Dual Core vs Quad Core new Macbook Pro

[ramonetl]

Hi all, has anyone switched from the older generation quad core to the current dual cores and had any performance issues? I have a early 2013 MBPro 15.4 and I am thinking to maybe replace it next year with a new one when they release the next generation of chips. Im curious for the average home user with maybe max 20 tracks if it still makes sense to run the quads. At the time I wanted the 16gb ram and the 13" capped at 8. Now they can go 16 and I dont yet see 32gb for the 15.4 so I wonder if its really worth the extra cash? I also really like the smaller size of it. Curious how folks sessions are running on these? Also my MBPro will burn your legs if you keep it running graphics and I have never gotten more than maybe 2 hours battery life. Apple lies pretty badly about battery life. Thanks, Peter.

[JCBigler]

Always get the quad core. Even a fast dual core CPU is too little for Protools these days.

[ramonetl]

I really wish they would put a quad core in the smaller one. I am actually surprised after so much time they didnt go to a six core cpu for the bigger one.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by ramonetl

I really wish they would put a quad core in the smaller one. I am actually surprised after so much time they didnt go to a six core cpu for the bigger one.

You haven't figure out yet that apple knows what you need better than you know what you need

[AlexLakis]

I'm still rocking my mid-2012 MBP 2.7 quad, and will until it is non-functional beyond repair. I don't have an extra $3,000 lying around to drop on a new laptop for no reason, especially when the new ones reportedly perform worse than the one I have (supposedly from the benchmarks I've seen so far.) I can run more than enough tracks with more than enough plugins for any rock/pop production as it is, so why bother? Apple has just been riding on the coat tails of a dead genius. They seem to have lost the plot even further with this latest offering. But hey, USB-C seems cool...

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by ramonetl

I really wish they would put a quad core in the smaller one. I am actually surprised after so much time they didnt go to a six core cpu for the bigger one.

You think you've got battery life and heat issues with what you have and you want a 6 core cpu in there? Put one of those in there and it will make the old G5 desktops feel like they're positively frigid.

[Bob Olhsson]

The only relevant spec. for a DAW is the number of floating point calculations per second. A new two core can walk all over an older six core!

People are often comparing potatoes to bananas when they compare cores and clock speed.

[JFreak]

True. And every time you have more than one core to process things, you need to take "processing coordinator overhead" into account. You can't just simply put a process to a random core, but every process will first have to ask "a coordinator" which core to use, and while it's relatively fast task, it still takes cpu cycles that are just overhead, compared to one core.

So the tradeoff between one insanely fast core (hasn't materialised yet) and insanely big number of slower processing cores is the dilemma IT nerds have been trying to optimise for the past couple of decades.

One spec (fp calc per sec) is obviously only a rough ballpark, but it surely wouldn't surprise me if a 2-core system would beat a 6-core system.

[Bob Olhsson]

I've been told by a DSP engineer that the optimum for real time work is 6 and anything beyond that just slows things down.

A lot of graphics work doesn't need to be real-time and can benefit from more cores and motherboard CPUs.

[ramonetl]

Originally Posted by musicman691

You think you've got battery life and heat issues with what you have and you want a 6 core cpu in there? Put one of those in there and it will make the old G5 desktops feel like they're positively frigid.

Well that is not really the source of the heat from what I read. its more the graphics processor. I put a little app on there to measure cores and when I started running some video they all hit 100C. My previous macs never got hot like the retina. Keep in mind that is hot enough to boil water.

As far as 6 core cpu, that is pretty common now days. Perhaps for notebooks its cost inhibative but Macbooks are so overpriced I think it wouldnt be an issue. But yeah I am dreaming. I just was expecting a bit more than what apple released after 4 years. I really do think about going back to windows from time to time. My little HP at work is cool and fast as hell and 1\3 the price of a macbook. But my native DAW stuff seems to prefer the mac. I dont think I would change anytime soon but if I could get a smaller mac with the processing power I would prefer that. I always felt the 15.4 was just too damn big and would love a quad in the 13.3 which I feel is the optimal size. At home I am always using bt kb and mouse and a belkin doc so its usually not on my lap but when I travel this thing sucks to use.