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2012 Macbook Pro Redesign
- Thread starter Funkymonk
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You can upgrade the RAM in the non retina as it is just 2 dimm slots, as a general rule don't buy RAM from Apple if you can upgrade yourself.
It's over.
Oh brother.
Yeah my 2011 15 MBP with 16gb of Ram and SSD suddenly blew up and grew three inches thicker via a magical spell conjured up by Apple wizards! It is suddenly use less!
Good advice!
What country do you live in?
For the US http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233217
For the UK it is much more expensive... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMX...10?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1339728345&sr=1-10
I'm not so sure what RAM upgrade will be 100% compatible with the new macbook pros, maybe some people on the forums will be able to help you.
Hope that helps. I only searched for 2 minutes so you can shop around for better deals.RAM install guide here, takes 5 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkRIXeHtJcw&hd=1
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Just ordered mine today (Retina)... Here's what I got and why, in case it helps anyone else in the same situation. I'm a landscape photographer , processing nearly 40 mp images in Aperture and Photoshop, editing some video in Final Cut, but never using 3d beyond what the OS uses. Outside of photography, my computer use is very light (were it not for the images, I could get by with no computer other than the iPad I'm typing this on), but the heavy photo use means that I need a very powerful machine.
RMBP 2.7 gHz
512 GB SSD
16 GB RAM
Ethernet adapter
I was bothered at first by the non upgradability, especially of the RAM, which I think is the only real risk to this machine. I'm pretty sure that 16 GB will be enough (my present MBP has 8 gb, and being a 2010, can't go any higher - that's not enough, but I think and hope that 16 will be).
As for the SSD, Apple has, for once in their lives, chosen excellent drives and offered fair pricing. I'm sure that there will be upgrade cards out there (OWC, I'm looking at you), by the time SSDs larger than 512 GB cost less than the entire computer (I don't know how Apple is offering that 768 at all, no matter the price, because the only standard SSD over 512 I could find on Newegg was a $2699 OCZ 1 terabyte model with lower performance than Apple's Samsung 830). I didn't go with the 768 because it wasn't that much bigger than the 512, and it was very expensive - I'm sure the component cost is enormous, but it is still not terribly cost effective, especially because I'm confident that I will be able to give this machine a "midlife kick" to 1 TB in a couple years.
I thought long and hard about the difference between the 2.6 and 2.7 gHz models (both the RAM and SSD decisions were relatively easy), and chose the 2.7 for a couple of reasons. First of all, the upgrade is relatively cheap, not even 10% the price of the machine, and it's on a computer I intend to own for a long time. Second, the cache has the potential to make more of a difference than the modest (tiny) bump in clock speed. Third, the 2.7 is Intel's top bin mobile chip, which means that it has passed the most stringent tests. A 2.6 could either be a deliberate 2.6 or a 2.7 that didn't quite make the grade. It may be irrational ( as I said, it was a relatively close call), but i'd like to have a chip that hasn't failed any tests.
While the internal expandability of the RMBP is very limited, the external I/O is amazing - it offers a large number of high speed ports for storage, displays, etc. Each Thunderbolt channel is capable of supporting a fairly serious RAID or a breakout box with just about any port or combination of ports. The USB 3.0 ports offer connections to cheap, large drives (until recently, Apple hasn't offered a drive port that didn't constrain the drives since drives were enough slower that FireWire was fast enough - now, the second fastest drive port is fast enough for anything except SSDs and RAID). I will probably use one port for a drive, and put a hub on the other when I'm at my desk for everything from a Wacom tablet to flash keys. The fast card reader is a great feature - even my Nikon D800e takes SD, and having the reader built in means no more fumbling around in my camera bag for it, plus the internal reader is fast - the best SD readers I could find for my old 17 inch were only USB 2.0 ( the express card readers were hard to find, and I never got one).
One feature that nobody seems to have mentioned yet, perhaps because the displays don't exist yet outside of a lab, is that the Kepler GPU will actually drive a 4k display (3840x2160), in addition to the internal. Once those 4k displays become available ( both the thunderbolt and hdmi ports on the Retina can push that many pixels), it will be possible to edit an image on a 4k external, while using the Retina Display as a palette/library monitor. I suspect that 2013 brings the Apple Thunderbolt Retina Display 4k, with excellent color gamut and uniformity (that may well be what's holding up the Mac Pro). While the resolution will be unusable for games, those of us who use our Macs in the creative professions will love the extraordinary resolution and screen real estate.
This is clearly a niche machine, aimed straight at photographers and video editors. Other than the non upgradable RAM, it is a near-perfect fit for my needs - no laptop would have enough internal storage, and this one offers two types of modern, fast ports for the external storage any machine would need. The display is the very best available on any portable, and better than 98% of desktop displays ( I hope the color gamut is superb, but Apple's IPS displays have historically been at least very good). The CPU and SSD are chosen for speed, and are the most capable reasonable choices on the market right now ( sure, there are 9 lb "laptops" using a desktop i7-3770k CPU that are about 20% faster, but they aren't really portable, and I've never seen one with any sort of IPS display, Retina or not). The HP EliteBooks and other top-end mobile workstations with IPS displays all use real mobile chips, so they'll be exactly the same speed. No EliteBook has Thunderbolt, so there's no way to attach a RAID at full speed - they are fine in the field with portable USB 3.0 drives, but they don't have a connector fast enough for the big stuff in the studio. while others will disagree with me, I'm happy with the GPU (at least from reading the reviews - we'll see when it arrives). It's fast enough for anything except gaming, and this isn't a machine made for gaming. A better GPU would have meant a much heavier machine (cooling), with a heavier adapter and shorter battery life (power). The EliteBooks and Dell Precisions do offer better gpus, but they pay dearly in weight and battery life. My present feeling is that Apple made the right trade there.
The Ethernet and optical drive? I have an Ethernet adapter on order with the machine, and for under $30, I couldn't care less. If it took up the only Thunderbolt port, I'd care, but the second thunderbolt lets me attach something else at the same time. I'll hang a USB 3.0 bluray burner off a hub on my desk if I feel any need for one of those. By going SSD and eliminating the optical drive, Apple eliminated all of the moving parts except for fans and the keyboard, thereby eliminating the major sources of failure - this should be one sturdy computer.
What would I have done differently? In an ideal world, this Mac would have had four RAM slots... I'm not sure that I'd have preferred Apple's standard two slots over the reasonably priced upgrade to 16GB soldered - nobody's even seen a DESKTOP 16 GB DIMM yet at any price (the few that exist are slow, registered server modules), let alone a SODIMM - it'll be a few years before two slots in a notebook yields anything over 16 GB (and Apple's 16 GB is fast RAM, almost reasonably priced and increases reliability by not having contacts).
The other feature I'd like to have seen is one more storage slot or bay. In an ideal world, that would have been a 2.5" bay (machine always comes with a blade SSD, there's an option to add either a spinning disk or a second SSD). Apple made such progress on the cost and speed of the blade drives that I'd even have liked a second blade slot, giving a $500 upgrade from 512 gb to 1 tb with dual blades, a very expensive upgrade to 1.5 tb (dual 768 blades), and an eventual potential of 2 tb.
RMBP 2.7 gHz
512 GB SSD
16 GB RAM
Ethernet adapter
I was bothered at first by the non upgradability, especially of the RAM, which I think is the only real risk to this machine. I'm pretty sure that 16 GB will be enough (my present MBP has 8 gb, and being a 2010, can't go any higher - that's not enough, but I think and hope that 16 will be).
As for the SSD, Apple has, for once in their lives, chosen excellent drives and offered fair pricing. I'm sure that there will be upgrade cards out there (OWC, I'm looking at you), by the time SSDs larger than 512 GB cost less than the entire computer (I don't know how Apple is offering that 768 at all, no matter the price, because the only standard SSD over 512 I could find on Newegg was a $2699 OCZ 1 terabyte model with lower performance than Apple's Samsung 830). I didn't go with the 768 because it wasn't that much bigger than the 512, and it was very expensive - I'm sure the component cost is enormous, but it is still not terribly cost effective, especially because I'm confident that I will be able to give this machine a "midlife kick" to 1 TB in a couple years.
I thought long and hard about the difference between the 2.6 and 2.7 gHz models (both the RAM and SSD decisions were relatively easy), and chose the 2.7 for a couple of reasons. First of all, the upgrade is relatively cheap, not even 10% the price of the machine, and it's on a computer I intend to own for a long time. Second, the cache has the potential to make more of a difference than the modest (tiny) bump in clock speed. Third, the 2.7 is Intel's top bin mobile chip, which means that it has passed the most stringent tests. A 2.6 could either be a deliberate 2.6 or a 2.7 that didn't quite make the grade. It may be irrational ( as I said, it was a relatively close call), but i'd like to have a chip that hasn't failed any tests.
While the internal expandability of the RMBP is very limited, the external I/O is amazing - it offers a large number of high speed ports for storage, displays, etc. Each Thunderbolt channel is capable of supporting a fairly serious RAID or a breakout box with just about any port or combination of ports. The USB 3.0 ports offer connections to cheap, large drives (until recently, Apple hasn't offered a drive port that didn't constrain the drives since drives were enough slower that FireWire was fast enough - now, the second fastest drive port is fast enough for anything except SSDs and RAID). I will probably use one port for a drive, and put a hub on the other when I'm at my desk for everything from a Wacom tablet to flash keys. The fast card reader is a great feature - even my Nikon D800e takes SD, and having the reader built in means no more fumbling around in my camera bag for it, plus the internal reader is fast - the best SD readers I could find for my old 17 inch were only USB 2.0 ( the express card readers were hard to find, and I never got one).
One feature that nobody seems to have mentioned yet, perhaps because the displays don't exist yet outside of a lab, is that the Kepler GPU will actually drive a 4k display (3840x2160), in addition to the internal. Once those 4k displays become available ( both the thunderbolt and hdmi ports on the Retina can push that many pixels), it will be possible to edit an image on a 4k external, while using the Retina Display as a palette/library monitor. I suspect that 2013 brings the Apple Thunderbolt Retina Display 4k, with excellent color gamut and uniformity (that may well be what's holding up the Mac Pro). While the resolution will be unusable for games, those of us who use our Macs in the creative professions will love the extraordinary resolution and screen real estate.
This is clearly a niche machine, aimed straight at photographers and video editors. Other than the non upgradable RAM, it is a near-perfect fit for my needs - no laptop would have enough internal storage, and this one offers two types of modern, fast ports for the external storage any machine would need. The display is the very best available on any portable, and better than 98% of desktop displays ( I hope the color gamut is superb, but Apple's IPS displays have historically been at least very good). The CPU and SSD are chosen for speed, and are the most capable reasonable choices on the market right now ( sure, there are 9 lb "laptops" using a desktop i7-3770k CPU that are about 20% faster, but they aren't really portable, and I've never seen one with any sort of IPS display, Retina or not). The HP EliteBooks and other top-end mobile workstations with IPS displays all use real mobile chips, so they'll be exactly the same speed. No EliteBook has Thunderbolt, so there's no way to attach a RAID at full speed - they are fine in the field with portable USB 3.0 drives, but they don't have a connector fast enough for the big stuff in the studio. while others will disagree with me, I'm happy with the GPU (at least from reading the reviews - we'll see when it arrives). It's fast enough for anything except gaming, and this isn't a machine made for gaming. A better GPU would have meant a much heavier machine (cooling), with a heavier adapter and shorter battery life (power). The EliteBooks and Dell Precisions do offer better gpus, but they pay dearly in weight and battery life. My present feeling is that Apple made the right trade there.
The Ethernet and optical drive? I have an Ethernet adapter on order with the machine, and for under $30, I couldn't care less. If it took up the only Thunderbolt port, I'd care, but the second thunderbolt lets me attach something else at the same time. I'll hang a USB 3.0 bluray burner off a hub on my desk if I feel any need for one of those. By going SSD and eliminating the optical drive, Apple eliminated all of the moving parts except for fans and the keyboard, thereby eliminating the major sources of failure - this should be one sturdy computer.
What would I have done differently? In an ideal world, this Mac would have had four RAM slots... I'm not sure that I'd have preferred Apple's standard two slots over the reasonably priced upgrade to 16GB soldered - nobody's even seen a DESKTOP 16 GB DIMM yet at any price (the few that exist are slow, registered server modules), let alone a SODIMM - it'll be a few years before two slots in a notebook yields anything over 16 GB (and Apple's 16 GB is fast RAM, almost reasonably priced and increases reliability by not having contacts).
The other feature I'd like to have seen is one more storage slot or bay. In an ideal world, that would have been a 2.5" bay (machine always comes with a blade SSD, there's an option to add either a spinning disk or a second SSD). Apple made such progress on the cost and speed of the blade drives that I'd even have liked a second blade slot, giving a $500 upgrade from 512 gb to 1 tb with dual blades, a very expensive upgrade to 1.5 tb (dual 768 blades), and an eventual potential of 2 tb.
Great analysis, sounds like an almost perfect laptop for you. I agree I wish apple had included more storage options such as an additional msata slot or at least made their 'flash storage' non proprietary. Just one thing... How did you type all of ^^^^^^^ on an ipad????
What country do you live in?
For the US http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233217
For the UK it is much more expensive... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMX...10?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1339728345&sr=1-10
I'm not so sure what RAM upgrade will be 100% compatible with the new macbook pros, maybe some people on the forums will be able to help you.
RAM install guide here, takes 5 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkRIXeHtJcw&hd=1
Ah! Thank you very much for your help. Good ol' Newegg
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Ok, final question before I purchase. For the hard drive options; can I upgrade the hard drive on my own on the non-retina 15"? The prices through apple are a bit ridiculous.
yeah pretty easy to do as well you just need a philips head and a torx screwdriver .
Guide here: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Install...body-Early-2011-Hard-Drive-Replacement/5895/1
worried about retina...
lets say someone gets a retina display macbook, but ends up not liking the fact that most images on webpages are blurry/jaggy and applications and apps that take too long to come out with support for the retina display end up being blurry. or text is to small to read. or they just dont like it for now, but will once everybody gets on board and fixes everything to work with it.
can you just change a setting in the retina macbook to make the screen just look like a regular non retina macbook.
basically, if i get a retina macbook and i end up not liking the retina display, is there settings where it can be made to look just like the high res screen on the non retina macbooks?
i know its sounds dumb, but i really cant stand it when icons or things dont display like they should.
lets say someone gets a retina display macbook, but ends up not liking the fact that most images on webpages are blurry/jaggy and applications and apps that take too long to come out with support for the retina display end up being blurry. or text is to small to read. or they just dont like it for now, but will once everybody gets on board and fixes everything to work with it.
can you just change a setting in the retina macbook to make the screen just look like a regular non retina macbook.
basically, if i get a retina macbook and i end up not liking the retina display, is there settings where it can be made to look just like the high res screen on the non retina macbooks?
i know its sounds dumb, but i really cant stand it when icons or things dont display like they should.
Why don't you check it out in store. Also they have a return policy so you can return it if you aren't satisfied.
How many of u noticed that new application on Mountain Lion "Power Nap" is only available for Macbook Air 2011 and Macbook Pro Retina...
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Well that's a bit rubbish isn't it. Why have it on the 2nd generation of Air's and none of the new 2012 updates apart from the retina?
And having changed last Friday's 2011 MBP 13 for Wednesday's 2012 MBP 13 and gained the £70 gift card and Mountain Lion upgrade in the process it couldn't have been easier. The store didn't even check the first machine was in the box!
It looks like this feature only works with the blade flash memory (not sure why) and not SSDs, hence why it would not work with the first gen MBA (1.8" HDD/SSD) or non-Retina MBP (2.5" HDD/SSD).
I'm pretty sure the MBA generation refers to the design generation, thus excluding the first 13" MBA (2008-2009). The second generation probably refers to MBAs from 2010 to 2012.
I'm late to the party, but how do you guys feel about the battery situation? Having them glued inside to the case is a PITA. I'm still using my 2007 MBP and I've gone through 3 batteries. I'm thinking about about purchasing the RMBP but I don't want to pay Apple in the future to replace my batteries.
...
Speaking of batteries. Its funny how Apple does this..
They'd rather have a "so called" battery pack tied together.
Similarly, the MBA 13" has 4 batteries.
This issue with Apple basically the same 7 hours battery, just add more batteries, is not really how they should think if this.....
Clearly, if space matters to then, and it does, then fill in the gaps, and just have one big battery, then you'll have extra space.
And all these extra batteries for internal use only..
Speaking of batteries. Its funny how Apple does this..
They'd rather have a "so called" battery pack tied together.
Similarly, the MBA 13" has 4 batteries.
This issue with Apple basically the same 7 hours battery, just add more batteries, is not really how they should think if this.....
Clearly, if space matters to then, and it does, then fill in the gaps, and just have one big battery, then you'll have extra space.
And all these extra batteries for internal use only..
Speaking of batteries. Its funny how Apple does this..
They'd rather have a "so called" battery pack tied together.
Similarly, the MBA 13" has 4 batteries.
This issue with Apple basically the same 7 hours battery, just add more batteries, is not really how they should think if this.....
Clearly, if space matters to then, and it does, then fill in the gaps, and just have one big battery, then you'll have extra space.
And all these extra batteries for internal use only..
I'm not a chemist, but...
There's probably a limit to how big you can make a lithium cell - electrolyte diffusion or lack thereof might be an issue if the cell is too big. So once you've reached the maximum cell size, everything is a battery and the choice is how many cells do you need and what shape do you make them.
Traditional lithium battery cells in laptops are usually round and make really poor use of space. It looks like the cells that Apple is using are already big and flat. I'm guessing that the potential gain in extra capacity that Apple could realize by making them even flatter or more square-shaped is probably small compared to the gain that they've already achieved by not making them completely round.