Brand new rMBP 13 vs. used rMBP 15

[therimgreaper]

I'm looking for a new laptop, and have my eyes set on the 13 inch rMBP with 8gb RAM and the 256gb SSD, which is going for ~$1435 on MacMall. I just checked on eBay and it seems that one can get a used 15 inch rMBP, usually the mid-2012 model, for just around the same price.

Would it be better to get the new 13" or a used 15" older model, in terms of processor and whatnot? Would the Sandy Bridge quad core i7 perform better or worse than the Haswell dual core i5?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Would the Sandy Bridge quad core i7 perform better or worse than the Haswell dual core i5?

The i7 would perform considerably better. Haswell and Ivy Bridge have similar performance; the big difference is power consumption. You'll get a lot better battery life with the Haswell.

 

[Buck987]

grap a 15" refurb for $1599 from apple. Safer and you will have full warranty

 

[notjustjay]

My sister and I just went through this exact thing, actually.

She bought a refurb 15" from Apple. $1599 for the June 2012 model, which is a mere spec bump change from the February 2013 model -- the last model before the 15" went Haswell.

The big differences between the older model and the current Haswell model: the PCIe SSD and slightly longer battery life with the current model, BUT the older model has discrete nVidia 650m graphics while the current lower-end Haswell models ship with Intel Iris Pro. So that might actually be an upside!

I went the other way and bought the 13" MBP 8/256GB. I transport my machine quite a bit and I really like the lightweight grab-and-go dynamic of the 13".

The 15" quad-core i7 is roughly twice the power of the dual-core i5, going by Geekbench (about 6500 for the 13", about 13000 for the 15"). But the 13" MBP is no slouch either. I'm very pleased. I might eventually regret not going for more power, but by then, there will be something even faster and better...

8 GB should be fine for today's work, unless you are doing serious computational work like regularly editing 4K video (in which case you wouldn't have even asked your question). There is a serious diminishing return going beyond 8 GB.