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Buy rMBP 13" Now or Not?

D

donster28

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 5, 2006
1,726
811
Great White North
I know, I know, not another 'should I or shouldn't I buy' question, but hear me out first before anything. I also have my child buying instincts kicking in right now...they're telling me to buy so I need your help.

Just sold my 2011 13" MBA and I am itching to get the 13" rMBP. I just couldn't resist having that Retina screen anymore. Every time I go to an Apple Store, I get more and more attracted to that sharp, bright screen. It's like when I got my first HDTV, everything I see was just so refreshing to the eyes.

I consider myself a casual laptop user. I have a Mac Pro which I use for my heavy duty video editing and what not. I mainly used my MBA to surf, do some Excel spreadsheets, Keynote presentations and occasionally edit on Final Cut, while relaxing comfortably on my bed. All of this I can do on my Mac Pro, which is just sitting a few feet away. Honestly, I'm just being lazy to work on a desk most of the time, so my laptop gets to be called to duty a lot.

Should I get the rMBA right now, or wait until probably June when Apple releases a better, more powerful one. Will it be that much more powerful and different?

Thanks. :)
 
Seriously another one of these threads? "Hear you out" when you're asking the same question(s) all the other users do when they post these threads?

Want my opinion, wait, wait forever, then keep waiting because newer, better is always around one corner, or a few hundred corners.

Haswell will be better yes, but leaps and bounds... no.
 
Orlandoech.com said:
Seriously another one of these threads? "Hear you out" when you're asking the same question(s) all the other users do when they post these threads?

Want my opinion, wait, wait forever, then keep waiting because newer, better is always around one corner, or a few hundred corners.

Haswell will be better yes, but leaps and bounds... no.
Click to expand...

I know, I know. :( Thanks anyway.
 
yusukeaoki said:
Well do you need it now? Right at this moment?
Then get it.

Can you wait for another 3~15 months?
Then wait.
Click to expand...

3 seems so close, but then lets say its Oct/Nov 6-7 months is a LONG time to wait for a spec bump to haswell.
 
Orlandoech.com said:
3 seems so close, but then lets say its Oct/Nov 6-7 months is a LONG time to wait for a spec bump to haswell.
Click to expand...

Well its almost a year since the rMBP release so it can be a somewhat accurate guess.
But unless he needs it now, just wait.
Either way his "new computer" will be old in less than a year.
 
Yes you have a MAC PRO so wait for haswell. It's April almost and another few month shouldn't kill you :)

I have a MBA 13" late 2012 but i want to leave it to my girl and buy a rMbk so i wait too for haswell. I hope they will fix the heat on this aluminium body as they fixed it in iphone 5 and iMacs
 
yusukeaoki said:
Well its almost a year since the rMBP release so it can be a somewhat accurate guess.
But unless he needs it now, just wait.
Either way his "new computer" will be old in less than a year.
Click to expand...

Haswell Mobile chips without USB3 issues or revisions wont be available this Summer.
 
Serban said:
Yes you have a MAC PRO so wait for haswell. It's April almost and another few month shouldn't kill you :)

I have a MBA 13" late 2012 but i want to leave it to my girl and buy a rMbk so i wait too for haswell. I hope they will fix the heat on this aluminium body as they fixed it in iphone 5 and iMacs
Click to expand...

When you say fix the heat? Doesnt the nature of the build/aluminum transfer heat more causing us to think its more hot?
 
B... said:
No increase. Possibly a decrease bc SSDs might be cheper or start at higher amounts. Possibly 15" might come down to $1999.
Click to expand...

Ah ok. Was wondering since the macmall sale seems to be a pretty good price right now on the 15inch retina pro. Cheaper than direct from apple by about 100$ with the student discount.

Any reason to buy direct from apple? Like can you not buy applecare if it's not from them or anything like that?
 
No reason to buy direct from Apple if there is a better deal with an authorized reseller. Comes with 1 year warantee and you can get Applecare.
 
streetprince said:
Ah ok. Was wondering since the macmall sale seems to be a pretty good price right now on the 15inch retina pro. Cheaper than direct from apple by about 100$ with the student discount.

Any reason to buy direct from apple? Like can you not buy applecare if it's not from them or anything like that?
Click to expand...

nope, actually you should get from macmall right now or some other place that is selling at significant discounts
 
For what you do, buy it now. I have the 13" retina and it handles everything i do, great. I don't really game. But i did just buy Call of duty 4 for the Mac for the heck of it just to see how an older game would run and it seems to run fine on the default settings. But every complains how poorly games run on this so I'd take their word over mine for newer games.
 
chrise2 said:
For what you do, buy it now. I have the 13" retina and it handles everything i do, great. I don't really game. But i did just buy Call of duty 4 for the Mac for the heck of it just to see how an older game would run and it seems to run fine on the default settings. But every complains how poorly games run on this so I'd take their word over mine for newer games.
Click to expand...

It is not "bad" per se; just that the HD 4000 is nowhere near as capable as the 650M in the 15". It can handle older games well, just not newer games at crazy resolutions.
 
fatlardo said:
So how will the new igp for haswell fare to the 650m?
Click to expand...

A video at the Intel conference shows them performing similarly. See my thread "Intel HD 5200 vs nVidia 650M". The consensus is that it will optimistically be 50-60% of the power of the 650M.
 
fatlardo said:
So how will the new igp for haswell fare to the 650m?
Click to expand...

depends on which are you talking about and which are going to be equipping the new macs, we have

4400 - ULV only, however we have some ULVs with the 5100

4600 - currently we know they are in some quads

5100 - we know they are in som ULVs, its probable we will see them in 37w cpus as well

5200 - cream of the crop it comes with the most powerful core and with embedded ram so that the gpu doesnt starve that much (its going to be only 128mb after all), and this is the one that appeared in the youtube video. We know its going to appear in 2 quads, in all probability its going to appear in more cpus across the entire range as well (minus the Y series, since its for 11w or something of tdp)

Tom did a review of the 4600, and its around 20-30% better than the 4000 (in the 2 games tested 10fps of difference is good but not enough), we expect a lot more from the 5200, since its double the cores along the embedded ram, thus basically something more than trinity is, probably 30% less than what kaveri can deliver

Krazy Bill said:
If you can find a rMBA I'd say get one. It probably comes with a free Unicorn.
Click to expand...

it exhausts rainbows as well or so I hear
 
Last edited:
If you want it now, buy it now. If you play the "I'll wait until the next version" game, you will be waiting forever. But if you do buy it, don't complain when the next version comes out. :)

Haswell is coming, but just because the CPUs hit the market in late May doesn't mean Apple will update the rMBP immediately. They might, though. :apple:

Certainly the Haswell architecture will improve the 13" rMBP more than it will improve the 15" rMBP, simply because the integrated GPU performance in Haswell is really the major upgrade in that architecture, and the 15" rMBP has the benefit of a powerful discrete GPU already.

That said, the current 13" rMBP is a fantastic computer. I hesitate to recommend the 13" MBA to friends who are shopping for laptops, especially given the recent price drop on the 13" rMBP. Enjoy it.
 
If you have the funds go for it...I got mine a few days ago and it's not going back...

The display is gorgeous, I basically had enough with all those crappy TN panels most companies are using. The panel is semi glossy, much better than the MBA in all respects.
 
themadrussian said:
If you want it now, buy it now. If you play the "I'll wait until the next version" game, you will be waiting forever. But if you do buy it, don't complain when the next version comes out. :)

Haswell is coming, but just because the CPUs hit the market in late May doesn't mean Apple will update the rMBP immediately. They might, though. :apple:

Certainly the Haswell architecture will improve the 13" rMBP more than it will improve the 15" rMBP, simply because the integrated GPU performance in Haswell is really the major upgrade in that architecture, and the 15" rMBP has the benefit of a powerful discrete GPU already.

That said, the current 13" rMBP is a fantastic computer. I hesitate to recommend the 13" MBA to friends who are shopping for laptops, especially given the recent price drop on the 13" rMBP. Enjoy it.
Click to expand...

just to clarify, the different gpu arch comes in broadwell, not in haswell
 
themadrussian said:
Isn't Haswell packaged with the GT3 rather than HD4000?
Click to expand...

No, there are two types of Haswell iGPUs: the GT2 and GT3. The GT2 is broken down into the HD 4200 and 4600, with 5000 and 5200 for the GT3. The 5200 is the best performer out of all of them. 4000 was packaged with Ivy Bridge, but remember that there is also a lower end HD 2500 chip also produced for Ivy Bridge.
 
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