2012-13 MacBook Pro 15" generally faster than 13" same year?

[Christopher11]

Hi there. I'm going to buy a Macbook Pro in the next few days, and looking at many on the web before I make this purchase. I'm an audio and music professional, so I want something really fast to burn through my use of Logic Pro, Reason and Ableton via rewire, lots of peripheral VSTs, sampler, etc.

It's likely I will buy a model from 2012 or 2013. Possibly 2011, if the video issue has been dealt with and resolved, or shown it's not the batch with issues. Most of them have solid state drives of various kinds and sizes. If they didn't I would probably buy and install one.

Tell me please, if processor speed is similar or equal, then the 15" are quad core, and thus quite a bit faster than any dual core 13"? Does the quad core make a difference in burning through your processing needs?

p.s. was looking at this one for example, if I could get the price down: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Retin...x-/331565135676?ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

 

[yjchua95]

Hi there. I'm going to buy a Macbook Pro in the next few days, and looking at many on the web before I make this purchase. I'm an audio and music professional, so I want something really fast to burn through my use of Logic Pro, Reason and Ableton via rewire, lots of peripheral VSTs, sampler, etc.

It's likely I will buy a model from 2012 or 2013. Possibly 2011, if the video issue has been dealt with and resolved, or shown it's not the batch with issues. Most of them have solid state drives of various kinds and sizes. If they didn't I would probably buy and install one.

Tell me please, if processor speed is similar or equal, then the 15" are quad core, and thus quite a bit faster than any dual core 13"? Does the quad core make a difference in burning through your processing needs?

p.s. was looking at this one for example, if I could get the price down: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Retin...x-/331565135676?ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

You'll definitely need the quad core i7. It's twice as fast as the dual core CPUs. But if I were you, I'd stay clear of the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge ones. I'd stick with a refurb late-2013 Haswell model.

 

[Christopher11]

You'll definitely need the quad core i7. It's twice as fast as the dual core CPUs. But if I were you, I'd stay clear of the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge ones. I'd stick with a refurb late-2013 Haswell model.

Thank you. I will definitely go for the quad core. I'm assuming all 15" models from 2012-2013 are quad core. I am looking at an Ivy Bridge model from 2012. It's likely what my budget permits. Also one from 2013, but though faster, I think that's an IVY Bridge also. I looked them up at every mac.

To be honest, I really like that the 2012 model has both Firewire and Thunderbolt! Also USB 3. Plus an optical drive, which I can switch out. This is all appealing to me. Thanks so much again for the help I get here. Feel free to post any thoughts.

 

[TechZeke]

Thank you. I will definitely go for the quad core. I'm assuming all 15" models from 2012-2013 are quad core. I am looking at an Ivy Bridge model from 2012. It's likely what my budget permits. Also one from 2013, but though faster, I think that's an IVY Bridge also. I looked them up at every mac.

To be honest, I really like that the 2012 model has both Firewire and Thunderbolt! Also USB 3. Plus an optical drive, which I can switch out. This is all appealing to me. Thanks so much again for the help I get here. Feel free to post any thoughts.

The Early-2013 are Ivy, the Late-2013s are Haswell.

 

[bobbytomorow]

To be honest, I really like that the 2012 model has both Firewire and Thunderbolt! Also USB 3. Plus an optical drive, which I can switch out. This is all appealing to me. Thanks so much again for the help I get here. Feel free to post any thoughts.

Same reason I recently bought a 2012 MBP 15", I wanted the ability to replace the battery, RAM, hard drive and add a caddy so I could throw in another hard drive as well. I really don't like the idea of having everything soldered to the logic board and not being able to replace or upgrade anything myself which is why I ignored the retina's. I came from a late 2008 15" MBP unibody and am completely happy with my decision.

 

[cookies!]

If you do anything really CPU intensive, 4-5 year old quad processors will likely outperform brand new dual ones when you are crunching it. So if you pop a decent SSD in those old things and don't care about the GPU, you will have a pretty darn viable production laptop for very little money. But do note that GPUs are becoming more and more important in production softwares! Having a modern GPU can be very noticeable if you don't have a discrete chip, especially if you do a lot of 3D rendering.

 

[Christopher11]

Same reason I recently bought a 2012 MBP 15", I wanted the ability to replace the battery, RAM, hard drive and add a caddy so I could throw in another hard drive as well. I really don't like the idea of having everything soldered to the logic board and not being able to replace or upgrade anything myself which is why I ignored the retina's. I came from a late 2008 15" MBP unibody and am completely happy with my decision.

Thanks, yeah that's exactly what I'm thinking. It also leaves a little more budget for me to get a desktop. Are you guys okay with SSHD? It's a hybrid drive, one TB the 2012 model I'm looking at. 16GB ram.

 

[yjchua95]

Thanks, yeah that's exactly what I'm thinking. It also leaves a little more budget for me to get a desktop. Are you guys okay with SSHD? It's a hybrid drive, one TB the 2012 model I'm looking at. 16GB ram.

Hybrid drives are junk. They don't perform any better than a regular HDD for the most part. Get a decent SSD like a Samsung 850 Evo or a Crucial MX100/200 series.

 

[cookies!]

Yeah, don't even bother with an SSHD. Easiest way to cripple a system is to not buy a decent, full-fledged SSD.

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Seriously though, don't bother upgrading your laptop if you aren't putting an SSD in. The performance gains aren't going to anywhere near the same level.

 

[bobbytomorow]

Thanks, yeah that's exactly what I'm thinking. It also leaves a little more budget for me to get a desktop. Are you guys okay with SSHD? It's a hybrid drive, one TB the 2012 model I'm looking at. 16GB ram.

In my previous MacBook I used a SSHD and the performance was better than a stock hard drive but nothing to write home about. Whats worse is my original SSHD died (Seagate Momentus XT) and I RMA'd it but the drive they sent back to me performed worse as all of the new ones are now 5400rpm as opposed to the early Momentus XT's which were 7200rpm.

What I did now is order a optical drive bay caddy online for $15 bucks or so, took out the optical drive and put in an 128GB SSD in its place and a 500GB regular hard drive in the hard drive bay. I use the 500GB for a 80GB Windows partition and the remaining 400GB+ as a shared data partition formatted to exFat. OS X is installed on the SSD.

SSD performance compared to any other hard drive, hybrid included is like night and day.

 

[snaky69]

Thank you. I will definitely go for the quad core. I'm assuming all 15" models from 2012-2013 are quad core. I am looking at an Ivy Bridge model from 2012. It's likely what my budget permits. Also one from 2013, but though faster, I think that's an IVY Bridge also. I looked them up at every mac.

To be honest, I really like that the 2012 model has both Firewire and Thunderbolt! Also USB 3. Plus an optical drive, which I can switch out. This is all appealing to me. Thanks so much again for the help I get here. Feel free to post any thoughts.

Any 15" MBP made later than early 2011 is quad core.

 

[sir.riel]

Hi there. I'm going to buy a Macbook Pro in the next few days, and looking at many on the web before I make this purchase. I'm an audio and music professional, so I want something really fast to burn through my use of Logic Pro, Reason and Ableton via rewire, lots of peripheral VSTs, sampler, etc.

It's likely I will buy a model from 2012 or 2013. Possibly 2011, if the video issue has been dealt with and resolved, or shown it's not the batch with issues. Most of them have solid state drives of various kinds and sizes. If they didn't I would probably buy and install one.

Tell me please, if processor speed is similar or equal, then the 15" are quad core, and thus quite a bit faster than any dual core 13"? Does the quad core make a difference in burning through your processing needs?

p.s. was looking at this one for example, if I could get the price down: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Retin...x-/331565135676?ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

for music, a dual-core i5 would be enough. of course faster processor will equal faster processing. I think most people will tell you to get the best model out but i'm not sure how may out there are actually using these systems the way you would use it or how i would use them. i was using my old mid 2012 13" i5 a lot for video editing, some VFX and music production. I do Film production and some of our system go back to 2009 to current.