There are some oddities and variations within these product families, but in general it's easy enough figure out what's what. There is no Core i5 desktop processor with Hyper-threading and there is only one seldom-seen Core i5 desktop chip with only two cores (the low power i5-3470T), which draws a mostly clear line between the Core i5 and Core i7 product lines-on the desktop, dual-core CPUs are a market segment left to the Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron chips. The iMacs use desktop-class processors rather than the mobile processors used by the MacBook Pros and Mac Minis, which makes things a bit easier: a Core i7 upgrade will get you more processor cache, more clock speed, and Hyper-threading.

So what's the difference between a Core i5 and a Core i7? Well, thanks to Intel, the answer isn't simple. If you're in the market for a new Mac (or any computer, really), do these CPU upgrades give you a good bang for your upgrade buck? What's in a number? Well, it depends.

For each of the new Macs Apple began selling yesterday, the company offers a $200 upgrade option that will turn your Core i5 processor into a Core i7 processor (and while it hasn't started selling the new iMacs yet, those computers should have a similar upgrade path). If you like to upgrade when things are new, now is the time to strike.Īny new computer is an investment, though, and you'll want to make sure that what you're buying will last for as long as possible. Apple unleashed a pile of new Mac hardware on its users Tuesday: new 13' Retina MacBook Pros and Mac Minis using Intel's newest Ivy Bridge processors are available for shipping now, while substantially redesigned iMacs begin shipping in November and December.

2016 macbook pro 13 inch i5 vs i7