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by KirinDave 3477 days ago
"To be fair" if I can observe at most a 10-15% difference on my primary CPU+IO bottleneck with power consumption on then I do not care much about the specifics of the underlying hardware.

Ironically, the only thing my MBP is better at is gaming.
2 comments
caconym_ 3477 days ago
Your personal workflow isn't really a generally applicable benchmark, and if Apple had gone with the 15W TDP processor people would just have more ammunition for the "it's not pro enough" argument.

The Surface Book is probably a better choice for you, though. My workflow sounds pretty similar to yours (maybe not quite as heavy a background load, though I do some incremental compiling and whatnot), and I have the mid-spec 12" Macbook which routinely gives me 10+ hours of programming and web browsing (I use Opera with the adblocker and battery saver turned on). I simply didn't need more power; this little machine handles everything I throw at it. I think a lot of people fetishize computing power to the detriment of their own convenience.

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KirinDave 3477 days ago
> Your personal workflow isn't really a generally applicable benchmark,

On the contrary, I think many developers here would be interested in the actual difference observed as opposed to benchmarked. My workflow is unusual in the wider world, but compiling Clojure, running webpack, compiling Android executables with Gradle, and running ocaml's compiler are all somewhat unique to this sphere. I feel comfortable talking about it.

> I think a lot of people fetishize computing power to the detriment of their own convenience.

I agree with this. That's why I think my surface book is a good compromise. A nice medium of a lot of things, acceptable speed at standard tasks with excellent battery life, a touch laptop for when touch-centric work and usability arises, and for my eyes the nicest screen shipped on a laptop right now.

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coldtea 3477 days ago
>"To be fair" if I can observe at most a 10-15% difference on my primary CPU+IO bottleneck with power consumption on then I do not care much about the specifics of the underlying hardware.

To be fair, others dont have the same workflows, and see far greater than 10-15% CPU+IO improvements.

And people got enraged when the new MBPs wasn't that faster compared to last year. Imagine if it merely had that Surface cpu...

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KirinDave 3477 days ago
> To be fair, others dont have the same workflows,

""To be fair"" I don't think my workflow is exceptional for this environment. It varies from big compiles (android) to small compiles (webpack) and web work. It's quite normal for this audience, as far as I can ascertain.

But... I'm not sure why you are commanding me to imagine something here. I have 0 interest in imagining what excuses people make to keep or stop buying hardware from Apple.

I have my own reasons, and I've been pretty public with them. They extend well beyond recent hardware revisions, and have to do a lot more with software and the refusal to ship a touch screen.

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coldtea 3477 days ago
>It's quite normal for this audience, as far as I can ascertain.

This audience isn't the only audience. Video processing/export pipelines, for one, show more than 10-20% improvement in Premiere, and close to 50-100% in FCPX in the new machines.

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