New MacBook Pro - 6 core i7 or 8 core i9

[robertp7966352]

Looking to get a new MacBook Pro and wondering whether anyone has insights on whether the 8 core i9 (9th gen) is work the extra cost (also comes with Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB as opposed to Radeon Pro 5300M 4GB)?

I am primarily using Lightroom Classic with a 60K+ catalog of Canon raw images.

Thanks for any guidance

rob

[Dan Rodney]

I doubt there's that much of a difference in performance with either the CPU or GPU upgrades. In my experience the biggest boost is generational, moving from one generation to another generation of Macs. I typically try to save money and get something a bit lower spec'd and then use the savings for the next computer so I can upgrade faster. With a generational upgrade you get many faster components, from I/O to system bus speeds, ram speeds, etc.

I'd recommend seeing if anyone has done any tests specifically for Lightroom with the different configs. App performance varies a lot depending on how well they are optimized for a video card, etc. so for some apps a CPU upgrade might help and for others a GPU upgrade might help.

Best wishes!