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When you’re about to get a new Mac, you might see that even within a specific model (say, MacBook Air), there are at least two or three options to choose from, and then the possibility to upgrade your Mac even further during checkout. While most of those features and add-ons make intuitive sense — more RAM, more storage, faster SSDs vs. HDDs — processors often confuse many.
What’s the difference between i5 and i7? Should you choose dual core vs quad core? What is a good processor speed in terms of GHz? All these and other questions are answered in the article below.
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What Are The Different MacBook Pro Processors?
As mentioned above, processors vary not only between Mac models but also within the same model too. Moreover, with new technological breakthroughs happening every year, a MacBook Air processor from 2020 is a completely different beast to the one made in 2016.
Here’s a brief overview of all the variable parts that comprise a processor:
- GHz measure the raw processing speed of a single CPU unit
- Cores denominate the amount of independent CPU units
- Intel i5 vs i7 vs i3 vs i9 show the model of the processor itself
- Turbo Boost gives occasional acceleration to the processing speed
- CPU cache is essentially your processor’s memory
- Hyper-threading allows to handle more independent tasks for the cores you have available
To give you a real-life example, currently you can buy a 16-inch MacBook Pro with 2.4 GHz 8‑core 9th‑generation Intel Core i9 processor and Turbo Boost up to 5.0 GHz. Let’s dive in each of those aspects in more detail and see how they compare to your current MacBook setup.
Which processor is in your Mac right now?
Depending on how old your Mac is, its processor could have a completely different performance compared to what’s available in the Apple Store today. You might be even wondering, “What processor do I have?”
Here’s how to find out your Mac’s processor specs:
- Click the Apple logo in the menu bar ➙ About This Mac
- Select System Report…
- Make sure to have the Hardware tab open
Now you can see that your MacBook could be running on a dual-core 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, for example. You might also notice that the generation of your processor is not specified. There’s a special trick you need to know to find it:
- Open Terminal from your Utilities folder in Applications
- Type sysctl machdep.cpu.brand_string
- Hit Enter
- Note the digit after the dash (e.g. -5). It denotes your processor’s generation.
After you’ve finally found out the exact specs of your Mac’s CPU, let’s break it down into specific details to be able to conduct a proper processor speed comparison.
What’s GHz meaning in CPU?
In general, hertz (Hz) is a measurement of frequency or, as often defined, cycles (of something) per second. All the contemporary CPUs are so fast that they are measured in gigahertz (GHz), or billions of cycles per second. Naturally, the higher the number the more operations your Mac can complete.
So why not always get the highest number possible? Well, first, it’s the cost: in general, you pay more for a processor with more GHz. Second, putting the max GHz processor in your Mac would be more taxing on your battery and in some cases could even lead to overheating. Third, if you often don’t do tasks where billions of processes per second matter (e.g. video games, compositing, virtual reality) then you don’t get any substantial benefit from having them at all.
How many cores should your Mac have?
Once you’ve understood the GHz meaning in CPUs, you might think of yourself as a master in processor speed comparison. But not so fast. For example, which do you think performs better: a 1.5 GHz dual-core Mac or 1.7 GHz single-core one? You’ll be wrong to go for the highest GHz number here — you also need to consider the number of cores.
Cores are essentially independent processors within your CPU. Since each of them has the same capability in terms of GHz, the number of cores in your Mac is basically a multiplier for your processing power. So, in the example above, instead of having a single 1.7 GHz processor, it’s much better to have two 1.5 GHz ones because they can share the load between them and perform tasks faster as a result.
Today, you’re not likely to find any single-core Macs still on the market. Even the most basic MacBook Air now starts with a 1.1 GHz dual-core CPU. So, for most people, the choice is between dual core vs quad core, even though an iMac Pro can take on up to 18 cores and Mac Pro up to 28.
Which processor model to choose?
The next thing you usually see on any Mac after the number of GHz and cores is the type of the CPU chip itself. Throughout the years, Apple has used M, i3, i5, i7, i9, and Xeon. Each of those models is also constantly being updated, with new releases being faster and more efficient, and flagged as generations.
In today’s Mac lineup, Apple is using Intel chips anywhere from the seventh (really old) to tenth (the latest as of 2020) generation. The breakdown for chip models is currently as follows:
- MacBook Air and Mac mini use i3, i5, and i7
- MacBook Pro 13-inch uses i5 or i7
- MacBook Pro 16-inch uses i7 or i9
- iMacs offer a choice of i3, i5, and i9
- iMac Pros and Mac Pros use Xeon W
Here, you might wonder what’s the best Intel processor? And it’s hard to say — the high end of the spectrum (e.g. i9) definitely excels at performance but is harder on the battery, whereas the lower end (e.g. i3) would allow you to spend all day typing without charge, but might get stuck on more powerful tasks. That’s why people usually find that Intel i5 vs i7 MacBook Pro is a good middle ground. In that case, i7 comes with a benefit of hyper-threading, which effectively doubles the core count for short periods of time.
What’s Turbo Boost?
To solve the problem of powerful processing chips burning through your battery life, Intel came up with an ingenious solution. Since most of the time your Mac is busy with mundane tasks — sorting mail, browsing the web — that don’t require lots of GHz, it makes sense to keep the GHz low and create a way for your CPU to spike only when it needs to process large chunks of data. Apple called this feature Turbo Boost.
Turbo Boost helps your Mac cope with large amounts of occasional information, so this indicator should definitely go into your processor speed comparison. If you mostly busy yourself with lightweight tasks but occasionally need to edit a short video, there’s no need to go for the top-shelf Mac model — just make sure that Turbo Boost covers your needs.
Why bother with CPU cache?
Just like cache in your web browser is there to save frequently used data (e.g. remember that you’re logged into a web app), cache in your processor serves to make operations more efficient by storing some bits of data used in repetitive processing.
The amount of CPU cache in your Mac processor is usually just a few megabytes — so low that the mention of it is quite hard to come by. Generally, if you pick one of the latest generation CPUs, it would have enough cache for its needs, so you don’t need to worry about it that much at all.
How important is hyper-threading?
As mentioned above, one of the main differences between Intel i5 vs i7 MacBook Pro is the inclusion of hyper-threading in the chip of the latter model. Hyper-threading distinguishes best Intel processors and allows the CPU to perform twice as many computations in relation to the number of cores. So a dual-core laptop can behave like a quad-core one for a brief period of time. You could think of it as an additional Turbo Boost, albeit much more powerful.
Which MacBook processor do you need?
With so much choice when it comes to MacBook Pro or MacBook Air processors, how do you make sure you invest in the right one?
Of course, everyone is in a unique situation, but here are some general recommendations:
- Avoid i3 chips if you want your MacBook to serve you for a long time. As these are entry level CPUs, they become outdated much faster than others.
- Similarly, don’t splurge on i9s unless you do some really CPU-intensive work (e.g. video editing). They are hard on your battery and could heat up your Mac very quickly.
- An i5 vs i7 is the real dilemma here. If you think you can benefit from hyper-threading, get an i7. Otherwise, stick to i5.
Always monitor your Mac’s performance
While most of the advice in this article is based on general assumptions, nothing can substitute you knowing the exact use patterns when it comes to your Mac. Monitoring your usage and the way your Mac is able to handle it should be your top priority to achieve maximum productivity.
iStat Menus is the most advanced Mac monitoring solution you can find. This handy utility lives in your menu bar and offers unbelievable details on every aspect of your Mac, lots of which are next to impossible to dig up any other way. Easily see the state of your CPU, RAM, GPU, disks, network, sensors, and more at a glance.
How to quickly speed up your Mac?
At some point, you’ll feel that your Mac has become slow. And you’ll probably be right. As you use your Mac more and more, you tend to accumulate lots of old files, your cache files grow, user logs take more time to process, etc. What’s important to remember here is that this problem is not with your physical processor slowing down but rather with what’s inside of your macOS, which means it can be cleaned.
CleanMyMac X is the world’s leading optimization software that could effortlessly delete a good dozens of gigabytes of useless data from your hard drive while considerably speeding up your Mac in the process. You can easily free up RAM, flush DNS cache, reindex Spotlight, quit hung apps, and much more, all at the click of a button.
To speed up Mac:
- Open CleanMyMac X and go to the Maintenance tab under Speed
- Select as many scripts as you wish
- Click Run
In the end, observing the facts beats theory every time. So if you’ve been thinking of an upgrade but are still not sure which MacBook processor to pick, monitor your usage with iStat Menus to get more clarity. Maybe you’ll find that all you need to do to have a brand new Mac is just optimize the old one using CleanMyMac X.
Best of all, iStat Menus and CleanMyMac X are both available to you at no cost for seven days through a trial of Setapp, a platform with more than 170 best-in-class Mac apps, from photo retouching (CameraBag Pro) to unlimited clipboard (Paste). Try free for a week and see how much easier your Mac life can be.
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Buying a new Mac is exciting, but it can also be very confusing. For most of the Macs it sells, Apple offers a number of different configuration options, including different RAM capacities, storage sizes and disk types, and processors. For many people, it’s the last of those that’s most important. It’s arguable that processors, or CPUs, are now so powerful that they can do everything most of us need to do at a speed that is more than good enough and so choice of CPU isn’t important. But that’s not quite true, as we’ll explain below.
What is a processor?
Put simply, a processor is the ‘brain’ in your Mac. Until relatively recently the CPU was responsible only for taking input, executing instructions and passing on the results. Now, CPUs incorporate short-term memory of their own and, sometimes, graphics processors, or GPUs. In fact, when it comes to choosing a processor for your Mac, deciding whether to opt for one that has an on-chip graphics processor is one of the key decisions you’ll have to make. Macs that have processors with on-board GPUs tend to be less expensive than those that have separate graphics processors, but also are less capable when it comes to things like rendering 3D graphics and 4K video. To further complicate matters, new macOS features like Metal make excellent use of the hardware in GPUs, meaning the choice of graphics processor is almost as important as the choice of CPU.
What processor does my Mac have inside?
Since 2006 all Macs have used Intel processors — unlike iPhones and iPads which have Apple processors. Apple labels the Intel CPUs it uses in the Mac as Core i5 and Core i7 and differentiates them by speed in GHz. The other difference is the number of cores in the CPU and the number of CPUs in the Mac. So, roughly speaking a quad-core processor should be able to process instructions at twice the rate of a dual-core CPU. That’s not the case in the real world, as executing instructions relies on more than just the speed at which the CPU’s ‘brain’ can perform calculations (for example, it’s dependent on how quickly those instructions can be passed to and from the CPU). However, in an application optimized for multiple cores, you should notice a significant difference between CPUs with different numbers of cores.
Intel gives each generation of its processor a code name. Recent Intel CPUs have had names like Sandy Bridge, Haswell, and Skylake. Apple doesn’t use those names, or even talk publicly about which processor is in each Mac, but it’s known that the current crop of iMacs and MacBook Pros have Kaby Lake processors, which were the most recent available at the time they were released in 2017. So, if you bought it in the last year or so, your MacBook Pro processor is Kaby Lake. The slimline MacBook processor is known as Core M, designed specifically for low power mobile use. The MacBook Air and Mac mini have Haswell processors, as they were released in 2013. The Mac Pro uses a completely different family of Intel processors, designed for high-end workstations and known as Xeon. The Mac Pro, last updated in 2013, uses the Romley variant of Xeon.
What are the important features of a processor?
We’ve already talked about processors that have on-board graphics, such as Intel Iris and Iris Pro. These offer benefits such as taking up less space than discrete CPU and GPU chips and Mac’s that use them tend to be less expensive than those with separate CPU and GPU. However, they also tend to be less powerful.
The other key feature of a processor is the balance between speed and power consumption. CPUs that run faster use more energy and so generate more heat. This doesn’t just mean that fans have to run more often, it also uses more power — and if the Mac is a laptop, runs the batter down more quickly. Indeed, CPUs are often ‘throttled’ so that they don’t run at their theoretical maximum, in order to preserve battery life and reduce heat generation.
What about Turbo Boost?
Turbo Boost is a technology introduced by Intel and is designed to allow processors to run at speeds faster than those quoted on your Mac’s label in certain circumstances. Remember we said that CPUs are often throttled to prevent overheating? Turbo Boost monitors the power consumption and heat of the CPU and removes that throttle when it’s safe to do so. So, for example, a quad-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro could run as fast as 3.8GHz in the right circumstances.
Which processor should I choose?
It’s likely that if you’re buying a new Mac, you’re choice of processor will be made from the Core M, Core i5, and Core i7. Not all Mac models offer a choice of all three. The Core M, for example, is specifically designed to minimise power consumption in mobile devices and is used only in the MacBook. If you’re buying a MacBook Pro or iMac, you’ll have the choice of Core i5 or Core i7. Likewise, if you buy a MacBook Air or Mac mini, although those machines use older versions of Intel processors. And, as we said earlier, if you buy a Mac Pro, you’ll be able to choose from Xeon workstation processors with multiple cores.
There are two decisions you’re likely to have to make: i5 or i7 and dual-core or quad-core. Generally speaking, in terms of speed, a dual-core i5 is the slowest and a quad-core i7 the fastest. That, however, is not the whole story. In order to get the most from multiple cores, you’ll need to be performing tasks that really benefit from the ability to execute more instructions simultaneously. So, tasks like 3D rendering, video editing and working with large images in Photoshop will all improve noticeably with a quad-core vs a dual-core processor.
Core i7 processors have two main benefits over Core i5: larger cache and hyper-threading. The presence of a larger cache means the CPU can store more data locally and so spend less time transferring them back and forth to RAM. Hyper-threading allows the CPU to simulate additional cores. So, a quad-core i7 with hyperthreading behaves like and eight-core CPU.
The benefits of larger cache and hyperthreading are seen in scientific applications, where large calculations are performed and their results stored, as well as the 3D animation and 4K video editing.
Integrated vs discrete graphics
As we discussed earlier, some Intel processors have GPUs onboard. In some Mac ranges, such as the MacBook Pro and iMac, you’ll have the choice of a model with integrated graphics or one with a separate, or discrete, GPU. If you’re going to use your Mac primarily for playing power-hungry games, manipulating large images, or editing video or animation, you should choose a Mac with a separate GPU. On the other hand, if you’re mostly going to use it for writing, email, social media and editing your own photos, a CPU with integrated graphics, like Iris, is fine.
Can I upgrade the processor in my Mac?
That’s a flat no, sadly. There have in the past been Macs that had processors that could be upgraded, but now they’re soldered firmly in place and so your Apple CPU can’t be removed. That makes the choice you make when you buy your Mac even more important. The good news is that for most users every processor that ships with a currently available Mac, even those that haven’t been updated in several years, is absolutely fine and will run as fast as you need it to.
If I can’t upgrade the processor, how else can I speed up my Mac?
Two of the most effective ways to make your Mac go faster are to install more RAM and swap your hard drive for an SSD. Those both cost quite a bit of money, however. A much less expensive and much easier way is to get rid of the ‘junk’ files that can clog up your Mac. These are installed by applications, or by the system, or downloaded to your machine by websites. Deleting them one by one is a long and difficult process, but CleanMyMac X makes it very easy. CleanMyMac identifies files on your Mac that either serve no purpose, that you’re unlikely to need, or that are large and haven’t been opened for a while.
Best Mac Processor For Photography
You can scan your Mac with one click and CleanMyMac will report back to you with the files it thinks you can delete and how much space it will save you — it can be tens of gigabytes. You can then review them and choose which to get rid of or press Delete and get rid of them all. CleanMyMac also makes it easy to uninstall apps you no longer use and removes all their associated files. You can download it free here.
Mac Intel Processors
Choosing a processor for your Mac can seem confusing and difficult but it’s not really. Once you’ve chosen the Mac you want, there are likely only to be a few options. And with the help of our guide, you should now know which one is right for you.