RMBP with 512/8/2.6 versus 256/16/2.3

The average user doesn't need 16G simple as that, if they did Apple would be offering 16 - 32. Those in video, imagery, photography, audio and the guys that just want the biggest numbers the high end and up BTO`s will benefit, however they will take a far larger hit when the time comes to sell out the machine.

Base model, unless you absolutely need more or can moniterize the difference in performance which with the present rMBP is negligible at best;

A performance increase of 9.92% average is all your going to get with the 2.7, which makes for little or any noticeable difference in day to day use. Those "pegging" their CPU`s; working with video, audio, imagery for a living are the ones who will see a benefit, as in general time for them is money.

My own base 2.3 benchmarks with Geek Test over 11K consistently (32bit), 8% slower than the 2.7

http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks

The main attraction of the 2.6 & 2.7 is the additional storage for those on the move preferring non external solutions. The 2.3 base looks to be the champion for battery life which will also be a very strong consideration for many.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/13/apple-macbook-pro-with-retina-display-review/

macbook123 said:

If you could chose between these two laptops, which would you pick? Let's ignore for a moment the fact that the former is about $400 more expensive than the latter.

I noticed that I do get page outs in the few GB range with 8 GB, but this is over a day's use or so. I don't notice any slow downs, and my guess would be that writing a few GB *per day* to disk with such fast SSD's must be completely negligible, i.e. take seconds. On the other hand, comparing the two above models, the 2.6 GHz processors 10% increase in speed and turbo boost will be felt at nearly every task.

I wonder if that is the reason why Apple offers the 512/8/2.6 in their stores, but not the 256/16/2.3: sure, there may be a small percentage of people who ALWAYS use more than 8 GB of RAM who would feel the 8 GB limit, but the vast majority of users will be fine with that limit 90% of the time, but will notice the 10% or so improvement in CPU power even during much of that 90%.

Opinions please!

Click to expand...

It depends on what you do for a living/as a hobby. I went for a BTO 2.3/16 GB because I do lots of audio stuff - in the studio and live. Many of my virtual instruments take up LOTS of RAM. I wouldn't pay the premium for the processor increase though.

Processor increase is not worth it.
You're essentially paying 600 for extra 256gb of storage.

Tier 2 of rMBP really doesn't make any sense. It should have had 16gb as standard. It's clearly aiming towards the professional crowd while the base aims more towards the tech junkies and enthusiast crowd.

I run photoshop, paraelle, and Microsoft office. Chrome with many, many tabs and a few windows and I still have 3-4 gigs to spare.

Between the two I've have to go with the 512/8/2.6 simply because my current MBP has 254.2 GB of stuff on it.

However, since I'm a web developer and my preferred day-to-day machine is a portable, I wanted more memory, so I bumped my order up to a 512/16.

But I wasn't done. I popped for a 2.7. Yeah, I know the speed increase is only a few percent, and the battery usage might be heavier, but when it's crunching on something big I didn't want to be left wondering how much sooner a slightly faster machine might be done. This way I'll know when the command comes down for warp speed the throttles will be pegged.

I put two sticks of eight in my early 2011 mbp and rarely needed it. I do just light video editing so I'm not speaking for anyone but i was very ok with just 8gb and a 2.6 ghz model