Quad Core i7 2011 and 2015 thoughts

[ryan101]

Hello Everyone,

I am about to take a slight change in direction in terms of my career, and moving more towards design based stuff, so I was looking to invest in a powerful 15" MBP. I already own a 13" i7 MBA, which I really love and is never slow. Anyway, I came by this 2011 MBP 15" with the known graphics chip issue. I took it to Apple, and they swapped it out the logic board, and now its fine. As its a Quad Core i7, and I am thinking of increasing the RAM to 16GB, I was thinking, how much different or slower would my 2011 MBP be compared with a 2015 with the same spec's? I am assuming the 2015 would be a lot faster, or would it not be noticeable?

I was thinking the 2011 model might actually be better for me in some ways because it still has the ethernet port and CD drive, but thats another thing altogether.

Any thoughts on performance differences? Would there be any huge difference?

Thanks.

 

[Jozone]

If you're not gaming, the only thing its really going to come down to the the display's resolution, and read/write times for the hard drive. That said, a QC i7 2011 is plenty for someone who is just starting to get their feet wet with design. I still have a QC i7 2012 myself.

 

[skiltrip]

I just replaced my 2011 15" i7 2.0GHz with a 2015 2.2GHz.

In regards to CPU speed, I don't feel a tremendous boost, but it's noticeable.

The SSD speed is much faster than the Crucial M500 I had in my 2011. Incredibly faster than the 7200rpm Seagate drive I had before that.

I would have kept my 2011, but I had a specific issue with some audio software I use that made it crash on the 2011, and I figured after 5 years I was due for a replacement anyway. But if I hadn't encountered that specific issue, I would have most likely kept using my 2011 for another 2 years or so.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Graphics performance is much better on the 2015, other than that you would get somewhere around the 20-30% performance increase on the CPU, much faster storage to say the least and faster ram etc along with better bandwidth etc on the logic board will all add up to a significant performance boost. Not to mention far faster wifi better Bluetooth USB 3 and thunderbolt 2 for faster peripherals and 4K output support.

 

[ryan101]

Hi Guys, Thanks for your responses. It will do me. Plus I was hoping to do some travelling, and having an Ethernet port may be useful in some countries. I'll see how it goes. But for now I'll stick with it. As one of the respondents said, I am still getting my feet wet, so don't fully know what I will need yet. But I am an impatient person, and I have never liked or used slow computers.

On a separate note, if Apple have a major tech/facelift with the MBP, I may consider treating myself to one then. But they haven't seemed to change much in many years. I read somewhere, maybe on this forum, that Macs now account for such a small part of their income, its not their highest priority, or something.