2014 15" MacBook pro underperforms to 2010 15" MacBook pro
Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 6:48 pm
Why does a new mid-2014 2.5Mhz i7 quad core machine perform worse than (or equal to) 2.66Ghz i7 (dual core) from 2010?
What is making my background CPU meter read higher on newest MacBook.
I bought a new machine thinking I might be able to get improvements in latency. But that’s not happening even though it’s a true quad core. Overall performance about the same or worse a big chunk of money later. For some reason I was led to believe the new architectures even in 2011 were an improvement. 2014?
The Symptoms:
Same project, same OS, same version:
CPU meter starting by hovering at 18% on 2014 i7; when on the old machine it starts at 6%.
Both machines running Mavericks and Ableton 8.
The new machine glitches sooner than the old one with the same load (when I start playing). 128 sample buffer (and still at 10% with 256 sample buffer)
Guesses as to the problem:
1) old hard drive vs SSD? (background drive access not designed efficiently for SSD?)
2) old Nvidia graphics chips vs. simple new Intel iris graphics is using CPU clocks? (Would getting the Nvidia option have helped?)
3) old 2.66Ghz (dual-core i7) vs 2.5Ghz (quad-core i7) Is it a clock speed problem?
4) old Firewire vs Firewire adaptor from Thunderbolt (Using MOTU828. Using internal DACs on either machine makes it worse as expected.)
5) Background process eating up the CPU that I can't see.
Since then I upgraded to Live version 9 thinking that may help. No improvement
I have 20 tracks of Kontakt and other Native Instruments synths BUT turning all of those “OFF”, which usually did the trick before, doesn’t improve things this time. (For instance turning OFF software synths would make my background CPU meter change by 5% each time.) Mutli-core support is on.
Maybe it’s not bad enough to go back to the old machine, but I think I just wasted my money.
Return?
If I try and return this very new machine for something else, I want to know what’s going to help me. (I also do circuit board layout and could use the bigger 15.4” screen for that when I’m on the road.) I have another few days before the 14-day period ends.
Any suggestions?
Why do I need best latency performance?
I’m an electronic percussionist almost exclusively working live shows with a lot of expressive MIDI input capabilities and I need both very ow latency and the power of some processing. Right now I’m still hold onto an old 90’s E-mu sampler for some percussion sounds partly because it still responds faster. (And that feels ridiculous.)
What is making my background CPU meter read higher on newest MacBook.
I bought a new machine thinking I might be able to get improvements in latency. But that’s not happening even though it’s a true quad core. Overall performance about the same or worse a big chunk of money later. For some reason I was led to believe the new architectures even in 2011 were an improvement. 2014?
The Symptoms:
Same project, same OS, same version:
CPU meter starting by hovering at 18% on 2014 i7; when on the old machine it starts at 6%.
Both machines running Mavericks and Ableton 8.
The new machine glitches sooner than the old one with the same load (when I start playing). 128 sample buffer (and still at 10% with 256 sample buffer)
Guesses as to the problem:
1) old hard drive vs SSD? (background drive access not designed efficiently for SSD?)
2) old Nvidia graphics chips vs. simple new Intel iris graphics is using CPU clocks? (Would getting the Nvidia option have helped?)
3) old 2.66Ghz (dual-core i7) vs 2.5Ghz (quad-core i7) Is it a clock speed problem?
4) old Firewire vs Firewire adaptor from Thunderbolt (Using MOTU828. Using internal DACs on either machine makes it worse as expected.)
5) Background process eating up the CPU that I can't see.
Since then I upgraded to Live version 9 thinking that may help. No improvement
I have 20 tracks of Kontakt and other Native Instruments synths BUT turning all of those “OFF”, which usually did the trick before, doesn’t improve things this time. (For instance turning OFF software synths would make my background CPU meter change by 5% each time.) Mutli-core support is on.
Maybe it’s not bad enough to go back to the old machine, but I think I just wasted my money.
Return?
If I try and return this very new machine for something else, I want to know what’s going to help me. (I also do circuit board layout and could use the bigger 15.4” screen for that when I’m on the road.) I have another few days before the 14-day period ends.
Any suggestions?
Why do I need best latency performance?
I’m an electronic percussionist almost exclusively working live shows with a lot of expressive MIDI input capabilities and I need both very ow latency and the power of some processing. Right now I’m still hold onto an old 90’s E-mu sampler for some percussion sounds partly because it still responds faster. (And that feels ridiculous.)