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2.3 16gb or 2.6 8gb rMBP

liquidtwitch

liquidtwitch

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 7, 2011
116
48
Brisbane Australia
Hi guys, wondering if I could get some suggestions on which rMBP to get;

I'm tossing up between the 2.3ghz with 16gb added (it's within my budget)

or the 2.6ghz with the base 8gb (16gb would be far to expensive).

Use would be 80% illustrator/photoshop and web design and a bit of xcode, rest of use would be gaming, browsing etc.

I currently have a 120ssd and a 320gig in my 13" 2009 mbp and I think I could handle a 256gb drive.

Any input would be valued, thanks.
 
2.6GHz

No real point getting 16GB on the 2.3GHz since if you were that concerned about the performance impact of page outs you would be equally concerned about the performance impact of having 10% less CPU power.
 
Cool, thanks for the reply.

A store had them $200 cheaper than the Apple student discount, then raised it by $300 overnight... bwaaaah. Hopefully I can get a good deal in a couple of weeks when I'm ready to buy.
 
ugh, too many choices... I might just do that..

I can get the base for A$ 2,279.00 or with 16gb for A$ 2,499.00.. the 2.6 is A$ 2,979.00


On a side note, anyone got an indication of how much I could sell a mid 2009 mbp 13" with 8b, 120gb ssd and a 320gb in the optibay for?

Machine is in fairly good condition, but there are some slight marks on the screen and it's got a 'service battery' alert -- I might replace these if it's worth it.
 
i'd say 16/2.3 just because it gives you a small upgrade over base base but doesn't get you into the fat margins had by the 512gb for apple.

The 512gb sssd and 2.6 is way too much money if you can get by with 256 i'd recommend you do that. I'm really pleased with my 2.3/16 , i had a 2.6/16 before but cancelled the order as i found it was far too pricey and 256 is enough for me even with my whole 30gb music collection.
 
TickleMeElmo said:
2.6GHz

No real point getting 16GB on the 2.3GHz since if you were that concerned about the performance impact of page outs you would be equally concerned about the performance impact of having 10% less CPU power.
Click to expand...

Interesting point, and it seems true. I just had Preview (with a 16 MB pdf file), Safari, Mail, and Aperture open at which point my 8 GB RMBP always starts swapping like crazy. As I was clicking through the images I watched Activity Monitor and it showed a GB of page outs every few seconds. I noticed no slowdown in performance whatsoever.
 
It would be best to get the base model. I got it and it is just awesome. I bought mine at JB Hi Fi for $2247.30AUD (10% off sale).
 
If you're not planning on using any more than 256GB of on-board storage, just stick with the base model. The change in speed to 2.6 is practically unnoticeable.

And unless you plan on using over 8GB of RAM, the upgrade to 16GB is also practically useless. So just stick to the base, unless you need more than 256GB on-board storage or 8GB RAM respectively.
 
I guess I'm just used to getting the most out of a lifetime of a laptop by upgrading the ram periodically, my 2009 mbp 13 has had 2,4 and now 8gb.

I feel i'll get the most longevity out of a rMPB by tweaking the ram to 16gb... will this make any difference 2/3 years down the track?
 
Slivortal said:
If you're not planning on using any more than 256GB of on-board storage, just stick with the base model. The change in speed to 2.6 is practically unnoticeable.

And unless you plan on using over 8GB of RAM, the upgrade to 16GB is also practically useless. So just stick to the base, unless you need more than 256GB on-board storage or 8GB RAM respectively.
Click to expand...

I dunno, with just a few tabs open in Safari I'm at 5GB usage, and only 500MB was "inactive" -- I could see 8GB limiting my usage
 
Bahhh, ended up ordering the 2.3 w/ 16gb... Now they announce more config options. It's still in 'processing' state so I'm going to see if I can upgrade to the 2.6. Hopfully in a few years owc will have a reasonable ssd upgrade option.
 
liquidtwitch said:
Bahhh, ended up ordering the 2.3 w/ 16gb... Now they announce more config options. It's still in 'processing' state so I'm going to see if I can upgrade to the 2.6. Hopfully in a few years owc will have a reasonable ssd upgrade option.
Click to expand...

I think you'll be very happy with that machine. Unless you do a lot of processor-intensive work, you won't notice a difference. The 16GB will serve you well though.

I got the 2.6 simply for the higher storage.
 
2.3/16. everyone is talking about how you wont need 16gb of ram. But with the trends of everything becoming a background app to more cloud content, it's going to need more ram in order to work. my 2 cents.
 
I recommend the 2.3 w/ 16 GB. While the CPU is technically 10% slower, you may hit that 8 GB ceiling in a year or two as app and OS complexity increase and start supporting the many new features of ML. If you start running short on memory and the OS has to page out to your SSD, you will suffer far more than a 10% decrease in performance.

Let's say you are waiting to re-paginate a 100 page manuscript or thesis and generate a table of contents. Let's hypothesize that this task takes, what, 30 seconds? I think that's a reasonable amount of time for our scenario. So if it takes 3 seconds longer, would you even care or notice? 2-3 seconds is probably the amount of time it took you to read that last sentence, so we're not talking about a lot. This could become a big deal if you render a lot of video, 3D images, etc., where time is money. Most users, however, will never note the difference in actual use.

I think more memory is a better strategy to future-proof yourself than a 10% increase in CPU speed.
 
urggggggg, they just rang to tell me that they couldn't access the system to change my config internally... so i have to cancel the order, wait 3-5 days for the refund to go through then replace the upgraded order.

damn first world problems.
 
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