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Why are the current i7 clocks so slow?

C

cfII

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 31, 2011
121
0
california
2.0? 2.3 is the top of the heap!?

And why is the dual core 13" clocked higher?

Is it possible to over clock a MBP CPU?

Why can't apple just put in a 3.5? Too much heat?
 
Because they are in laptops.

http://ark.intel.com/products/52227/Intel-Core-i7-2820QM-Processor-(8M-Cache-2_30-GHz)

Read the Turbo area.
In the end it does not matter because a 3GHz core2duo can net you 4000 on geekbench. The 2.3GHz quad will net you 10,300. And single threads will run upwards of 3.4GHz.

Intel does not make a faster mobile chip. This is their fastest. Period.
Sorry no. their is 1 faster the Intel® Core™ i7-2920XMExtreme. 200MHz more on the base and 100MHz more on the turbo.
 
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2011 Macs are using new processors and new architecture. They are faster overall.
 
cfII said:
2.0? 2.3 is the top of the heap!?

And why is the dual core 13" clocked higher?

Is it possible to over clock a MBP CPU?

Why can't apple just put in a 3.5? Too much heat?
Click to expand...

You do realize that those speeds are just the base clocks. Check this review and you'll get a better understanding of how the Intel sandy bridge "overclocks" itself. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4205/the-macbook-pro-review-13-and-15-inch-2011-brings-sandy-bridge/2

And no, you can't overclock a mbp cpu - doesn't use BIOS.
 
cfII said:
Can I overclock it through windows somehow?
Click to expand...

Why do you want to overclock it?

The answer is yes you can find tools (use google) to overclock an i7 on Windows. I doubt it will be very stable beyond a few hundred MHz and it most definitely will be hot enough to cook on.
 
cfII said:
2.0? 2.3 is the top of the heap!?

And why is the dual core 13" clocked higher?

Is it possible to over clock a MBP CPU?

Why can't apple just put in a 3.5? Too much heat?
Click to expand...

More and more clock speed is becoming a poor measure of a CPU's performance. It's best to go straight for benchmarks these days. Power consumption is proportional to clock speed, and the relationship is even worse when voltages have to be increased to achieve high clock speeds. This combined with the double wammy of increased leakage current and proportionally greater wire delay pretty much spells the end of the era of increasing clock speeds. All significant performance increases from here on out will be from architectural improvements and greater transistor budgets.

On Geekbench the quad core 2.3GHz i7 in the Macbook Pro scores just as highly as the Quad Core Mac Pro from 2009 running at 3.33 GHz, and higher than the eight core Mac Pro from 2008 running at 3.2GHz.

http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/
 
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no reason or benefit to overclock. It will just overheat. It has turbo boost up to 3.4GHz when it is helpful and the temperatures are appropriate. Like others have said, clock speed is a terrible measure of actual processor speed now, especially since it's a quad.
 
holmesf said:
More and more clock speed is becoming a poor measure of a CPU's performance. It's best to go straight for benchmarks these days.
Click to expand...

Geekbench is a terrible indicator for performance though. It'll show a 12-core Mac Pro beating everything when we know that is not true with 90% of current available software. I assume you are telling people to use multiple benchmarks and their own software needs to make CPU decisions not just geekbench. It is still confusing to most people given the sheer amount of "What to buy" threads.
 
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Why is this in the MAC PRO forum??
 
derbothaus said:
Geekbench is a terrible indicator for performance though. It'll show a 12-core Mac Pro beating everything when we know that is not true with 90% of current available software. I assume you are telling people to use multiple benchmarks and their own software needs to make CPU decisions not just geekbench. It is still confusing to most people given the sheer amount of "What to buy" threads.
Click to expand...

Geekbench is pretty accurate for gauging performance under the condition of very heavily threaded workflows. It's true that in practice very few pieces of software are capable of scaling to the 24 threads needed to keep a 12-core Mac Pro busy (you could probably count on one hand the number of applications that do ... raytracing, video transcoding, simulating the Universe, ...?). It's also true that for single threaded tasks you're better of with a higher clocked CPU with fewer cores than a 12 core Mac Pro. In general, however, if you had to sort CPUs by performance in a one dimensional way, Geekbench number will give you a better measure than core frequency.

Ultimately yeah, you are right when it comes to making purchasing decisions.
 
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