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Which one should I get for my needs?

  • 2.9 GHz

    Votes: 10 76.9%
  • 3.1 GHz

    Votes: 3 23.1%

  • Total voters
    13

cosmindavid

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 19, 2016
15
1
London
Hi guys,

Just a quick one, I'm preparing to buy a new Macbook Pro with Touch Bar in Space Grey, and I'm quite indecisive between the 2.9GHz version or 3.1GHz (for £90.00 extra).

To be honest I was thinking between the new Macbook Pro or the Surface Book. Most likely I'm going with the Macbook, because I already have an iPhone 7 and the Apple Watch.

I always used Windows but I would like to change to macOS.

I will be using it for day-to-day tasks, browsing, watching movies etc, nothing to push it like video editing or Photoshop.

My question is, will it be a big difference if I would pick the 3.1 GHz instead of 2.9 GHz in terms of performance?

Many thanks,

David
 

chabig

macrumors G4
Sep 6, 2002
11,460
9,326
I'm going to wait until we see reviews and benchmarks in a few more weeks, but I doubt there is much difference. Still, $100 doesn't break me so I'd get the 3.1GHz machine. I don't think the Core i7 chip will make a $300 difference. I did get the i7 in my 11" Air but in the older Intel generation the i7 had a larger L3 cache. I don't see that with the 6th generation chips.
 

kschendel

macrumors 65816
Dec 9, 2014
1,310
591
They are both i5's with the same amount of L3 cache, if I read the specs right. You'll see maybe 10% difference in raw compute power, and I can't imagine it making a perceptible difference in general use.
 

cruisin

macrumors 6502a
Apr 1, 2014
962
223
Canada
Unless you do tasks that have a progress bar, you won't really see the difference. On the other hand, its £90 so if the indecision is a big problem you can just get it and never worry about it.
 

Samuelsan2001

macrumors 604
Oct 24, 2013
7,729
2,153
The CPU will make very little difference, and for your use any Apple laptop currently sold will be lightening fast.
 
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