2012 Macbook Pro: Base vs. i7

[InlawBiker]

I'm having a hard time with this one. I'm good with the $1200 price tag on the base Macbook Pro 13 Core i5. It has a 500gb drive and 4gb RAM. I'm going to attach it to an external monitor I already have for home use. For road use I love the smaller size.

The Core i7 model with 750gb disk & 8GB RAM is $300 more. I don't see the value though. The HD is 250gb bigger, big whoop. I will replace either one with a 256 SSD when the price is reasonable. 8gb RAM is nice, but I can upgrade the RAM on the base 13" for cheap myself

Just trying to see if the sentiment is the same out there in MacRumors land.

G.

 

[s4forum18]

Just asked the same question a few posts below...I'm not alone!

 

[Geo411m]

I think about it like this. You're already going to upgrade the ram so minus $100 for that. So the upgrade is $200 for 250GB larger HD and a 2.9 i7 processor. That doesn't seem like too bad a deal to me.

 

[Mizzou02RS]

I think about it like this. You're already going to upgrade the ram so minus $100 for that. So the upgrade is $200 for 250GB larger HD and a 2.9 i7 processor. That doesn't seem like too bad a deal to me.

This. I thought the jump in specs was worth the cost...

 

[InlawBiker]

Man it's a close call. s4forum18 is right, whoever sets the pricing at Apple is pretty good at the art of up-selling.

 

[s4forum18]

Man it's a close call. s4forum18 is right, whoever sets the pricing at Apple is pretty good at the art of up-selling.

I know right? By the time you leave you have a $3200 rMPB.

As I5>I7, I personally am not sure if I would tell the difference. (15% Upgrade-ish?)

 

[drewyboy]

Just look at it this way, that $300 could buy you 16gb of ram ($100) and a 256gb samsung 830 ssd (was on sale just last week).

I'm in the same boat, but I've decided the above. Hdd going in optibay. I've jut got to wait for for the ssd to go on sale again :/

 

[InlawBiker]

I had the 13" MBP Core i5 in my cart yesterday and was hovering over the Buy button but I held off. I want to see some more videos of the Intel HD 4000 playing games. I realize I can't expect too much in the way of performance but I want to know if it's acceptable.

Also I've learned that the performance of the HD4000 GPU is directly tied to the clock speed of the CPU. Since they're integrated, the faster chips process graphics faster and have a higher clock speed. How much better? I don't know.

I believe the base Core i5 13" Pro is a good value, once you plug more memory into it. I don't think the Core i7 is a good value, but two years down the line I won't miss the extra $200. But I'd probably be happy that I got the faster chip.

Since I'm over-analyzing I'm going to quit worrying about it for a while and think about it again next week

 

[InlawBiker]

Since I'm over-analyzing I'm going to quit worrying about it for a while and think about it again next week

Well, so much for that. I went into the Apple store yesterday and played with all of the machines. I figured out I still like the 13" MBP best, even more than the Air. Not sure why really, it just seems like the right size. But I also felt the 15" wasn't too large after all and I could live with the size.

I still couldn't justify the price of the Core i7 13" and I didn't want to pay a premium and still squeak by with the embedded GPU.

So, I ended up ordering the late 2011 15" MBP from B&H Photo. It's actually cheaper than the new 13" MBP. I also ordered 16GB RAM for $79. If you buy from B&H they take $100 off the Applecare warranty and Parallels 7 is free, not bad I think.

Now I need the price of an SSD and Thunderbolt drives to come down!