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Comment by Tichy | Hacker News Reader

Not Apple's fault, but I have troubles with the naming schemes of the new Intel CPUs. Somehow if a CPU is called Core i5 or Core i7, I expect it to have 5 or 7 cores respectively. I take it that isn't the case?

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This is a combination of Apple and Intel craziness. Intel decided to have let the names i3/i5/i7 be independent of number of cores, and Apple don't mention the exact processor name, which would tell you. Just the clock speed.

No, they mention processor names all over the place; e.g., see the specs, section "Processor and Memory": http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html .

I didn't see it mentioned anywhere on the store pages. Which would be nice to know when you're about to drop a stack of cash on it.

http://i.imgur.com/4t4SW.png

First line in each description ;-)

You just proved my point. The actual names of the CPUs are Core i5-520M (2.4GHz), i5-540M (2.53GHz) and i7-620M (2.66GHz).

So you're upset that they say Core i5 2.4Ghz, instead of Core i5-520M 2.4 GHz?

These current incarnations have 2 cores. I'm a bit disappointed that Apple didn't go for the 4-core i5/i7, though.

Probably because the top-end TDP is 130W for the i7. That has a tendency to lead to low battery life.

That makes sense.

The mobile i7 quad-core is 45W. Apple doesn't make desknotes.

There isn't a 4 core mobile i5. The i5 should mean mainstream and i7 enthusiast performance. So you have i5-520M, i5-540M and i7-620M dual cores and i7-720QM, i7-820QM and i7-920QM quad cores. And their TDP is 35W for dual cores and 45W for quad cores.

See http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Intel-Core-i3-i5-i7-Proc... for perfomance of these new chips

These are laptops... so I'd rather have battery life over performance.

Nope, from what I've read they are both dual core with hyper-threading.

In fact, I can't find any sources that show any real difference between them other than clock speed. Maybe someone with more CPU expertise could enlighten me - do the model numbers in Intel's mobile processors now simply denote clock speed differences?

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/intel-core-presser-32nm-c...

Yeah, it's basically just clock speed in the mobile CPUs, and of course the higher end i7s have 4 cores (and no on-chip graphics). Some desktop versions also omit hyper-threading and/or turbo boost.

and of course the higher end i7s have 4 cores (and no on-chip graphics)

Of course! The name makes that obvious. Thanks, Intel!

Corei5 does NOT support HyperThreading unlike Corei7

That's incorrect. All mobile Core i5 processors have HyperThreading.

http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?familyID=43483

In fact, there are only two Core i* processors that don't have HyperThreading support, and they're both variants of the same quad-core Core i5 desktop processor (Core i5 750 and Core i5 750S):

http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?familyID=42912

There isn't much difference between the cpus apple is offering. The i7 has 4mb of cache instead of 3mb, higher base clock speed, and higher turbo clock speed.

Here is Intel's infromation on the three chips: http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=47341,43544,43560

For some other cases, there are bigger differences between the i5 and i7, but not for these chips.

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