2.7GHz Intel Core i7 vs 2.6GHz 6‑core 9th‑gen Intel Core i7 I have a 15" 2016 2.7GHz Intel Core i7 MacBook Pro. It has 16GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 and a 1TB SSD. I'm considering upgrading to the latest MacBook Pro, which has:


2.6GHz 6‑core 9th‑gen Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz.
16GB 2400MHz DDR4 memory.
1TB SSD storage.


What will be the difference in speed between the two MacBook Pros? They have almost identical clock frequency and both have Intel Core i7 processor.

I don't do any graphics processing, so I don't see that all of those Cores will be used. Is that wasted CPU resources?

My main activities are Web surfing (using Safari), periodic screen recording, and running a bunch of apps at once (I don't close app windows since it is quicker to flip between them). Some of the apps (with multiple windows opened) that I use and constantly have open include:


Pages
Numbers
Mail
Safari (two windows with 10 tabs each)
Calendar
Google Chrome (one window with 8-10 tabs)
Preview (about 5 windows)
Day One Classic
1 Password
Messages
Harvest app
Dictionary
Dropbox
Monosnap
Wrike for Mac (project management)
TextEdit
Terminal


My consideration for upgrading is that webpages can be fairly slow to load (no, it isn't the Internet connection), and I have about a 3-5 second delay sometimes when scrolling in Safari and Mail.
What will be the difference in speed between the two MacBook Pros? They have almost identical clock frequency and both have Intel Core i7 processor.


Both the processors belong to different generation. While 2016 MacBook Pro features 6th-generation Skylake processor, 2019 models feature 9th generation Caby Lake processor.


Table of fourth generation MacBook Pro models


Branding and clock speed aside, there's a lot of under the hood performance, fabrication, architectural and energy management improvements which happen in newer generation processors leading to improved overall system performance, battery life and thermal management.


  I don't do any graphics processing, so I don't see that all of those Cores will be used. Is that wasted CPU resources?


It's a broad question and whether CPU resource gets utilized fully depends on specific use cases. If you have an Apple Retail store around, I assume you can use advise of one of the store personnels in choosing the configuration that best suits your workflow.