Waiting for Broadwell MBP Thread

andrewtm said:

That sounds like a great idea getting Haswell instead. I'm just concerned for the better battery life on the Broadwell. My MBP 2009 now gets about 4 hours, which I'm not too impressed with.'

I'm also nervous about getting one now because what if the Broadwell has a redesign? Considering this is a very large investment for me (college student) I wouldn't want my brand new computer to go obsolete too quickly!

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I get ~7-9 hours on my 13" Haswell depending on usage. I'm currently sitting at 74% and it has an estimated 6 hours 20 min left.

I can't see the better battery life of Broadwell being phenomenal or being worth the wait, given what the specs are at currently with Haswell.

Especially since you're a college student, as I stated above you can get either:

late-2013 13" rMBP 4gb/128gb for $1099 - $100 (best buy .edu discount) - 10% (USPS movers coupon) + tax (in california that comes out to about $977 after taxes)

or the 8gb/256gb version for $1299 - $100 - 10% ($1173 after taxes in cali, we're at about 8.75%).

The mid-2014 13" rMBP 8gb/256gb is retailing for $1499 before taxes. The broadwell will probably be around similar price.

With all that said, if you can wait, then by all means wait because the Broadwell will have better specs than Haswell. But considering how much you can pick up a late-2013 haswell for right now, my recommendation would be to jump on it if you're looking to buy, because I don't think the marginal increase is worth the $$$ difference (~$300).

Just my personal 2 cents.

dlim said:

I think people are speculating about a 30% increase in performance, better battery, and better GPU from haswell to broadwell. And depending on your needs, you may not notice the increase.

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Absolutely not 30% for CPU. I don't think anyone is speculating that.

Broadwell will provide a much faster GPU (maybe up to 40% faster), increase efficient especially for low power level i.e. tablets. There will be only minor increases in CPU performance.

If it was really 30%, then Broadwell increase would about the same as the percentage increases Intel achieved from 2011 Sandy Bridge to this week's Haswell refresh (according to Geekbench 3).
Mid 2014 2.8Ghz Haswell i7 -> 14500
Late 2011 2.5Ghz Sandy Bridge -> 11500

Seems like broadwell won't come out until early-mid 2014 either so it'd be quite a wait. I know everyone says if you can wait, wait bc apple will always release something better. But I think picking up a late-2013 haswell right now, if you don't have one, is a steal due to places unloading them for the mid-2014's.

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I think you meant 2015.

myrtlebee said:

Tell me then -- when has Apple ever released new Macs during the BTS promotion? If you don't think they take what I said into consideration, I don't know what to tell you. Why would they want to deal with a mass return mess? Their back to school lineup is set. Look at the website.

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Wow, was I wrong. It wasn't a Broadwell update, but Apple did update the MBP during the Back to School promotion while I was on vacation. Didn't see that one coming.

So it's not coming?

myrtlebee said:

Wow, was I wrong. It wasn't a Broadwell update, but Apple did update the MBP during the Back to School promotion while I was on vacation. Didn't see that one coming.

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Lol yes u were

Sifinity said:

now thinking about it , apple removing the dgpu completely is relatively plausible idea , as most likely they will not release an 850m with this years model , and then next year mid 2015 when broadwell comes out and they do release it with the 850m , the 950m will be out by then , so they would have fallen a year behind on the dgpu updates . so instead of doing that the will just get rid of the dgpu in general

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I really hope you are wrong. The tell sign may be whether there is a redesign with Broadwell or Skylake. If with Broadwell and there is a dGPU, then Skylake should also have a dGPU. If the redesign is saved for Skylake, then all bets are off.

My only concern is that I have software which REQUIRES a dGPU. So how is someone supposed to use that software in a portable machine if Apple does not offer a dGPU?

myrtlebee said:

Wow, was I wrong. It wasn't a Broadwell update, but Apple did update the MBP during the Back to School promotion while I was on vacation. Didn't see that one coming.

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Well it was a pretty small update.

PDFierro said:

Well it was a pretty small update.

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You can say that again.

PDFierro said:

Well it was a pretty small update.

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Small or not. It was an update. He owns me his honey now.

psik said:

Small or not. It was an update. He owns me his honey now.

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I'm sure he'd rather give you his honey than his money.

The Leafs Fan said:

I'm sure he'd rather give you his honey than his money.

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Yes! Lol.

Following Intel's standard Tick-Tock procedure... I'd rather be more excited for Skylake rather than Broadwell which is actually just a minor bump from Haswell.

Hello, my situation is as follows and I would really appreciate a lil help since I just can´t decide for myself:

I have a mid 2007 MacBook and given that it started to run very slow some time back and I also want to use new features (Yosemite, AirPlay etc) I really WANT to upgrade to a new MacBook.
I will be using it mainly for normal office/Multimedia/web stuff, streaming to AppleTV, some gaming (my main gaming device is an Xbox though).

As I understand from reading trough the posts on here Broadwell will only provide a minor performance upgrade while Skylake should be the next big thing, right?

The question for me is: Do I buy a refurb late 2013 MBPr (8 GB/256/2,4) on the cheap right now and upgrade to Skylake (or whatever is next) in a couple of years or wait for the Broadwell models???
I really want to upgrade right now but if it would really make overwhelming sense I could manage to use my current MacBook for another half a year/year.

I intend to use my new MacBook for the next 3 to 5 years.

thanks for any advice on this!

sewersurfer said:

Hello, my situation is as follows and I would really appreciate a lil help since I just can´t decide for myself:

I have a mid 2007 MacBook and given that it started to run very slow some time back and I also want to use new features (Yosemite, AirPlay etc) I really WANT to upgrade to a new MacBook.
I will be using it mainly for normal office/Multimedia/web stuff, streaming to AppleTV, some gaming (my main gaming device is an Xbox though).

As I understand from reading trough the posts on here Broadwell will only provide a minor performance upgrade while Skylake should be the next big thing, right?

The question for me is: Do I buy a refurb late 2013 MBPr (8 GB/256/2,4) on the cheap right now and upgrade to Skylake (or whatever is next) in a couple of years or wait for the Broadwell models???
I really want to upgrade right now but if it would really make overwhelming sense I could manage to use my current MacBook for another half a year/year.

I intend to use my new MacBook for the next 3 to 5 years.

thanks for any advice on this!

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13-inch or 15-inch?

13 inch

I wish people would post their budget in their questions - would really help us answer the questions.

The 2014 'upgrade' has made it interesting for those wanting a Mac laptop soonish. Skylake is scheduled for 2015; Apple is using the Nvidia 750M graphics even though 850M has been released since the start of the year; entry level MBs now have 16GB RAM standard and the refurbished store is suddenly good value.

It depends how happy you are with your current machine. I threw in a 2011 SSD into my Black Macbook (2007) and for everyday tasks it does indeed feel faster, though it's stuck on Lion. It's purpose is to serve our Media Centre.

Advice

Hello, I'm currently looking to purchase a new 13 inch i5/8/256 rMBP for University (with the edu. discount) where I will be studying computer science. I think it's wise to buy now, as I will need the machine (not staying in University residence with access to computer labs 24/7) and I don't think I could wait till the Broadwell rMBPs are released (about mid-2015?). Would I be missing out on much? I wouldn't need the extra battery life as such or probably even the CPU power, but I would be remorseful if there is drastically better GPU performance - not so much for gaming, but for general longevity with all the UI components of future OS X releases. Is that completely irrational or will this machine last me at least 3 years with little UI slowdown etc? It concerns me that people still say the UI lags on the 13 inch compared the MBA, even with the Iris graphics. By the time I upgrade it will likely be the release of Cannonlake or shortly there after. Thanks for any advice!

dj95 said:

Hello, I'm currently looking to purchase a new 13 inch i5/8/256 rMBP for University (with the edu. discount) where I will be studying computer science. I think it's wise to buy now, as I will need the machine (not staying in University residence with access to computer labs 24/7) and I don't think I could wait till the Broadwell rMBPs are released (about mid-2015?). Would I be missing out on much? I wouldn't need the extra battery life as such or probably even the CPU power, but I would be remorseful if there is drastically better GPU performance - not so much for gaming, but for general longevity with all the UI components of future OS X releases. Is that completely irrational or will this machine last me at least 3 years with little UI slowdown etc? It concerns me that people still say the UI lags on the 13 inch compared the MBA, even with the Iris graphics. By the time I upgrade it will likely be the release of Cannonlake or shortly there after. Thanks for any advice!

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you'll be fine , if you don't plan to upgrade in two years then just upgrade the ram 16 gbs and you'll be fine , believe my the 13' is powerful laptop and CS will go well , i bought the 15' for cs thinking I'm a need it and this thing is literally huge lol ,i wish there was a quad core 13'

Sifinity said:

you'll be fine , if you don't plan to upgrade in two years then just upgrade the ram 16 gbs and you'll be fine , believe my the 13' is powerful laptop and CS will go well , i bought the 15' for cs thinking I'm a need it and this thing is literally huge lol ,i wish there was a quad core 13'

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Thanks for the reply! Exactly what I thought, but my budget doesn't quite allow for the 16GB upgrade. Its annoying that the price difference is so large between the 8/128 and 8/256 configurations now, feels like less value for money than when it was the 4/128GB configs. If I didnt need the 256GBs of space I would've definitely gotten the 128GB base model and upgraded to 16GB of RAM just to be safe considering I'll be using a Windows 7 VM too.

thunng8 said:

Absolutely not 30% for CPU. I don't think anyone is speculating that.

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I couldn't find a link, but 6% was one number I've seen.

anthorumor said:

I wish people would post their budget in their questions - would really help us answer the questions.

The 2014 'upgrade' has made it interesting for those wanting a Mac laptop soonish. Skylake is scheduled for 2015; Apple is using the Nvidia 750M graphics even though 850M has been released since the start of the year; entry level MBs now have 16GB RAM standard and the refurbished store is suddenly good value.

It depends how happy you are with your current machine. I threw in a 2011 SSD into my Black Macbook (2007) and for everyday tasks it does indeed feel faster, though it's stuck on Lion. It's purpose is to serve our Media Centre.

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I don't have a real, fixed budget but would greatly appericiate it if's under €/$ 1.200. Having said that, I am a value for money-guy. If I have to pay a lil more to get much better performance - and the performance acutally makes sense for what my inteded use is - I am more than willing to pay up.
But I think the 13 inch/8/256/2,4 ghz is good value, right?

Can't see investing anything in the old MacBook though as graphics sucks and OS won't upgrade anymore.

So it's either buy now refurb late 2013 for € 1.189 - or wait, but only willing to wait if makes overwhelming sense tbh.

Any advice greatly appreciated

How big of an update will Broadwell really be?

I'm going to college in the fall and would like to update my 13" Mid-2009 to a 15" new rMBP. I would love to buy the new rMBP right now, but after reading many posts it seems Broadwell is going to be a next generation, huge update with a redesign. The longer battery life and less power consumption seem great, but is that really great enough to wait until next June?

I'm just really stumped at this point. I don't want a computer that I'm getting going obsolete in 9 months!

andrewtm said:

I'm going to college in the fall and would like to update my 13" Mid-2009 to a 15" new rMBP. I would love to buy the new rMBP right now, but after reading many posts it seems Broadwell is going to be a next generation, huge update with a redesign. The longer battery life and less power consumption seem great, but is that really great enough to wait until next June?

I'm just really stumped at this point. I don't want a computer that I'm getting going obsolete in 9 months!

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first of all a mid 2014 15' isn't going to be obsolete in 9 months and second you can wait for broad well but do realize that its not going that HUGE of an update as its just a shrunken version of has well , so you'll probably get 1 more hour of battery life , sure 860m but that will also be a year old at that moment , and if you really want huge update wait for late 2015/2016 for sky lake as that will provide real big updates , and theres not going to be a redesign for the 15' anytime soon in the future , if you mean by a 12' air retina then wait for next year but i personally have no reason to wait , mid 2014 is great and so will the next one and the one after that

Well the Broadwell update will be significant regarding graphics for the 13-inch as it will probably get GT3e graphics, which is an improvement on the GT3 graphics currently found in the 13-inch. As well, Broadwell is expected to bring up to a 40% improvement over Haswell in the graphics department.

andrewtm said:

I'm going to college in the fall and would like to update my 13" Mid-2009 to a 15" new rMBP. I would love to buy the new rMBP right now, but after reading many posts it seems Broadwell is going to be a next generation, huge update with a redesign. The longer battery life and less power consumption seem great, but is that really great enough to wait until next June?

I'm just really stumped at this point. I don't want a computer that I'm getting going obsolete in 9 months!

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Your '09 13" should get you through the first year of college just fine. I can't imagine that as a freshman you'll do anything so intensive that your 09 can't handle it. Anything anyone says about the Broadwell Macbook Pro is pure speculation. My speculation is that the increased power efficiency of broadwell will allow them to make the computer thinner, lighter while still offering longer battery life. The integrated graphics should be significantly better with broadwell. The 750m that is offered on the 15" is an older chip that will likely be replaced. I often use every bit of my 16gb of ram, so I look forward to ddr4 offering higher capacity ram sticks. These combined with the fact that my current MBP is getting the job done is why I'm holding out for broadwell.