Are you tech-savvy enough to get Bootcamp installed? (not being snarky, just making sure you understand that process.)
Haha i definitely am not, but my school offers the service for free so i'd be taking advantage of that.
I appreciate your feedback! I figured I should get another opinion bc I didn't feel like my school was giving me the full picture. Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer my questions! 😄🙏🏽
Definitely good to know that about Turbo Boost, as well as the i9 processor. Would the 5600M graphics card help in any way when it comes to the speed or thermals? I've seen a few reviews of the MacBook carrying this chip, and it apparently boasts a lot of power while being detached from a power source, even beating out the iMac in some tests.
As I said earlier, M1 is not an option for me anyway since I am only looking at the 16" model, and the M1 chip is only available for the 13" models, so we don't need to worry about that being an issue for me. Also I am completely fine with running bootcamp, in fact I'm planning on it, since I will be using other programs that only run through windows. I understand Apple is more expensive, but I will be using my iPad to take notes for the class, and it will be much easier if all of my documents for class are accessible from the same device I will be using to render. I do not want a windows computer, I really just want to know what's the best MacBook option to run Enscape, even if it's not the best overall computer to run it.
And no I definitely am not tech savvy at all, that's why I'm asking these questions here in this forum. This is me taking interest and time to learn technology, as I only decided to go to school for interior decorating last week. I haven't found any answers anywhere, through any amount of googling. I've asked my school questions, I've asked on Quora and Reddit, and no one seems to have a confident answer about i7 vs i9 for Enscape, and seeing as Enscape is the only plug-in that my school says the i9 would have an issue with, I figured I'd come directly to you 
sorry if my questions are too pedestrian, but that's just where I am right now, and I don't want to make a $3000 mistake by buying the wrong device.
Thanks!
Hi, thanks for getting back to me!
On the system requirements table of your website, it says to get the latest available drivers, so I assumed that was including MacBooks. I'm aware I'll need to get bootcamp, that's not a problem. I also am not interested in the M1 chip, as I'm only looking at the 16" MacBook Pro, which at this moment in time does not have an M1 model. My debate is more between the i7 and the i9.
When it comes to the speeds, honestly I'm not really sure how any of this works, I'm just going off of what my school told me for device requirements, so here is what they said:
"The reason why we require a minimum processor speed of 2.5 GHz is a rendering plugin that we suggest to use will only download with a 2.5 GHz or better."
And then after I asked which plug in specifically they were talking about, they said this:
"The plug-in app that doesn’t support a processor with less than 2.5 GHz is enscape."
My dilemma is that the MacBook Pro with an i9 processor only has an initial speed of 2.3GHz, whereas the older gen i7 processor has initial speeds of 2.6GHz. However the i9 has 8 cores, whereas the i7 only has 6, so I don't know if those extra cores make up the difference in speed, again I don't know how any of this works. I also don't know whether I should take into account Intel's Turbo Boost feature which would allow the i9 to process up to speeds of 4.8GHz.
If you could clarify for me whether or not the i9 can successfully run Enscape, I would be very grateful. Thanks again!
I'm beginning interior decorating school this fall and need a laptop, and am going for the 16" MacBook Pro. What I want to know is which version of the computer I should get. I was told by my school that they recommend getting the previous gen i7, since the initial processing speed is actually faster than the i9 (2.6GHz for i7 vs 2.3GHZ for i9,) and that Enscape only downloads at speeds of 2.5GHz or more. But when I went to the Enscape website, it said to get the latest possible model for MacBook Pro. Something that also confuses me is that even though the initial speed of the i9 is 2.3GHz, Intel has this thing called Turbo Boost which allows for speeds up to 4.8GHz under heavy load, but my school says that Enscape doesn't consider Turbo Boost, it only considers the initial processing speed. Has anyone successfully used Enscape on an i9 MacBook Pro, and would recommend it to me? Thanks!
