Hello all
The company I work for is offering to buy me a new MacBookPro.
I use Sketchup to produce 3D model designs for CrazyGolf courses with mechanical features and obstacles.
I currently use my own 15" MacBook Pro and looking at the new 16" Pros I’m not sure which is the best option or whether I should wait for the new 16" that is supposed to be coming out soon.
Or even
I have to stick with Apple so please just Mac based advice please.
Thanks
Sorry I meant to add
Or even configure my own, so that it is ideal for Sketchup.
I would wait a bit, as new models are expected to be announced very soon.
Thanks for the reply.
Probably sensible to see what is in the new models.
The next Apple event is on Monday. Would be worth waiting at least that long, and if no new machine is of interest, it still should affect the prices of the current machines.
Thanks Colin.
What I’m not sure about is what is the optimum configuration. When looking at the current models or when the new ones come out.
I know the GPU is really important for Sketchup, but looking at the two, off the shelf 16”. Is it the higher Ghz thats more important over the number of cores?
SketchUp always uses just one CPU core, so for it what matters is the single-core performance. The i9 has a slight edge over the i7. It’s too soon to know how the next Apple silicon will compare, but the current M1 does pretty well.
For renderers though the number of cores matters because most renderers can’t use GPU acceleration on Macs.
One can assume that eventually there will be a native M1 version of SketchUp because Apple is phasing out Intel across the entire line. Rosetta 2 runs Intel code reasonably well, but history tells us that Apple will eventually drop it too.
That is really helpful thanks Steve.
I don’t do much rendering so the single core performance is key for me then.
Is GHZ not an indicator of performance then.
As the i9 is lower than the i7?
Sorry if that’s a dumb question!
Not a dumb question, but a full answer would get deep into the technical weeds.
All else being equal, higher clock speed will usually yield higher performance. But, all else is not usually equal.
For example, each generation of processor can have different internal optimizations that dominate over raw clock speed. The speed of the memory matters too. The design of the laptop influences speed, as all modern CPUs slow down as they get hot, and different MacBooks vary in how they dissipate heat.
Thanks again Steve
Most welcome! Now the pundits are saying that although Apple is likely to announce the new MacBooks on October 18, there are supply chain issues that may make them hard to get for some time. So the wait may be longer than one would hope…
Yes I saw that too!