- Dual-core processors arrived on the scene in 2005, and made a huge impact on computers and laptops. Having a multi-core processor means that computers are able to multitask much better, allowing.
- With a choice of either 8 or 16GB of RAM, up to a 512GB SSD and a dual-core Intel Core I7, the Pixelbook has the specs that you are looking for when programming. And when you're not in full programming mode, the Pixelbook folds down into a tablet which is used in conjunction with a stylus.
- Is dual core processor laptop is enough for that. I dont play games in laptop, i watch movies often. How it is lagging feom i3 and i5 processor laptop? Yes, it would be more that sufficient.
- Is Dual Core Enough For Programming Skills
- Is Dual Core Enough For Programming Language
- Is Dual Core Enough For Programming Languages
- Is Dual Core Enough For Programming Module
(Fun fact: i3 used to be dual-core, and i5 used to be quad-core. Both series have since went up by 2 cores!) Since most modern games aren't optimized to use more than 4 cores, the 6-core i5 processors are generally more than enough for gaming purposes. In the case of some more intensive modern games, those extra 2 cores can also come in handy. The MacBook line offers three distinct choices: the 13-inch Air, 13-inch Pro and 16-inch Pro. Students who need a remote learning tool are going to naturally gravitate towards one of them.
I'm a big fan of dual-core systems. I think there's a clear and substantial benefit for all computer users when there are two CPUs waiting to service requests, instead of just one. If nothing else, it lets you gracefully terminate an application that has gone haywire, consuming all available CPU time. It's like having a backup CPU in reserve, waiting to jump in and assist as necessary. But for most software, you hit a point of diminishing returns very rapidly after two cores. In Quad-Core Desktops and Diminishing Returns, I questioned how effectively today's software can really use even four CPU cores, much less the inevitable eight and sixteen CPU cores we'll see a few years from now.
To get a sense of what kind of performance improvement we can expect going from 2 to 4 CPU cores, let's focus on the Core 2 Duo E6600 and Core 2 Quad Q6600 processors. These 2.4 GHz CPUs are identical in every respect, except for the number of cores they bring to the table. In a recent review, Scott Wasson at the always-thorough Tech Report presented a slew of benchmarks that included both of these processors. Here's a quick visual summary of how much you can expect performance to improve when upgrading from 2 to 4 CPU cores:
Task Manager CPU Graph | improvement 2 to 4 cores |
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion | none |
Rainbow 6: Vegas | none |
Supreme Commander | none |
Valve Source engine particle simulation | 1.8 x |
Valve VRAD map compilation | 1.9 x |
3DMark06: Return to Proxycon | none |
3DMark06: Firefly Forest | none |
3DMark06: Canyon Flight | none |
3DMark06: Deep Freeze | none |
3DMark06: CPU test 1 | 1.7 x |
3DMark06: CPU test 2 | 1.6 x |
The Panorama Factory | 1.6 x |
picCOLOR | 1.4 x |
Windows Media Encoder x64 | 1.6 x |
Lame MTMP3 encoder | none |
Cinebench | 1.7 x |
POV-Ray | 2.0 x |
Myrimatch | 1.8 x |
STARS Euler3D | 1.5 x |
SiSoft Sandra Mandelbrot | 2.0 x |
The results seem encouraging, until you take a look at the applications that benefit from quad-core-- the ones that aren't purely synthetic benchmarks are rendering,encoding, or scientific applications. It's the same old story. Beyond encoding and rendering tasks which are naturally amenable to parallelization, the task manager CPU graphs tell the sad tale of software that simply isn't written to exploit more than two CPUs.
Unfortunately, CPU parallelism is inevitable. Clock speed can't increase forever; thephysics don't work. Mindlessly ramping clock speed to 10 GHz isn't an option. CPU vendors are forced to deliver more CPU cores running at nearly the same clock speed, or at very small speed bumps. Increasing the number of CPU cores on a die should defeat raw clock speed increases, at least intheory. In the short term, we have to choose between faster dual-core systems, orslower quad-core systems. Today, a quad-core 2.4 GHz CPU costs about the same as a dual-core 3.0 GHz CPU. But which one will provide superior performance? A recent Xbit Labs review performed exactly this comparison:
3.0 GHz Dual Core | 2.4 GHz Quad Core | improvement 2 to 4 cores | |
PCMark05 | 9091 | 8853 | -3% |
SysMark 2007, E-Learning | 167 | 140 | -16% |
SysMark 2007, Video Creation | 131 | 151 | 15% |
SysMark 2007, Productivity | 152 | 138 | -9% |
SysMark 2007, 3D | 160 | 148 | -8% |
Quake 4 | 136 | 117 | -15% |
F.E.A.R. | 123 | 110 | -10% |
Company of Heroes | 173 | 161 | -7% |
Lost Planet | 62 | 54 | -12% |
Lost Planet 'Concurrent Operations' | 62 | 81 | 30% |
DivX 6.6 | 65 | 64 | 0% |
Xvid 1.2 | 43 | 45 | 5% |
H.264 QuickTime Pro 7.2 | 189 | 188 | 0% |
iTunes 7.3 MP3 encoding | 110 | 131 | -16% |
3ds Max 9 SP2 | 4.95 | 6.61 | 33% |
Cinebench 10 | 5861 | 8744 | 49% |
Excel 2007 | 39.9 | 24.4 | 63% |
WinRAR 3.7 | 188 | 180 | 5% |
Photoshop CS3 | 70 | 73 | -4% |
Microsoft Movie Maker 6.0 | 73 | 80 | -9% |
It's mostly what I would expect-- only rendering and encoding tasks exploitparallelism enough to overcome the 25% speed deficit between the dual and quad coreCPUs. Outside of that specific niche, performance will actually sufferfor most general purpose software if you choose a slower quad-core over a fasterdual-core.
However, there were some surprises in here, such as Excel 2007, and the Lost Planet'concurrent operations' setting. It's possible software engineering will eventuallyadvance to the point that clock speed matters less than parallelism. Or eventuallyit might be irrelevant, if we don't get to make the choice between faster clockspeeds and more CPU cores. But in the meantime, clock speed wins most of thetime. More CPU cores isn't automatically better. Typicalusers will be better off with the fastest possible dual-core CPU they can afford.
How fast does your MacBook need to be to comfortably code iOS apps with Xcode? Is a MacBook Pro from 2-3 years ago good enough to learn Swift programming? Let's find out!
Here's what we'll get into:
- The minimum/recommended system requirements for Xcode 11
- Why you need – or don't need – a fancy $3.000 MacBook Pro
- Which second-hand Macs can run Xcode OK, and how you can find out
I've answered a lot of 'Is my MacBook good enough for iOS development and/or Xcode?'-type questions on Quora. A few of the most popular models include:
- The 3rd- and 4th-gen MacBook Pro, with 2.4+ GHz Intel Core i5, i7, i9 CPUs
- The 2nd-gen MacBook Air, with the 1.4+ GHz Intel Core i5 CPUs
- The 4th-generation iMac, with the 2.7+ GHz Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs
These models aren't the latest, that's for sure. Are they good enough to code iOS apps? And what about learning how to code? We'll find out in this tutorial.
My Almost-Unbreakable 2013 MacBook Air
Since 2009 I've coded more than 50 apps for iOS, Android and the mobile web. Most of those apps, including all apps I've created between 2013 and 2018, were built on a 13″ MacBook Air with 8 GB of RAM and a 1.3 GHz Intel i5 CPU.
My first MacBook was the gorgeous, then-new MacBook White unibody (2009), which I traded in for a faster but heavier MacBook Pro (2011), which I traded in for that nimble workhorse, the mighty MacBook Air (2013). In 2018 I upgraded to a tricked out 13″ MacBook Pro, with much better specs.
Frankly, that MacBook Air from 2013 felt more sturdy and capable than my current MacBook Pro. After 5 years of daily intenstive use, the MacBook Air's battery is only through 50% of its max. Ifinance 4 1 6 – comprehensively manage your personal finances. cycle count. It's still going strong after 7 hours on battery power.
Is Dual Core Enough For Programming Skills
In 2014, my trusty MacBook Air broke down on a beach in Thailand, 3 hours before a client deadline, with the next Apple Store 500 kilometer away. It turned out OK, of course. Guess what? My current MacBook Pro from 2018, its keyboard doesn't even work OK, I've had sound recording glitches, and occasionally the T2 causes a kernel panic. Like many of us, I wish we had 2013-2015 MacBook Air's and Pro's with today's specs. Oh, well…
Learn how to build iOS apps
Get started with iOS 14 and Swift 5Sign up for my iOS development course, and learn how to build great iOS 14 apps with Swift 5 and Xcode 12.
That 100 Mhz i486 PC I Learned to Code With
When I was about 11 years old I taught myself to code in BASIC, on a 100 Mhz i486 PC that was given to me by friends. It had a luxurious 16 MB of RAM, initially only ran MS-DOS, and later ran Windows 3.1 and '95.
A next upgrade came as a 400 Mhz AMD desktop, given again by friends, on which I ran a local EasyPHP webserver that I used to learn web development with PHP, MySQL and HTML/CSS. I coded a mod for Wolfenstein 3D on that machine, too.
We had no broadband internet at home back then, so I would download and print out coding tutorials at school. At the one library computer that had internet access, and I completed the tutorials at home. The source codes of turn-based web games, JavaScript tidbits and HTML page snippets were carried around on a 3.5″ floppy disk.
Later, when I started coding professionally around age 17, I finally bought my first laptop. My own! I still remember how happy I was. I got my first gig as a freelance coder: creating a PHP script that would aggregate RSS feeds, for which I earned about a hundred bucks. Those were the days!
Xcode, iOS, Swift and The MacBook Pro
The world is different today. Xcode simply doesn't run on an i486 PC, and you can't save your app's source code on a 1.44 MB floppy disk anymore. Your Mac probably doesn't have a CD drive, and you store your Swift code in a cloud-based Git repository somewhere.
Make no mistake: owning a MacBook is a luxury. Not because learning to code was harder 15 years ago, and not because computers were slower back then. It's because kids these days learn Python programming on a $25 Raspberry Pi.
I recently had a conversation with a young aspiring coder, who complained he had no access to 'decent' coding tutorials and mentoring, despite owning a MacBook Pro and having access to the internet. Among other things, I wrote the following:
You're competing with a world of people that are smarter than you, and have better resources. You're also competing against coders that have had it worse than you. They didn't win despite adversity, but because of it. Do you give up? Automounter linux. NO! You work harder. It's the only thing you can do: work harder than the next person. When their conviction is wavering, you dig in your heels, you keep going, you persevere, and you'll win.
Learn how to build iOS apps
Get started with iOS 14 and Swift 5Sign up for my iOS development course, and learn how to build great iOS 14 apps with Swift 5 and Xcode 12.
That 100 Mhz i486 PC I Learned to Code With
When I was about 11 years old I taught myself to code in BASIC, on a 100 Mhz i486 PC that was given to me by friends. It had a luxurious 16 MB of RAM, initially only ran MS-DOS, and later ran Windows 3.1 and '95.
A next upgrade came as a 400 Mhz AMD desktop, given again by friends, on which I ran a local EasyPHP webserver that I used to learn web development with PHP, MySQL and HTML/CSS. I coded a mod for Wolfenstein 3D on that machine, too.
We had no broadband internet at home back then, so I would download and print out coding tutorials at school. At the one library computer that had internet access, and I completed the tutorials at home. The source codes of turn-based web games, JavaScript tidbits and HTML page snippets were carried around on a 3.5″ floppy disk.
Later, when I started coding professionally around age 17, I finally bought my first laptop. My own! I still remember how happy I was. I got my first gig as a freelance coder: creating a PHP script that would aggregate RSS feeds, for which I earned about a hundred bucks. Those were the days!
Xcode, iOS, Swift and The MacBook Pro
The world is different today. Xcode simply doesn't run on an i486 PC, and you can't save your app's source code on a 1.44 MB floppy disk anymore. Your Mac probably doesn't have a CD drive, and you store your Swift code in a cloud-based Git repository somewhere.
Make no mistake: owning a MacBook is a luxury. Not because learning to code was harder 15 years ago, and not because computers were slower back then. It's because kids these days learn Python programming on a $25 Raspberry Pi.
I recently had a conversation with a young aspiring coder, who complained he had no access to 'decent' coding tutorials and mentoring, despite owning a MacBook Pro and having access to the internet. Among other things, I wrote the following:
You're competing with a world of people that are smarter than you, and have better resources. You're also competing against coders that have had it worse than you. They didn't win despite adversity, but because of it. Do you give up? Automounter linux. NO! You work harder. It's the only thing you can do: work harder than the next person. When their conviction is wavering, you dig in your heels, you keep going, you persevere, and you'll win.
Winning in this sense isn't like winning a race, of course. You're not competing with anyone else; you're only really up against yourself. If you want to learn how to code, don't dawdle over choosing a $3.000 or a $2.900 laptop. If anything, it'll keep you from developing the grit you need to learn coding.
Is Dual Core Enough For Programming Language
Great ideas can change the world, but only if they're accompanied by deliberate action. Likewise, simply complaining about adversity isn't going to create opportunities for growth – unless you take action. I leapfrogged my way from one hand-me-down computer to the next. I'm not saying you should too, but I do want to underscore how it helped me develop character.
If you want to learn how to code, welcome adversity. Be excellent because of it, or despite it, and never give up. Start coding today! Don't wait until you've got all your ducks in a row. Adding sounds to logic pro x library.
Which MacBook is Fast Enough for Xcode 11?
The recommended system specs to run Xcode 11 are:
- A Mac with macOS Catalina (10.15.2) for Xcode 11.5 or macOS Mojave (10.14.4) for Xcode 11.0 (see alternatives for PC here)
- At least an Intel i5- or i7-equivalent CPU, so about 2.0 GHz should be enough
- At least 8 GB of RAM, but 16 GB lets you run more apps at the same time
- At least 256 GB disk storage, although 512 GB is more comfortable
- You'll need about 8 GB of disk space, but Xcode's intermediate files can take up to 10-30 GB of extra disk space
Looking for a second-hand Mac? The following models should be fast enough for Xcode, but YMMV!
- 4th-generation MacBook Pro (2016)
- 3rd-generation Mac Mini (2014)
- 2nd-generation MacBook Air (2017)
- 5th-generation iMac (2015)
Is Dual Core Enough For Programming Languages
When you're looking for a Mac or MacBook to purchase, make sure it runs the latest version of macOS. Xcode versions you can run are tied to macOS versions your hardware runs, and iOS versions you can build for are tied to Xcode versions. See how that works? This is especially true for SwiftUI, which is iOS 13.0 and up only. Make sure you can run the latest!
Pro tip: You can often find the latest macOS version a device model supports on their Wikipedia page (see above links, scroll down to Supported macOS releases). You can then cross-reference that with Xcode's minimum OS requirements (see here, scroll to min macOS to run), and see which iOS versions you'll be able to run.
Further Reading
Awesome! We've discussed what you need to run Xcode on your Mac. You might not need as much as you think you do. Likewise, it's smart to invest in a future-proof development machine.
Is Dual Core Enough For Programming Module
Whatever you do, don't ever think you need an expensive computer to learn how to code. Maybe the one thing you really want to invest in is frustration tolerance. You can make do, without the luxury of a MacBook Pro. A hand-me-down i486 is enough. Or… is it?
Want to learn more? Check out these resources:
Learn how to build iOS apps
Get started with iOS 14 and Swift 5Sign up for my iOS development course, and learn how to build great iOS 14 apps with Swift 5 and Xcode 12.