2.3GHz RMBP for design

[thechunkeymonk]

I wanted to get people's opinion on whether the lower spec retina MacBook Pro would be powerful enough for Adobe Creative suite? I'd upgrade the memory to 16GB, but is the processor going to be sufficient?

To explain a bit more, I currently have an iMac 3.4 i7 which I use for the general 9-5 work, but I need something that I can use in the evenings and take with me when I work away. I primarily use indesign, illustrator, photoshop and dreamweaver but I don't plan on storing a lot of work on it, as I'd transfer any projects back on to my iMac, as that has a 2TB HD, and both external and cloud backups in place.

I just want to get people's feedback on whether the 2.3GHz RMBP would be a good choice for this kind of usage, as well as general browsing etc. the alternative would be to go for the standard 15" MBP with the 2.6GHz processor and high res screen, as they are almost identical in price.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[underblu]

I wanted to get people's opinion on whether the lower spec retina MacBook Pro would be powerful enough for Adobe Creative suite? I'd upgrade the memory to 16GB, but is the processor going to be sufficient?

To explain a bit more, I currently have an iMac 3.4 i7 which I use for the general 9-5 work, but I need something that I can use in the evenings and take with me when I work away. I primarily use indesign, illustrator, photoshop and dreamweaver but I don't plan on storing a lot of work on it, as I'd transfer any projects back on to my iMac, as that has a 2TB HD, and both external and cloud backups in place.

I just want to get people's feedback on whether the 2.3GHz RMBP would be a good choice for this kind of usage, as well as general browsing etc. the alternative would be to go for the standard 15" MBP with the 2.6GHz processor and high res screen, as they are almost identical in price.

Any advice would be appreciated.

No to run CS you will need a Super Computer the size of a submarine.

Seriously professionals have been running CS effectively on Macs with less than half the power of the current quadcore MBP lineup. The 2600 will probably give you a 10% bump in synthetic performance over the 2300 which typically translates into much less gain in real life.

My only concern with the new rMBP is how the Retina Display will be utilized in software, if it will have any sort of lag or artifacts at non native resolutions and if the new form factor will cause any latent heat issues. Also the lack of an upgradable RAM and HD is a drawback. The rMBP is tres cool though and if I was highly mobile, traveling etc and needed the power of quadcores the potability benefit of the rMBP would outweigh the concerns I
mentioned.

 

[thechunkeymonk]

Yeah, I've just started reading about about the issues with lagging and resizing in other parts of the forum. I wasn't sure how much of the lagging chat was true and how much was people trolling the forum to wind people up!

What effect could the scaling have with Creative Suite then? I don't really understand the lag issues with non native resolutions - how will this actually affect me when I'm using the machine?

I also agree that the lack of upgradeability is a concern, and i'd prefer a slightly larger HD, but I don't want to use it as a store device for hunderds of gigs of work, as I feel that would hamper the speed of a machine with a slightly larger HD anyway. I would foresee the apps using 30gb, with another 15gb of work at any time. I use the cloud for iTunes, so won't be storing my music library on there either.

I could still go either way at the moment, but I'm probably still on the side of the rMBP as it stands.