any issues with the onboard graphics as yet.

I'm not a gamer but I fired up TF2 on it the other day and it ran nicely.

 

[claypigeon101]

Hey thanks for that. From what I've heard the 2.66ghz c2d is better to run DAW applications than the i5. I can't afford a 15" really and I don't want one cos they're that bit bigger and heavier, it sounds a bit silly but I like the neatness of the small MBPs, that's really the only one that interests me.
Also from what I have been told/read about, the HD3000 Intel thing isn't the worst thing ever but it really isn't the 320m in the way of performance. I've heard a lot of bad things about the turbo boost on the small MBPs because they get so hot, for example lots of youtube vids of fans going wild when an HD video is output to a bigger monitor, the graphics can't handle it as well as the nvidia chip so offloads to the CPU causing it to boost and heat up lots. I think this problem is less in the larger MBPs because of their thermal headroom in the actual design. This is the reason though why they didn't use turbo boosting i5/i7s in the 2010 MBP range, stuck with the C2D because they hadn't perfected how the little one was going to deal with the extra heat; seems to me from reviews and videos that they still haven't.

Thanks for all your input, if I'm wrong please sort me out!

 

[Ev0]

You seem pretty hell bent on the C2D so if that's what you want get it, but imho the i5 is superior in almost every way bar a bit of gaming performance.

As has been said it will only boost if the CPU is within thermal limits, it won't boost it if it's too hot.

The only time the fans on my 2011 have kicked in was when playing TF2, the rest of the time when just doing general stuff, watching videos etc they've bene on their lowest setting throughout.

The machine doesn't even get that hot, stays relatively cool for the most part when I've been using it.

End of the day get what you think will be best for you, but I personally feel the 2011 machine is a far better performer for most things and hence why I waited to get one rather than going for the older c2d.

 

[claypigeon101]

fair enough, i totally respect that. i literally cant make rushed decisions especially with this kind of money, im not gonna have a spare £1000 knocking round any time soon after this so i need to make the right decision now haha. i think i will try one and run some big tracks on garageband in the shop and see how it fares, that will be a good indication of how it will perform in a hungry audio application.
thanks for your help, anything else please keep it coming!

 

[Ev0]

The hard disk will be the bottleneck on these systems, why they didn't at least provide them with 7200rpm disks I don't know.

But as you say you have to try them all and see what works best for you

Took me ages to finally make the plunge, and the thing I was actually holding out for (higher res screen on the 13 MBP) never appeared!

But bought anyway as everything else on them was exactly what I needed.