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How long can I expect a rMBP to be fast?

Belazor

Belazor

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 21, 2013
71
58
So we're going to be picking up a rMBP for work, it'll be the ME294B/A 15-inch rMBP (i7 2.3GHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB, 750M). I'll be using it to learn XCode as well as web development, most likely, and being a heavy multi-tasker I need it to be able to keep everything open without slowdown.

As an example, here's what I have open right now (Windows, 16GB RAM): 4 explorer windows, skype, email, 41 Chrome tabs, 34 Firefox tabs, 5 Opera tabs, Sublime Text, FTP, Beyond Compare, XBMC, SSH client, iTunes, Steam, Twitter app, Facebook app, MySQL management.

I expect to be able to maintain a similar workspace without having it lag to all hell. Is this a reasonable expectation, and how long would you say I could pull that off before needing an upgrade?

Thanks in advance for any insight :)
 
Your usage will not phase that macbook.
Noone knows when an upgrade is needed.
Id quess you are good for at least another 5years.
 
None of those should phase it unless you hit severe memory leak issues somewhere.
 
Belazor said:
So we're going to be picking up a rMBP for work, it'll be the ME294B/A 15-inch rMBP (i7 2.3GHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB, 750M). I'll be using it to learn XCode as well as web development, most likely, and being a heavy multi-tasker I need it to be able to keep everything open without slowdown.

As an example, here's what I have open right now (Windows, 16GB RAM): 4 explorer windows, skype, email, 41 Chrome tabs, 34 Firefox tabs, 5 Opera tabs, Sublime Text, FTP, Beyond Compare, XBMC, SSH client, iTunes, Steam, Twitter app, Facebook app, MySQL management.

I expect to be able to maintain a similar workspace without having it lag to all hell. Is this a reasonable expectation, and how long would you say I could pull that off before needing an upgrade?

Thanks in advance for any insight :)
Click to expand...

What on earth could you ever need 80 web browser tabs open for? Let alone spread across three browsers? That seems absolutely absurd and excessive for anything.
 
Meister said:
Your usage will not phase that macbook.
Noone knows when an upgrade is needed.
Id quess you are good for at least another 5years.
Click to expand...
thekev said:
None of those should phase it unless you hit severe memory leak issues somewhere.
Click to expand...
Glad to hear that, thanks :)

ourmountain said:
What on earth could you ever need 80 web browser tabs open for? Let alone spread across three browsers? That seems absolutely absurd and excessive for anything.
Click to expand...
Chrome:
- 15 tabs for work, current outstanding issues and other stuff I should be working on
- 20 tabs for sites I visit regularly while working

Firefox:
- 30 tabs for web development, various pages across 3 branches of vBulletin (3.8.x, 4.2.x and 5.1.x)

Opera:
- 5 tabs for work, testing pages in this browser
- 10 tabs for various stuff related to the work purchases

I prefer not to close tabs and have to re-find the site later, so I keep the tabs open until I'm sure they've lost their usefulness.
 
Belazor said:
Glad to hear that, thanks :)

Chrome:
- 15 tabs for work, current outstanding issues and other stuff I should be working on
- 20 tabs for sites I visit regularly while working

Firefox:
- 30 tabs for web development, various pages across 3 branches of vBulletin (3.8.x, 4.2.x and 5.1.x)

Opera:
- 5 tabs for work, testing pages in this browser
- 10 tabs for various stuff related to the work purchases

I prefer not to close tabs and have to re-find the site later, so I keep the tabs open until I'm sure they've lost their usefulness.
Click to expand...

Bookmarks might be an option...:)
 
Belazor said:
Glad to hear that, thanks :)

Chrome:
- 15 tabs for work, current outstanding issues and other stuff I should be working on
- 20 tabs for sites I visit regularly while working

Firefox:
- 30 tabs for web development, various pages across 3 branches of vBulletin (3.8.x, 4.2.x and 5.1.x)

Opera:
- 5 tabs for work, testing pages in this browser
- 10 tabs for various stuff related to the work purchases

I prefer not to close tabs and have to re-find the site later, so I keep the tabs open until I'm sure they've lost their usefulness.
Click to expand...

There's this awesome feature called bookmarking. Might be worth checking out before buying an over spec'd computer just to handle your ridiculous number of browser tabs.
 
ourmountain said:
There's this awesome feature called bookmarking. Might be worth checking out before buying an over spec'd computer just to handle your ridiculous number of browser tabs.
Click to expand...
I didn't realise that answering your question in a purely factual manner called for a sarcastic response, did I offend you in some way? If so, then I apologise.

I don't want to use bookmarks because I prefer to see everything at a glance. If you disagree with this choice then that's your prerogative and I respect that, but I also expect you to remain civil and act like an adult when responding.

Thank you :)
 
Belazor said:
I didn't realise that answering your question in a purely factual manner called for a sarcastic response, did I offend you in some way? If so, then I apologise.

I don't want to use bookmarks because I prefer to see everything at a glance. If you disagree with this choice then that's your prerogative and I respect that, but I also expect you to remain civil and act like an adult when responding.

Thank you :)
Click to expand...

You're not my real dad. You can't tell me what to do.


Seriously though, I'm not offended by your internet usage - it's no skin off my back if you want to use that kind of system. I was honestly just curious of what could possibly compel someone to use so many tabs. If you want to insist on avoiding an extremely easy to use feature like bookmarks and spend an extra thousand dollars on a computer to handle your browser use/abuse, go for it. I'm sure Apple won't have any issue taking your money. ;)
 
Belazor said:
Chrome:- 15 tabs for work, current outstanding issues and other stuff I should be working on

- 20 tabs for sites I visit regularly while working

Firefox:
- 30 tabs for web development, various pages across 3 branches of vBulletin (3.8.x, 4.2.x and 5.1.x)

Opera:
- 5 tabs for work, testing pages in this browser
- 10 tabs for various stuff related to the work purchases
Click to expand...
I'm just impressed that you can keep up with that many at once!
 
Well, if its all you do, it will always be fast. Browsers are becoming more efficient, sublime text and databases won't get any more resource intensive. It is a different thing of course should you upgrade your software at some point, or the performance characteristics of web application will change (which probably won't happen that soon — things like Angular and Ember are already as abstract as it gets).

Its a different thing that, say, a Skylake with DDR4 will be much faster.

----------
ourmountain said:
Seriously though, I'm not offended by your internet usage - it's no skin off my back if you want to use that kind of system. I was honestly just curious of what could possibly compel someone to use so many tabs. If you want to insist on avoiding an extremely easy to use feature like bookmarks and spend an extra thousand dollars on a computer to handle your browser use/abuse, go for it. I'm sure Apple won't have any issue taking your money. ;)
Click to expand...

I have over 100 tabs open on a regular basis, Safari can deal with it without any hiccups. When you are doing research, having dozens and dozens of websites open is crucial. And bookmarks are something entirely different. I'd rather have 100 tabs open than have 1000 unmanageable bookmarks.

P.S. Having more tabs open does not require a more powerful computer. The RAM usage can go up slightly, but thats it. You still only need to process one single page at a time, with rare exceptions. It does require a well programmed browser and an OS with very good memory management.
 
Belazor said:
As an example, here's what I have open right now (Windows, 16GB RAM): 4 explorer windows, skype, email, 41 Chrome tabs, 34 Firefox tabs, 5 Opera tabs, Sublime Text, FTP, Beyond Compare, XBMC, SSH client, iTunes, Steam, Twitter app, Facebook app, MySQL management.
Click to expand...
I'm going to say nothing is going to be fast with 41 firefox tabs,41 chrome tabs. Anything will lilt under that situation.
 
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