Macbook Pro - difference between an i5 and i7?

Hades · 2 Jan 2011 at 14:12

I've not looked at processors recently so I'm a little out of touch. In the MBP what is the difference between an i5 and i7?

Does the i7 have 2 or 4 cores?
Do both have hyperthreading or only the i7?
How much faster is the i7?

Thanks.

James J · 2 Jan 2011 at 14:17

I bought the i7 one which is a dual core cpu with hyperthreading (so thinks its a quad). In hindsight, I should have plumped for the i5 system to be fair and saved around £130 lol.

If your allocating the funds for the i7, I'd highly recommend you to ditch that and get the i5 + the SSD hard drive as that will give you vastly faster system performance anyway.

Shadowness · 2 Jan 2011 at 14:26

I recently got the i7, and installed my own SSD.

Very nippy machine. IF battery life is a concern, go for the i5.

theheyes · 2 Jan 2011 at 14:28

James J said:
I bought the i7 one which is a dual core cpu with hyperthreading (so thinks its a quad). In hindsight, I should have plumped for the i5 system to be fair and saved around £130 lol.

If your allocating the funds for the i7, I'd highly recommend you to ditch that and get the i5 + the SSD hard drive as that will give you vastly faster system performance anyway.

This, unless you absolutely need the CPU horsepower e.g. heavy video encoding

OzyOly · 2 Jan 2011 at 15:30

Hades said:
I've not looked at processors recently so I'm a little out of touch. In the MBP what is the difference between an i5 and i7?

Does the i7 have 2 or 4 cores?
Do both have hyperthreading or only the i7?
How much faster is the i7?

Thanks.

Both have 2 cores.
Both have hyperthreading.
The i7 is a bit faster, but only if you're maxing out the CPU load on the i5.

As others have said. Get a i5 + SSD (not from apple) and it will go a hell of a lot quicker than an i7 machine with a HDD.

Hades · 2 Jan 2011 at 16:17

Thanks.