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[AnotherTechGuy]

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[Jeroen1322]

Well my MacBook Air has a i5 dual core @ 1.7GHz.. This is because it has very very little ventilation. Otherwise it would melt.. 

[Akolyte]

They are mobile optimized chips, not only on macbooks.  On ultrabooks and stuff too.  They are made to keep productivity high while also maintining a low power usage, the i5 is like an i3, its a dual core with hyper threading.  The i7 is too however it has higher clocks.  I know because... I have a macbook pro, however soon... I wont have one. 

 

Though I must admit, if I were going to go for a portable computer I would go Apple.  They may be overpriced but they work and are pretty hard to beat in terms of quality, but best bang for your buck... Apple is not ever going to win. 

[Akolyte]

Well my MacBook Air has a i5 dual core @ 1.7GHz.. This is because it has very very little ventilation. Otherwise it would melt.. 

my macbook pro gets over 100c while playing minecraft.  *facepalm*

[ShadowCaptain]

Hey there!

 

First off, this isn't a thread designed to flame, or attack Apple or their products. 

 

Recently I've been thinking of selling off my gaming laptop for something that's more sensible; as I do not game on my gaming laptop, and the spared cash could be utilised elsewhere.

 

So I looked at the MacBook Pro and MacBook air, out of sheer interest, to see what they offer. I was shocked to find that they run dual core i5s and i7s. I know people have always hated on Apple for their price to performance, but how they heck do you get such chips to run with so little cores, in contrast to normal?

Because the OS is designed to run on these processors

 

Apple know what processors they have put in their computers and can optimize the OS and software to take full advantage of the hardware inside. The new retina pros are VERY fast, especially with pci-e ssds they have inside. At work when I used to demo them I would open literally every program and about 30 web pages and it would cope even on its limited dual core i5 and 4gb of ram

 

EDIT: it is not just apple, most thin light laptops use these dual core i5/i7 chips, they have to in order to decent performance, maintain excellent battery life and not run at 200000 degrees

[EthanLovesPi]

Hey there!

 

First off, this isn't a thread designed to flame, or attack Apple or their products. 

 

Recently I've been thinking of selling off my gaming laptop for something that's more sensible; as I do not game on my gaming laptop, and the spared cash could be utilised elsewhere.

 

So I looked at the MacBook Pro and MacBook air, out of sheer interest, to see what they offer. I was shocked to find that they run dual core i5s and i7s. I know people have always hated on Apple for their price to performance, but how they heck do you get such chips to run with so little cores, in contrast to normal?

 

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but every mobile Core i5 has 2 cores. There is no 4 core Core i5 mobile CPU. The 15" Retina Macbook Pro runs a 4 core Core i7.

 

My 13" Macbook Air has a 1.3Ghz Core i5 because it doesn't need anything more powerful. It's supposed to be very energy efficient and still reasonably quick. It's designed to be the last word in portability; not a desktop replacement.

[TheDigitalRealm]

Nowadays though, Apple is actually in the mid-range price point of premium notebooks. Take the Macbook Pro, in terms of getting similar build quality and performance, you're looking at spending around £1400 when the MBP cost £1099. 

 

Relative to other high end notebooks, they really aren't that expensive anymore. In part due to the fact people seem to be willing to pay more for a metal notebook running Windows instead of OS X.

[Zeke]

Hey there!

 

First off, this isn't a thread designed to flame, or attack Apple or their products. 

 

Recently I've been thinking of selling off my gaming laptop for something that's more sensible; as I do not game on my gaming laptop, and the spared cash could be utilised elsewhere.

 

So I looked at the MacBook Pro and MacBook air, out of sheer interest, to see what they offer. I was shocked to find that they run dual core i5s and i7s. I know people have always hated on Apple for their price to performance, but how they heck do you get such chips to run with so little cores, in contrast to normal?

Dual-core CPUs are more than sufficient for everyday tasks (except gaming but thou (or "thy"?) shall never game on Mac). If you want max performance in slim sexy case, buy the Razer Blade.

[jezza39]

The Macs that run dual cores are the airs and the 13" pros, these really only get used for word processing and web surfing, more than enough grunt, great for power saving. I think a lot of people overestimate the CPU power they think they need. 

[WildTurtle]

All macbooks run notoriously hot to try to keep the temps down, the sad part is the ventilation is at the keyboard so your fingers are practically being set on fire while doing anything more intensive then typing up an essay.

[Whiskers]

So I looked at the MacBook Pro and MacBook air, out of sheer interest, to see what they offer. I was shocked to find that they run dual core i5s and i7s. I know people have always hated on Apple for their price to performance, but how they heck do you get such chips to run with so little cores, in contrast to normal?

They're mobile variants of the CPUs. Lower power consumption, fewer cores. Also keep in mind that OS X is pretty efficient on weaker hardware so it's not as much of a limitation as it may be with for example Windows 8.1.

Generally it's the same for most other laptops too, to be fair.

[Lyons]

So I looked at the MacBook Pro and MacBook air, out of sheer interest, to see what they offer. I was shocked to find that they run dual core i5s and i7s. I know people have always hated on Apple for their price to performance, but how they heck do you get such chips to run with so little cores, in contrast to normal?

 

Pretty much all mid-level laptops are dual core with hyperthreading, just like what you find in the MBA and [r]MBP.

 

Why do you even need more than 4 threads for laptop use anyway?

[marioo1182]

The dual core i5 is much more powerful on a mac than on a pc, they are optimized.

Also the reason they only have two cores is that most programs will not take advantage of more than two.