An i7 (U,M) in an ultrabook is vastly different from the i7 (MQ, HQ) in a gaming laptop.
A lot of people don't realize that, they just assume that i7 means "fastest intel processor".
It also doesn't help when computer manufacturers say "#th generation Intel processor". Unless you're keeping up with that stuff, how does a consumer buying a computer even make sense of that stuff?
So vendors can cheap out on cooling, cripple the cpu, and there's no way to tell until you buy it and check yourself.
No wonder PC sales are so bad these days.
Each generation have code name like Caby Lake etc.. but also corresponding number. You know that if computer have i7 6700 it is roughly 5-15% faster than previous generation i7 5700.
Just because Apple tend to hide this detail it is not Intel to blame.
Intel Core i5 6440HQ -- 6390 Intel Core i5 7200U -- 4856 Intel Core i7 6650U -- 4857 Intel Core i7 6700HQ -- 8023
By looking at the numbers in the name alone, there's a wide variability in how fast they are. That's pretty confusing to someone who doesn't keep track of CPUs.
Intel Core i5-7200U vs.Intel Core i5-6200U difference is what you will expect - 10-15% in most benchmarks
There is some variation but naming convention is better than Qualcomm where 820 vs 821 do not give you any information. AMD naming conventions is also useless when they release the same chip multiple times. nVidia sometimes release new generation of chips where low end models are in fact previous generation with different names. ARM naming convention is useless as well... Intel compared to rest in industry have in fact good naming conventions.
I am not Intel fanboy, they cut huge premium on theirs chips, still have crappy drivers in Linux and release buggy chips.
Its the same with the xeon line, where you really have to dig into the details to know what the difference is between a E5-46xx and a E7-48xx. Early on it seemed like intel was going to use E3=1 socket, E5=2 socket, E7>2 socket, but then they started bluring the lines. And then there are all the secondary features like extended availability of a SKU which isn't even broken down on the ARK matrix.
Then of course it changes every month or so when they add a couple new ones and remove a couple old ones. No wonder everyone is confused, half us here are computer geeks, and we need the internet to determine the difference between most of the part numbers. To average users, its complete crap. Worse, since so many of them are similar, you have to look at heaps of benchmarks to determine if some random i7 is actually faster than some random i5/whatever..
Basically, it seems to me that intel has far to many people in product segmentation/marketing and they could use some serious housecleaning. Do we really need 500 (probably worse that that) SKU's varying in one feature or another? They could rip out every other clock rate stepping and no one would really notice, heck they could rip out 1/2 the core count ones too.
So what's with the "because I need it, everyone would need it" attitude?
The problem with Apple (well, a problem with Apple; they've more than one) is that if you need more then you are completely and totally out of luck.
So it becomes 'since not enough people need it, I can't have it.'
So many people here Talk like Moores law suddenly stopped at all in the early 2010s...
I care about CPU performance for compiling large projects. If I ever end up having time outside of work, I would like to try my hand at GHC development. I have made an attempt at it in the past and builds could take hours on my 2011 MBP.
I don't use an IDE by choice but back when I had to use Android Studio, I definitely would have appreciated a faster CPU as well. I'm not sure if this is still an issue.
Even if you aren't doing anything CPU intensive, I think it's nice to know just because you want to know what you're paying for.