Macbook Pro i7 2011 vs Macbook Pro i7 2015 - insight needed

[Stromkraft]

Made me curious. Do visible mixer meters and display resolution affect CPU by very much?

I think you hit the spot here! I tried changing resolution again, and this time it had a big effect on performance. When i tried this last time, it made no difference. Then Live might have been disturbed by another process simultaneously (Sierra indexing possibly)? Turned of indexing and setting the resolution to default, I'm able to hit 64 tracks Aalto at 80-85% before crackling occurs. A big difference!

Could you please elaborate a bit on this. Resolution of the display or zoom in Live? Or both? You only have the internal display?

[Stromkraft]

That's what you assume. IMHO for no good reason. I have the RME Babyface and a 2011 MBP myself.

Cool, and it's running Sierra without any dropouts when pushed to 90% or so? Then i stand corrected.

Well, there's no actual performance difference between OS X 10.11 or 10.12 on mine. If anything as 10.12 can use later drivers it's somewhat more sturdy. I'm just waiting for the upgrades of stuff I need before I install it for real.

I don't see myself using 40+ Aalto though. But I got interested enough to get it so downloaded the demo. Thanks for the inspiration.

What I meant was, not so fast, real time computing is tricky and Sierra should be an improvement or the same.

[marvingain]

Made me curious. Do visible mixer meters and display resolution affect CPU by very much?

I think you hit the spot here! I tried changing resolution again, and this time it had a big effect on performance. When i tried this last time, it made no difference. Then Live might have been disturbed by another process simultaneously (Sierra indexing possibly)? Turned of indexing and setting the resolution to default, I'm able to hit 64 tracks Aalto at 80-85% before crackling occurs. A big difference!

Could you please elaborate a bit on this. Resolution of the display or zoom in Live? Or both? You only have the internal display?

Only using the internal display of the MBP. Zoom is at 100% in live. The resolution i'm talking about is the Retina display scaling in the OSX System Preferences / Display. If running at another screen scaling than the default, it seems to eat CPU cycles, mainly when scaling to simulate 1920x1080 resolution.

[marvingain]

Allright, I think I might have found another important culprit here also. The cooling system on the Macbook Pro Retina.
I installed the Intel Power Gadget app to measure actual CPU speed and temp on both computers, and ran the Aalto-test on Ableton Live until the audio started to crackle.

The reason that the 2015 Macbook Pro starts to crackle at lower CPU usage is because it runs a lot hotter than the 2011 Macbook Pro.

The 2011 Macbook Pro was able to utilize the full turbo boost speed of the CPU at all times, using 94% CPU in Live, running steady at 95 degrees totally stable.
The 2015 Macbook Pro was able to use the full turbo boost of the CPU for about 1 minute. After that the CPU reached 99 degrees C, and lowered the CPU speed to manage to cool it properly. When cooled down a few degrees, the speed comes up again. Then repeat. This is almost certainly the cause for the CPU spikes occuring at high CPU usage.

So while the 2015 Macbook Pro certainly is faster than 2011, it can't keep this speed up for more than a minute or so, then it slows down to cool. Maybe this is common knowledge, however it was new to me

[fishmonkey]

The resolution i'm talking about is the Retina display scaling in the OSX System Preferences / Display. If running at another screen scaling than the default, it seems to eat CPU cycles, mainly when scaling to simulate 1920x1080 resolution.

that's why i asked what resolution you were using, as scaling takes processing power.

do both or either of your machines have integrated + discrete graphics?

[marvingain]

The resolution i'm talking about is the Retina display scaling in the OSX System Preferences / Display. If running at another screen scaling than the default, it seems to eat CPU cycles, mainly when scaling to simulate 1920x1080 resolution.

that's why i asked what resolution you were using, as scaling takes processing power.

do both or either of your machines have integrated + discrete graphics?

The 2015 only has integrated, the 2011 has discrete. However the 2011 hasn't got Retina display, so that one has got fixed resolution with no scaling possible.
Didn't expect the scaling to draw that much CPU on the 2015 actually. Next to having Spotlight on, disabling Scaling was the thing that increased performance the most. However the CPU test above was done with no scaling, and Spotlight turned off.

[fishmonkey]

The resolution i'm talking about is the Retina display scaling in the OSX System Preferences / Display. If running at another screen scaling than the default, it seems to eat CPU cycles, mainly when scaling to simulate 1920x1080 resolution.

that's why i asked what resolution you were using, as scaling takes processing power.

do both or either of your machines have integrated + discrete graphics?

The 2015 only has integrated, the 2011 has discrete. However the 2011 hasn't got Retina display, so that one has got fixed resolution with no scaling possible.
Didn't expect the scaling to draw that much CPU on the 2015 actually. Next to having Spotlight on, disabling Scaling was the thing that increased performance the most. However the CPU test above was done with no scaling, and Spotlight turned off.

actually you can change resolutions on the 2011 model as well. anyway, the Retina model is pushing 2880 x 1800 pixels, and i suppose scaling puts even more load on the system because of the integrated graphics.

[nori.lam]

Bit late to the party but I have read somewhere that the MBPr with only integrated graphics actually runs hotter and use more CPU resources than the same model with discrete graphics. I suspect you will have the same crackling issues if you use an external monitor with your current setup.

So if its at all possible, you may want to try and return the laptop and get one with the discrete card. I know Apple doesnt sell them at their shops anymore but perhaps at another shop? If you are worried about battery life, you could run something like Turbo Boost Switcher (http://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/) which will disable your cpu turbo when on battery power (pro version only). It has increased my battery by 1-2 hours depending on what I am doing.

Another thing is that the amount of thermal paste used on the Macbooks is horrible. You may want to try and replace it yourself after a while because this will void your warranty or take it into an authorized Apple repair shop and pay them to do it.

[scheffkoch]

"Bit late to the party but I have read somewhere that the MBPr with only integrated graphics actually runs hotter and use more CPU resources than the same model with discrete graphics."

...sorry, but this is not true...in fact it's the opposite...after forcing my macbook pro (late 2011) to use the igpu only (with gfxcardstatus) my ableton set runs smoother with lesser cpu peaks!...the dgpu also produces heat under load and that throttles the cpu...the 2015 with igpu only should absolutely be powerfull enough...
i ordered the 2016 mbp with the standard gpu (and not the upgrade) for this reason (and would've ordered a igpu only version if possible)...