2015 or 2017 15" Macbook Pro?

[turbineseaplane]

Depending on what kind of deal you can get, it's pretty hard to pass up the 2015 options in terms of pure value.

My current 2015 was less than six months old when I got it, and has the extra AppleCare and a comparably specced 2017 with extra AppleCare is literally more than 2x the price.

Ports and Keyboard stuff aside, it is simply impossible to justify paying twice the price (In my situation anyhow).

 

[playtech1]

If buying new, I think the 2017 model has a lot to commend and would choose it notwithstanding the higher price, but I would (and indeed did) choose a nearly new 2015 model, which was massively less expensive than a new 2016 MBP.

The keyboard on the 2016/17 MBPSs is also something of a dealbreaker for me as I really don't like it much.

 

[Fthree]

i would miss magsafe. My wife is not a tech person AT ALL. I was talking to her about the new MacBooks and she was dumbfounded when she found out you have to "plug" the new ones in.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I recently purchased a top-of-the-line 2015 Macbook Pro 15" with 16 GB Ram, 512 SSD, 750M 2 GB video card. Has the magsafe and a great keyboard and was like $1300. It even still has a few months of Applecare left. Glad I got it. Thing is beautiful and I saved a bunch of money on my car insur....wait. Well you get the idea.

 

[Seekingshred]

I see few people loving the 2015. Any comments if it can handle 4K playback/editing? Cause the 2017 might not worth the money but surely can do that...

 

[EugW]

I see few people loving the 2015. Any comments if it can handle 4K playback/editing? Cause the 2017 might not worth the money but surely can do that...

What kind of 4K? As has been mentioned in some of the media threads, the 2017 has full 8-bit and 10-bit decode support for HEVC. The 2016 has 8-bit only, and the 2015 has neither. For encoding, for hardware support Apple supports 8-bit encoding only, but again, that requires at least a 2016 MacBook Pro.

This may or may not be important to you but it is a consideration, since moving forward, Apple is building their OS and applications around HEVC support. So far it is mainly 8-bit which is OK for the 2016 model, but for the 2015 you're out of luck.

Aside from your usage habits, how beneficial is that hardware support performance-wise? Well, consider one example I tried where I took a 10-bit 4K demo HEVC video for Sony TVs and tried to play it on Macs.

Within Sierra, I tried playing it on a brand new iMac Core i7-7700K. Since Sierra does not support HEVC, the iMac was forced to try to decode it using software only on the CPU. This 4-core 8-thread 4.2 GHz CPU (with Turbo Boost up to 4.5 GHz) was maxed out at 100%, the fan was maximum speed and loud, and I still couldn't play the file cleanly. It was mostly OK, but it sometimes stuttered a bit. This is Apple's fastest consumer machine, and is faster than any MacBook Pro in existence.

Then I took the same video within High Sierra and tried playing it on a brand new Core m3 MacBook. Since High Sierra does support HEVC, and since my MacBook is a 2017 that supports full 10-bit decode, I could play it just fine, with less than 25% CPU usage, even though the CPU is only a dual-core 4-thread 1.2 GHz chip (with Turbo Boost up to 3.0 GHz). Furthermore, I could even do a screen recording at the exact same time. (Playback during the recording was fine, but the recording itself wasn't perfect. I guess doing both the 4K playback and the high rez screen recording at the same time was a bit stressful on the Core m3.)

Below is my thread on it in the MacBook forum:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/4k-hevc-10-bit-on-the-2017-core-m3-macbook-is-gorgeous.2054232/

 

[Seekingshred]

What kind of 4K? As has been mentioned in some of the media threads, the 2017 has full 8-bit and 10-bit decode support for HEVC. The 2016 has 8-bit only, and the 2015 has neither. For encoding, for hardware support Apple supports 8-bit encoding only, but again, that requires at least a 2016 MacBook Pro.

This may or may not be important to you but it is a consideration, since moving forward, Apple is building their OS and applications around HEVC support. So far it is mainly 8-bit which is OK for the 2016 model, but for the 2015 you're out of luck.

Aside from your usage habits, how beneficial is that hardware support performance-wise? Well, consider one example I tried where I took a 10-bit 4K demo HEVC video for Sony TVs and tried to play it on Macs.

Within Sierra, I tried playing it on a brand new iMac Core i7-7700K. Since Sierra does not support HEVC, the iMac was forced to try to decode it using software only on the CPU. This 4-core 8-thread 4.2 GHz CPU (with Turbo Boost up to 4.5 GHz) was maxed out at 100%, the fan was maximum speed and loud, and I still couldn't play the file cleanly. It was mostly OK, but it sometimes stuttered a bit. This is Apple's fastest consumer machine, and is faster than any MacBook Pro in existence.

Then I took the same video within High Sierra and tried playing it on a brand new Core m3 MacBook. Since High Sierra does support HEVC, and since my MacBook is a 2017 that supports full 10-bit decode, I could play it just fine, with less than 25% CPU usage, even though the CPU is only a dual-core 4-thread 1.2 GHz chip (with Turbo Boost up to 3.0 GHz). Furthermore, I could even do a screen recording at the exact same time. (Playback during the recording was fine, but the recording itself wasn't perfect. I guess doing both the 4K playback and the high rez screen recording at the same time was a bit stressful on the Core m3.)

Below is my thread on it in the MacBook forum:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/4k-hevc-10-bit-on-the-2017-core-m3-macbook-is-gorgeous.2054232/

Nailed it.

You might given me the green light actually... I was going to buy in the weekend a MBP and I think I will go with Kabylake. thanks

 

[Seekingshred]

Nailed it.

You might given me the green light actually... I was going to buy in the weekend a MBP and I think I will go with Kabylake. thanks

Been on holidays and didn't rush! Until now that I had a 13'' 2017 8gb ram and pushed into it a mkv 4k file. I tried to play it through dif players and it was slow af!!

Did the same thing to the mbp 15'' 2015 mbp and it was so smooth!!! Honestly if it can't play it back how should I expect to edit??!!

 

[EugW]

Been on holidays and didn't rush! Until now that I had a 13'' 2017 8gb ram and pushed into it a mkv 4k file. I tried to play it through dif players and it was slow af!!

Did the same thing to the mbp 15'' 2015 mbp and it was so smooth!!! Honestly if it can't play it back how should I expect to edit??!!

Kaby Lake can play 4K HEVC files in hardware in High Sierra (not Sierra) which means low CPU usage. So far not in MKV though. Needs to be hvc1 encoded in Quicktime format.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/4k-hevc-10-bit-on-the-2017-core-m3-macbook-is-gorgeous.2054232/

 

[Seekingshred]

Kaby Lake can play 4K HEVC files in hardware in High Sierra (not Sierra) which means low CPU usage. So far not in MKV though. Needs to be hvc1 encoded in Quicktime format.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/4k-hevc-10-bit-on-the-2017-core-m3-macbook-is-gorgeous.2054232/

So I'm wondering on 19sept when they announce the high sierra if the table is gonna turn and the 2015 15'' won't be as fast while the 2016/17 13' will be able to playback etc...

 

[illadee]

I'm also between these two computers.

Currently on a 12/2,4/2010 Macbook which is getting to slow for:

Firefox with a lot of tabs open
Editing in Final Cut Pro


If the 2015 (just with the iris pro, not the AMD) is fine for editing also, i maybe go with the older one, or better save longer and go with the new one?

 

[EugW]

So I'm wondering on 19sept when they announce the high sierra if the table is gonna turn and the 2015 15'' won't be as fast while the 2016/17 13' will be able to playback etc...

It really depends on the file. For software playback a Core i7 from 2015 15" will often handily beat a 2017 13" i5.

However, if you have the right format, with High Sierra the 2017 13" i5 will make the 2015 Core i7 15" look completely out of date.

If you check out my HEVC thread, I was testing a Sony TV demo 4K video which was a 76 Mbps 10-bit 4K HEVC file. Playing it back on my Core i7 7700K iMac (which is way faster than any 15" MBP in existence), it could not play the file back completely cleanly in Sierra with software playback. Even with 100% usage and the fan spun up to max, it still stuttered significantly. In contrast, my 2017 m3-7Y32 MacBook (non-Pro) played it no problem in hardware in High Sierra, with 25% CPU usage. (The iMac i5 7600 iMac in High Sierra plays it back in hardware with less than 10% CPU usage.)

However, right now the only program that fully supports this is Quicktime, so MKV files won't get that hardware speedup (yet).

tl;dr:

With the right type of file and the right software, a MacBook Core m3-7Y32 in High Sierra beats an iMac Core i7-7700K in Sierra.

 

[Seekingshred]

I'm also between these two computers.

Currently on a 12/2,4/2010 Macbook which is getting to slow for:

Firefox with a lot of tabs open
Editing in Final Cut Pro


If the 2015 (just with the iris pro, not the AMD) is fine for editing also, i maybe go with the older one, or better save longer and go with the new one?

For me I know 2016 might be a bit better performance wise but I really don't know if the £300 pounds (20% cost increase almost) difference justifies this. I tried both and I'm just STUCK! I tend to go with the 2015 because if I would really want the 2016 features I would already know it however it comes down to new apple announcements and if the 2015 will be able to handle 3-4 years super smoothly.
[doublepost=1503314552][/doublepost]

It really depends on the file. For software playback a Core i7 from 2015 15" will often handily beat a 2017 13" i5.

However, if you have the right format, with High Sierra the 2017 13" i5 will make the 2015 Core i7 15" look completely out of date.

If you check out my HEVC thread, I was testing a Sony TV demo 4K video which was a 76 Mbps 10-bit 4K HEVC file. Playing it back on my Core i7 7700K iMac (which is way faster than any 15" MBP in existence), it could not play the file back completely cleanly in Sierra with software playback. Even with 100% usage and the fan spun up to max, it still stuttered significantly. In contrast, my 2017 m3-7Y32 MacBook (non-Pro) played it no problem in hardware in High Sierra, with 25% CPU usage. (The iMac i5 7600 iMac in High Sierra plays it back in hardware with less than 10% CPU usage.)

However, right now the only program that fully supports this is Quicktime, so MKV files won't get that hardware speedup (yet).

tl;dr:

With the right type of file and the right software, a MacBook Core m3-7Y32 in High Sierra beats an iMac Core i7-7700K in Sierra.

Just finished reading that thread. I think I will maybe go with the 2015 and invest the £300. I'm betting on it for one reason. Apple still sells it as NEW MBP 2 years later. They can't possibly throw this out of the window just because of high sierra !!

 

[EugW]

Personally I think it would be foolish to go with anything less than a 2017 if you doing any sort of significant video editing with HEVC (although the 2016 will at least be able to handle 8-bit HEVC in hardware).

However, if you are short on cash, and aren't editing 4K HEVC, then that's a different story.

Remember though, even the iPhone now outputs 4K HEVC, although it's 8-bit, not 10-bit... for now. Who knows what next month's iPhone will bring.

 

[illadee]

maybe i have to save a bit more, it seems the 2017 is also improved to the mistakes of the 2016 - i will see what i do - but one of those (15-2015 vs 15-2017) should be the next babe..