13' Dual-Core i7 or 15' Quad-Core i7?

[SpookySpider]

I'm considering purchasing a rMBP and i'm still on the fence between either purchasing a close-to-max'd specd 13" or 15".

I plan to edit HD films occasionally, use photoshop, casual gaming (i.e The Sims 3, Sim City, possibly BF3, etc.), surfing the web (a lot of tabs open), vm, etc.

I know there's that future-proofing arguement aout dual-cores, but from what I remember, Intel doesn't allow quad-cores on 13" laptops?

 

[justin216]

The problem with quad core in the rMBP has to do with cooling, TDP, etc -- no real mandate from Intel. Next chip cycle, Broadwell, should give us Quads in the 13s.

That said, while I bought the high end 15 today, for your use case, I'd expect a maxed 13 to give you better value. Really depends on how often you're doing that video editing or photoshop work, if those tasks are part of what generates income for you, etc. Time is money and all that.

 

[dcricky]

I'm having the same dilemma... Is it better to get the 2599 15 inch for what the future may throw at me or the 13 inch maxed out for the same uses as the OP

 

[SpookySpider]

I'm having the same dilemma... Is it better to get the 2599 15 inch for what the future may throw at me or the 13 inch maxed out for the same uses as the OP

What's also holding me back from the 13" is the 2k price for an i7 processor, 16gb of ram, and 512gb memory.



I could purchase a refurb with these specs for about 2.1k:

Refurbished 15.4-inch MacBook Pro 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel i7 with Retina Display
Originally released February 2013
15.4-inch (diagonal) Retina display; 2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch
16GB of 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
512GB Flash Storage
720p FaceTime HD Camera
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory