Any reason to upgrade from mid-2012 MBP?

[MacLust]

I've been using Macs since about 10 years old -- my first was a Performa 400 hand-me-down. Over the years I've owned just about everything... dozens of desktops, iMacs, Macbooks, even owned a friggen StarMax. My point is, there has always been a good reason to upgrade every couple years, at a minimum.

Now I've been using the same MBP mid-2012 for almost 4 years. As much as I want an excuse to upgrade, every time I look there have been only marginal enhancements. My 15" MBP has 2.3ghz i7, 16GB Ram, and 1TB SSD -- similar on specs to current models, right? I like the internal DVD drive, and I don't really care about the retina display. Amazingly it even has 1173 cycles and has 90% battery health according to the app, so can't use that as an excuse to upgrade.

My question is, am I missing a good reason to upgrade? Have advancements in technology really leveled out? I even chatted with Apple sales and they really had no good reason to buy a new MPB other than "turbo boost." Is there a new generation of MBPs on the horizon, with significant changes? Thanks for any input.

 

[duervo]

You forgot items (and so did the Apple salespeople, but that's no surprise).

- PCIe-based SSD vs the SATA3 in the 2012 model.
- Improved battery life due to better low level power management in the new processors.

 

[xb2003]

Intel processors have focused on efficiency in the last few years, as well as iGPU. There the current CPUs aren't that much faster than the sandy bridge days, they just use far less power.

Everyone is anticipating a brand new MBP this year, featuring Skylake processors, TB3/USB C, improved battery life, and smaller frame. I'm personally about to order the current model as I domt want to wait or have to buy a bunch of adapters for my stuff.

 

[iMacDragon]

I certainly wouldn't upgrade from a 2012 model till the skylakes comes out without good urgent reason.

 

[DanGoh]

I'm waiting for touch ID and 12 hours of battery life before upgrading from my 2013 13". I'd keep waiting if I were you.

 

[BeastMode335i]

Thanks for this thread.. I have a Late 2012 rMBP and I contemplated on getting a new one but can't justify the pricetag.. Mine is a 13" but I got it as maxed as I could (i7 processor and 8gb ram) with an exception to the SSD because I knew later I could just upgrade.. I wish the ram was upgradeable but last time I checked it wasn't..

 

[David58117]

I sold my 2012 15" with 16GB ram and 500gb SSD back in 2014 for $1200.

The form factor of the retinas are much better, and now the PCIe SSD is great.

Largely the form factor upgrade was what I wanted, as the cMBP was a little too heavy for portability.

At this point I would keep it until the new releases.

 

[Count Blah]

Keep it for now. Reevaluate after the next release.

With competition like this($2,603), Apple has to step up their game, right?
http://hothardware.com/reviews/dell-precision-15-5510-mobile-workstation-review

 

[diggy33]

Keep it for now. Reevaluate after the next release.

With competition like this($2,603), Apple has to step up their game, right?
http://hothardware.com/reviews/dell-precision-15-5510-mobile-workstation-review

I agree. I've got a Precision 5510; its probably the best Windows machine that I've owned. Minor headache aside with the hard drive when first setting it up, its been flawless

 

[Closingracer]

I've been using Macs since about 10 years old -- my first was a Performa 400 hand-me-down. Over the years I've owned just about everything... dozens of desktops, iMacs, Macbooks, even owned a friggen StarMax. My point is, there has always been a good reason to upgrade every couple years, at a minimum.

Now I've been using the same MBP mid-2012 for almost 4 years. As much as I want an excuse to upgrade, every time I look there have been only marginal enhancements. My 15" MBP has 2.3ghz i7, 16GB Ram, and 1TB SSD -- similar on specs to current models, right? I like the internal DVD drive, and I don't really care about the retina display. Amazingly it even has 1173 cycles and has 90% battery health according to the app, so can't use that as an excuse to upgrade.

My question is, am I missing a good reason to upgrade? Have advancements in technology really leveled out? I even chatted with Apple sales and they really had no good reason to buy a new MPB other than "turbo boost." Is there a new generation of MBPs on the horizon, with significant changes? Thanks for any input.

GHZ means little in terms of efficiency. A video from linus will help it explain it better then I could ever do.

simply put an intel i7 -4710HQ clocked at 2.5GHZ vs an intel i7-6700HQ which is clocked at only a meter 0.1GHZ higher base clock then the 4710HQ at 2.6GHZ. The 6700HQ should be more efficient and better battery life along with a better integrated GPU included.

 

[lockerc18]

I have a mid-2012 rMPB with 16GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. I also have a late-2013 rMBP (for work) which has 16GB RAM, too, and a 512 GB SSD. RAM speed is identical between them, both are i7s and 15 inch. I see a real performance difference with the newer system, which I attribute to the difference in the SSDs. The old one is SATA, and the new one is PCIe. I'm not saying that the old one is slow. It sure isn't. But the newer one really flies. Now, would that be enough for me to upgrade from the older one to the newer one? Not really. I don't do gaming or really numerically or storage intensive work, mostly office things and writing and browsing. For that, my old system is just fine. And the price of an upgrade doesn't make sense to me.

I think we're starting to see the top end of the performance curve for laptops. Improvements will be very incremental, and won't in and of themselves warrant getting an upgrade. I could be wrong, but it's hard for me to justify the expense of an upgrade just to get marginally better response times. Of course, if there were a way to upgrade the SSD in the old one to a PCIe, I'd consider doing that. But I don't believe that's possible.

 

[snaky69]

I've been using Macs since about 10 years old -- my first was a Performa 400 hand-me-down. Over the years I've owned just about everything... dozens of desktops, iMacs, Macbooks, even owned a friggen StarMax. My point is, there has always been a good reason to upgrade every couple years, at a minimum.

Now I've been using the same MBP mid-2012 for almost 4 years. As much as I want an excuse to upgrade, every time I look there have been only marginal enhancements. My 15" MBP has 2.3ghz i7, 16GB Ram, and 1TB SSD -- similar on specs to current models, right? I like the internal DVD drive, and I don't really care about the retina display. Amazingly it even has 1173 cycles and has 90% battery health according to the app, so can't use that as an excuse to upgrade.

My question is, am I missing a good reason to upgrade? Have advancements in technology really leveled out? I even chatted with Apple sales and they really had no good reason to buy a new MPB other than "turbo boost." Is there a new generation of MBPs on the horizon, with significant changes? Thanks for any input.

Your computer also has turboboost. That apples salesman clearly didn't know his stuff.

The upgrade would get you a much, much faster SSD (though how it translates into actual, real-world perfromance is another story), unupgradable RAM, a better screen with higher resolution and better colour reproduction (TN vs IPS), the loss of your optical drive, an extra thunderbolt port and an HDMI port.

That's about it off the top of my head.
[doublepost=1455374305][/doublepost]

Largely the form factor upgrade was what I wanted, as the cMBP was a little too heavy for portability.

Hit the gym, you need it, badly. Especially if the weight difference between the two bothers you. We're talking a hair over a pound.

 

[Freyqq]

I have a mid-2012 rMPB with 16GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. I also have a late-2013 rMBP (for work) which has 16GB RAM, too, and a 512 GB SSD. RAM speed is identical between them, both are i7s and 15 inch. I see a real performance difference with the newer system, which I attribute to the difference in the SSDs. The old one is SATA, and the new one is PCIe. I'm not saying that the old one is slow. It sure isn't. But the newer one really flies. Now, would that be enough for me to upgrade from the older one to the newer one? Not really. I don't do gaming or really numerically or storage intensive work, mostly office things and writing and browsing. For that, my old system is just fine. And the price of an upgrade doesn't make sense to me.

I think we're starting to see the top end of the performance curve for laptops. Improvements will be very incremental, and won't in and of themselves warrant getting an upgrade. I could be wrong, but it's hard for me to justify the expense of an upgrade just to get marginally better response times. Of course, if there were a way to upgrade the SSD in the old one to a PCIe, I'd consider doing that. But I don't believe that's possible.

We see little improvement since 2012 in mbp because the 15" mbp still uses haswell from 2013. Since then, intel has put out broadwell and skylake. Further, intel missed its release date by about a year for broadwell.

 

[Fishrrman]

So long as the 2012 model "still satisfies you" in terms of performance, I'd keep using it for the time being.

I'd reckon you could easily get another 2-4 years out of it, if you want.
I've got a mid-2010 MBPro that still does fine for me (but it's not my "main machine" and I use it only for "relatively light" tasks).

When the time comes when it either 1) breaks or 2) you get a new one, take the internal SSD out and keep using it in an external enclosure (perhaps to serve as a bootable backup for the new one)...