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850m vs 750m? worth the wait?

Sifinity

Sifinity

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 11, 2014
322
1
Texas
so the new refresh of the high-end 15" may put an 850m in it ; would it be worth waiting for a refresh ? or should i just take the 750m with the apple care deal from adorama ; is waiting till october justified by saving around $400 , but then again you are spending over $2400+ ; its not a need situation , i have a laptop that can last till the refresh , im going to be a college student in the fall. the thing is will the refresh be worth $400 more; cause if not i might as well buy now and use the $400 to buy a ext hard drive and like backpack and other college stuff.
 
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Sifinity said:
so the new refresh of the high-end 15" may put an 850m in it ; would it be worth waiting for a refresh ? or should i just take the 750m with the apple care deal from adorama ; is waiting till october justified by saving around $400 , but then again you are spending over $2400+ ; its not a need situation , i have a laptop that can last till the refresh , im going to be a college student in the fall. the thing is will the refresh be worth $400 more; cause if not i might as well buy now and use the $400 to buy a ext hard drive and like backpack and other college stuff.
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IMO buy now, i got a ME294LL/A in june NEW for 2,225 USD. the refresh will be very minor, probably .2ghz spec boost, idk even if they will include the 850 but as a fellow college student this computer is plenty fast for essentially everything you would ever need it for. just buy the ME294LL/A on ebay new from a reputable seller. The alternative is buying a new refreshed MBP for $800 more from apple, (and WAITING FOR IT!) is a slightly better processor and slightly better graphics card worth $800? no. now is the time to buy a mid 2013 15 inch rMBP, let me know if you have more questions.
 
997.2 said:
IMO buy now, i got a ME294LL/A in june NEW for 2,225 USD. the refresh will be very minor, probably .2ghz spec boost, idk even if they will include the 850 but as a fellow college student this computer is plenty fast for essentially everything you would ever need it for. just buy the ME294LL/A on ebay new from a reputable seller. The alternative is buying a new refreshed MBP for $800 more from apple, (and WAITING FOR IT!) is a slightly better processor and slightly better graphics card worth $800? no. now is the time to buy a mid 2013 15 inch rMBP, let me know if you have more questions.
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that is true and in theory yours and the one im a buy from adorama are the same as this one is 2450$ with apple care and no tax
 
I agree. Buy now. Not knowing any better, I bought mine at my local Apple Store, so I had to go with the configurations they keep in stock. And since I wanted the extra RAM and storage, it meant I had to get the 750M dGPU. I recently installed gfxcardstatus, and I have yet to see the 750M kick in, even though I have Dynamic Switching enabled. I don't game, but I use Lightroom and Photoshop regularly. I wish I would have ordered it with the same specs but without the dGPU.
 
bmclaurin said:
I agree. Buy now. Not knowing any better, I bought mine at my local Apple Store, so I had to go with the configurations they keep in stock. And since I wanted the extra RAM and storage, it meant I had to get the 750M dGPU. I recently installed gfxcardstatus, and I have yet to see the 750M kick in, even though I have Dynamic Switching enabled. I don't game, but I use Lightroom and Photoshop regularly. I wish I would have ordered it with the same specs but without the dGPU.
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really is the dgpu that much worse? now im confused on which one to order
 
No, I'm sure it's fine. I'm just saying don't get it if you don't really need it. Not only will it cost you extra money, but it can also cost you a bit of battery life (although you can monitor and somewhat control that with gfxcardstatus).
 
bmclaurin said:
No, I'm sure it's fine. I'm just saying don't get it if you don't really need it. Not only will it cost you extra money, but it can also cost you a bit of battery life (although you can monitor and somewhat control that with gfxcardstatus).
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how much battery life will used? compared to a non 750m ; see the cost would be the same only thing is one would have it and the other wouldnt
 
I see. Then I would go for it w/ the dGPU. If the card isn't being utilized by the apps you are using, I don't think it will cost you much/any battery life, not noticeably in real world use anyway.
 
bmclaurin said:
I see. Then I would go for it w/ the dGPU. If the card isn't being utilized by the apps you are using, I don't think it will cost you much/any battery life, not noticeably in real world use anyway.
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kk cause i was like if im a lose like 2-4 hours of battery life just for having a card , then i don't know if id want it
 
Always wait when it's due for an update soon, it is totally up to you though. Usually it will cost less, especially for the refurbished Macs.
 
Sifinity said:
kk cause i was like if im a lose like 2-4 hours of battery life just for having a card , then i don't know if id want it
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with gfxcardstatus you can monitor if the dedicated GPU is being used. 99% of the time it is not being used for me. times it is used include:
when i open powerpoint
when i use steam for gaming
when i use iMovie (haven't had time to figure out final cut pro)

you can disable the dGPU which makes it essentially the same as the lower end with a more powerful intel chip. battery life is essentially the same anyway. I love having the dGPU under the hood incase I need it and for future proofing.
 
The performance boost in the 850M (Maxwell) over the 750M (Kepler) is pretty considerable and buying the former over the latter a complete no-brainer if you were able to freely chose your GPU like in a custom built desktop.

However Apple never does anything to GPU's beyond adding more VRAM and dropping lower end models without upgrading to a newer CPU architecture at the same time. It's been known since pretty early this year that Intel's next architecture, Broadwell, won't be coming out until next year and with the further delays it's been seeing it could be delayed well into 2015.

Another point, which is probably going to horrify a lot of posters, is the chance of Apple dropping dedicated GPU's entirely with the Broadwell machines. The 15" machines have always had at least some dedicated GPU as standard, but with the latest set of machines, a dedicated GPU became an optional extra after Intel made a major leap in integrated graphics performance. Broadwell is supposed to make another leap in the same vein, so in my view it's only logical for Apple to make a jump in the same direction as last time.
 
SarcasticJoe said:
The performance boost in the 850M (Maxwell) over the 750M (Kepler) is pretty considerable and buying the former over the latter a complete no-brainer if you were able to freely chose your GPU like in a custom built desktop.

However Apple never does anything to GPU's beyond adding more VRAM and dropping lower end models without upgrading to a newer CPU architecture at the same time. It's been known since pretty early this year that Intel's next architecture, Broadwell, won't be coming out until next year and with the further delays it's been seeing it could be delayed well into 2015.

Another point, which is probably going to horrify a lot of posters, is the chance of Apple dropping dedicated GPU's entirely with the Broadwell machines. The 15" machines have always had at least some dedicated GPU as standard, but with the latest set of machines, a dedicated GPU became an optional extra after Intel made a major leap in integrated graphics performance. Broadwell is supposed to make another leap in the same vein, so in my view it's only logical for Apple to make a jump in the same direction as last time.
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also the 750m and 850m are whole different architectures , so the have different pin layouts which would mean that it would take apple to make a whole new engineering process for the motherboard to fit the new chip , which apple won't do for a .2 ghz haswell refresh chip
 
Sifinity said:
also the 750m and 850m are whole different architectures , so the have different pin layouts which would mean that it would take apple to make a whole new engineering process for the motherboard to fit the new chip , which apple won't do for a .2 ghz haswell refresh chip
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Or they'll do as a form of pushing rMBP sales until mid-2015 when they'll be able of offering Broadwell laptops.
 
Sifinity said:
so no update in the fall? or 850m in the fall , sorry kinda confused what your statement means lol
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Well, Apple can do the most obvious decision, i.e., offering a minor spec bump to have something barely new for the Christmas sales... or they'll offer a major bump on GPU so no one will really care with Broadwell until ~mid-2015.
 
brdeveloper said:
Well, Apple can do the most obvious decision, i.e., offering a minor spec bump to have something barely new for the Christmas sales... or they'll offer a major bump on GPU so no one will really care with Broadwell until ~mid-2015.
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but offering a major bump on the GPU would require them to change/create a new engineering line for the motherboard as the pins from the 750m and 650m are completely different that the 850m , plus you got to put into perspective that the $2599 laptop is probably apple's least selling mac, due to the sheer expensive . how often do normal people need the performance a 15" retina with dgpu ? and especially for xmas , most people that need that performance most definitely do not ask for it for xmas cause its usually for work , or school or something intense , where as they would just buy cause their work requires it .
 
Sifinity said:
but offering a major bump on the GPU would require them to change/create a new engineering line for the motherboard as the pins from the 750m and 650m are completely different that the 850m , plus you got to put into perspective that the $2599 laptop is probably apple's least selling mac, due to the sheer expensive .
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That's a good point. Most people tend to agree that we won't see a major bump on the next rMBP release. Based in the fact we haven't had any leaks that suggest a logic board redesign, 850M won't be present in a rMBP in 2014.

How often do normal people need the performance a 15" retina with dgpu ? and especially for xmas , most people that need that performance most definitely do not ask for it for xmas cause its usually for work , or school or something intense , where as they would just buy cause their work requires it .
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Actually I think gamers will be specially interested in a 850M. Macbooks are not the best gaming machines, but even with underpowered GPUs we see a lot of gamers interested on Macbooks in the forum. Professional users are perhaps more interested on CUDA support than on GPU clock speeds. If it supports CUDA and it's barely updated, that's enough.

Also, at least in Brazil, but also in Germany, Italy and other countries, there is a thing called "13th salary". As we (in Brazil) pay around 20-30% of taxes over our gross monthly wages, we receive an annual bonus for having paid so much to the government. This money can be used for buying something -- usually it's spent for paying car taxes/insurance, city duties and so on, but sometimes it's used to spend on Christmas.
 
i got mine in april, when at that point it was speculated an update might drop at wwdc. i'm obviously glad i didn't wait :p

i too was pondering over the 850m before upgrading. i'll be curious to see how they perform in the wild, but so far i've been pretty happy with how the 750m performs. i can work at 1650x1050 hi dpi on the laptop display with a 2560x1440 external, and it doesn't feel sluggish. sometimes i even have a 3rd display connected through the hdmi port.

i'd say go for it!
 
850M is built off of maxwell so the power savings that comes with it would be very interesting. I think it's worth it at this juncture. The new chips for macbook pro just came out, a small refresh is just around the corner. If not for resale value, I think 850M will represent a pretty good bump too.
 
FrozenDarkness said:
850M is built off of maxwell so the power savings that comes with it would be very interesting. I think it's worth it at this juncture. The new chips for macbook pro just came out, a small refresh is just around the corner. If not for resale value, I think 850M will represent a pretty good bump too.
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but thats the thing the new refresh won't have an 850m , due to the sheer fact that it is maxwell , which is a different architecture and has different pins , which would require apple to engineer a new logic board which for a simple .2 ghz haswell refresh would be kinda unlikely , along with that there going to get no benefits for xmas as the high end $2600 laptop is clearly not the ones that apple targets for xmas sales as they realize that not many people are willing to spend that much on a laptop and that not many people need that power
 
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