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Which should I pick?

I

iamwilliamcwl

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 5, 2013
32
0
Hi, I'm a student studying Digital Animation. I'm planning to buy a Late 2013 15" Macbook Pro with Retina display with discrete graphics and 16gb ram, problem is I don't know which processor should I pick 2.3ghz or 2.6ghz? Can someone please tell me how much is the difference of performance between 2.3ghz and 2.6ghz?

Below is the list of the software I'll use during study
• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• Digicel Flipbook
• Premiere
• Audition
• Maya Complete
• Maya Unlimited
• After Effects
• Autodesk Combustion
• Flash

And how long can macbook last? I'm hoping it will last more than 5 years
I'm sorry if there is any typo
 
Last edited:
P

phsphoenix

macrumors member
Oct 14, 2013
68
0
First off, the question you should be asking yourself is not which processor to use, but rather how much ram to get. In your case, you will most likely be looking at a 16GB machine. Also, if you're using all these apps on a professional basis, you will grow out of the machine in a lot less than 5 years.
 
S

saturnotaku

macrumors 68000
Mar 4, 2013
1,978
97
iamwilliamcwl said:
Hi, I'm a student studying Digital Animation.
Click to expand...

If you're looking for longevity in that field, a MacBook Pro is not what you want. A Windows-based workstation, such as the Dell Precision, HP Elitebook, or Lenovo Thinkpad W530 would all be better choices. The Precision M3800, which was just released, has a Retina-like display and GPU hardware that's much better suited for CAD/animation. However, I would look more at the Precision M4700/4800 line since it's almost fully upgradable, including up to 32 GB of RAM, which would be critical for full-scale jobs.

If you're desperate to get a Mac, the new Pro would be a better choice.
 
I

iamwilliamcwl

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 5, 2013
32
0
phsphoenix said:
First off, the question you should be asking yourself is not which processor to use, but rather how much ram to get. In your case, you will most likely be looking at a 16GB machine. Also, if you're using all these apps on a professional basis, you will grow out of the machine in a lot less than 5 years.
Click to expand...

I'm buying the macbook pro with discrete graphics and 16gb ram, the last things I don't know which should I choose is 2.3ghz or 2.6ghz processor only





saturnotaku said:
If you're looking for longevity in that field, a MacBook Pro is not what you want. A Windows-based workstation, such as the Dell Precision, HP Elitebook, or Lenovo Thinkpad W530 would all be better choices. The Precision M3800, which was just released, has a Retina-like display and GPU hardware that's much better suited for CAD/animation. However, I would look more at the Precision M4700/4800 line since it's almost fully upgradable, including up to 32 GB of RAM, which would be critical for full-scale jobs.

If you're desperate to get a Mac, the new Pro would be a better choice.
Click to expand...

Sad, the macbook pro is so tempting to me :(
 
L

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,197
19,057
saturnotaku said:
If you're looking for longevity in that field, a MacBook Pro is not what you want. A Windows-based workstation, such as the Dell Precision, HP Elitebook, or Lenovo Thinkpad W530 would all be better choices. The Precision M3800, which was just released, has a Retina-like display and GPU hardware that's much better suited for CAD/animation. However,
Click to expand...

The rMBP with edu pricing, 512GB SSD and a faster CPU is actually cheaper than the M3800. As tot the GPU - I want to see some actual benchmarks comparing 750M and K1100M - the 750M is faster on paper, so the question is how much the Quadro drivers/additional hardware tricks actually matter. Don't forget that the rMBP comes with Iris Pro which will kick both 750M and K1100M's butts on GPGPU computations.

Bottomline: rMBP is cheaper and has faster CPU/SSD then the Dell workstation. This gives it more longevity, as far as I am concerned ;)
 
Y

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
leman said:
The rMBP with edu pricing, 512GB SSD and a faster CPU is actually cheaper than the M3800. As tot the GPU - I want to see some actual benchmarks comparing 750M and K1100M - the 750M is faster on paper, so the question is how much the Quadro drivers/additional hardware tricks actually matter. Don't forget that the rMBP comes with Iris Pro which will kick both 750M and K1100M's butts on GPGPU computations.

Bottomline: rMBP is cheaper and has faster CPU/SSD then the Dell workstation. This gives it more longevity, as far as I am concerned ;)
Click to expand...

The Iris Pro is only better than the GT750M in apps that utilize OpenCL heavily.

For games and CUDA-assisted apps, the 750M is still the way to go.

Besides, the rMBPs with identical configurations with/without the 750M are almost identical in price (in my country, at least). So getting the variant with 750M is a no-brainer.
 
S

saturnotaku

macrumors 68000
Mar 4, 2013
1,978
97
leman said:
The rMBP with edu pricing, 512GB SSD and a faster CPU is actually cheaper than the M3800. As tot the GPU - I want to see some actual benchmarks comparing 750M and K1100M - the 750M is faster on paper, so the question is how much the Quadro drivers/additional hardware tricks actually matter. Don't forget that the rMBP comes with Iris Pro which will kick both 750M and K1100M's butts on GPGPU computations.

Bottomline: rMBP is cheaper and has faster CPU/SSD then the Dell workstation. This gives it more longevity, as far as I am concerned ;)
Click to expand...

Adobe has switched to OpenCL from CUDA, so the Iris Pro, K1100, and anything AMD based with blow consumer-class NVIDIA cards out of the water. The other advantage of the Dell is its vastly superior warranty - up to 5 years of next business day on-site coverage with accidental damage protection.

Again, though, if the OP is going to be doing content creation for a living, the bulkier mobile workstations I referenced earlier are much better choices for their expandability. Depending on what you're doing, you can max out a notebook equipped with 16 GB of RAM, meaning you'll be stuck if you have the M3800 or rMBP.
 
L

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,197
19,057
yjchua95 said:
Besides, the rMBPs with identical configurations with/without the 750M are almost identical in price (in my country, at least). So getting the variant with 750M is a no-brainer.
Click to expand...

Having the 750M does not prevent your application to use the Iris Pro for OpenCL. Even more, OS X makes it fairly easy to utilise both cards at the same time for different purposes (e.g. you could do some sort of procedure texture generation for the next frame on the iGPU while the dGPU is rendering your scene).

saturnotaku said:
Again, though, if the OP is going to be doing content creation for a living, the bulkier mobile workstations I referenced earlier are much better choices for their expandability. Depending on what you're doing, you can max out a notebook equipped with 16 GB of RAM, meaning you'll be stuck if you have the M3800 or rMBP.
Click to expand...

I agree completely. If you work with huge photos, 32Gb might help a lot. Of course, the question is whether OP is one of those few people that work with huge photos.
 
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