Choosing a 15in rMBP Configuration

[Jawnathin]

Wow, such awful advice I had to log in and say something. Going to a 1TB is a huge waste. If it was more affordable then maybe worth it, but no way it's worth an additional 20%/$500 over the base price. And it's something you may never get to even use considering 512gb is still a lot.

Unless you are a professional video editor or something (and if you were, you'd know you needed it) there's just no need to have huge amounts of local storage anymore. With videos and music stored on the net, there just isn't anything that's going to eat up your space in such large quantities. Save yourself $500 and get the 512gb, and IF you find that you need more, the look at cloud storage. Tons of free cloud storage providers out there that you can access remotely from any computer, your phone, and tablet. Google drive, iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive etc. Can't do that with excess local storage. If you need more space still, they all offer affordable upgrade plans you pay monthly. $500 will get you like 10 years of cloud storage.

The CPU bump is a wash. I wouldn't say either way is a good or bad decision, but it's inexpensive enough to consider and you always get the performance increase (unlike the 1TB which you may never use). It does not generate more heat or use more battery as others stated earlier. The CPU Upgrade also increases the clock speed of the Iris Pro GPU by 100mhz (about 10%) as well, which is nice but not a huge deal. I'd say if the cost was a concern, then don't bother.

 

[Wahlstrm]

Unless your name is Mr G. Bench you will never se any noticeable benefit from the 2,8Ghz over the 2,5Ghz.

Fast storage is nice to have.
Just don´t get caught up in the hype that it matters that much for most files.

For apps it makes a great difference.
For professional video/photo editing it makes a difference.

For basically everything else you accumulate over time it don't matter at all.
Music, movies, your personal photos and office document just need e few MB/s to work just fine. So you could save a ton of money by just getting a SD-card for all that stuff.

= Spending $600? extra for 500GB of storage and just storing your iTunes library on it is such a waste of money. So unless you need it for work-stuff just save your money.

 

[Cuniac]

Wow, such awful advice I had to log in and say something. Going to a 1TB is a huge waste. If it was more affordable then maybe worth it, but no way it's worth an additional 20%/$500 over the base price. And it's something you may never get to even use considering 512gb is still a lot.

Unless you are a professional video editor or something (and if you were, you'd know you needed it) there's just no need to have huge amounts of local storage anymore. With videos and music stored on the net, there just isn't anything that's going to eat up your space in such large quantities. Save yourself $500 and get the 512gb, and IF you find that you need more, the look at cloud storage. Tons of free cloud storage providers out there that you can access remotely from any computer, your phone, and tablet. Google drive, iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive etc. Can't do that with excess local storage. If you need more space still, they all offer affordable upgrade plans you pay monthly. $500 will get you like 10 years of cloud storage.

The CPU bump is a wash. I wouldn't say either way is a good or bad decision, but it's inexpensive enough to consider and you always get the performance increase (unlike the 1TB which you may never use). It does not generate more heat or use more battery as others stated earlier. The CPU Upgrade also increases the clock speed of the Iris Pro GPU by 100mhz (about 10%) as well, which is nice but not a huge deal. I'd say if the cost was a concern, then don't bother.

Well, lol that last comment sold me on the CPU bump hahaha. But I still don't know about the 1TB. I am going to be dual booting this machine. I figure 100GB to 120GB for windows and 400GB to 380GB for Mac. With the 1TB I could increase it to 300GB windows and 700GB Mac. ::Sigh::

----------

Unless your name is Mr G. Bench you will never se any noticeable benefit from the 2,8Ghz over the 2,5Ghz.

Fast storage is nice to have.
Just don´t get caught up in the hype that it matters that much for most files.

For apps it makes a great difference.
For professional video/photo editing it makes a difference.

For basically everything else you accumulate over time.
Music, movies, your personal photos and office document just need e few MB/s to work just fine. So you could save a ton of money by just getting a SD-card for all that stuff.

= Spending $600? extra for 500GB of storage and just storing your iTunes library on it is such a waste of money. So unless you need it for work-stuff just save your money.

Well, with the edu discount after tax its just under $500 but still a lot of money

 

[wct097]

Wow, such awful advice I had to log in and say something. Going to a 1TB is a huge waste.

Unless you are a professional video editor or something (and if you were, you'd know you needed it) there's just no need to have huge amounts of local storage anymore. With videos and music stored on the net, there just isn't anything that's going to eat up your space in such large quantities.

Clearly someone that doesn't do much with VMs. I am very diligent about cleaning up my main work VM and its about 175gb with only a few autoprotect snapshots. Throw in some legit snapshots I want to keep and a couple large projects that I don't feel like deleting and 250gb isn't out of the question.... and that's just one VM. Add a couple of basic server VMs do light DB or Web testing and you can eat up your entire 512gb disk quickly.

Trust me, this is something I deal with regularly with 512gb on my Mid-2012. I had to move a couple of light use VMs off to a USB drive, plus delete my entire Dropbox folder from OSX so I could convert a VM's disk from 1 file to 2gb files so I could back it up to a FAT32 partition.

 

[Cuniac]

Clearly someone that doesn't do much with VMs. I am very diligent about cleaning up my main work VM and its about 175gb with only a few autoprotect snapshots. Throw in some legit snapshots I want to keep and a couple large projects that I don't feel like deleting and 250gb isn't out of the question.... and that's just one VM. Add a couple of basic server VMs do light DB or Web testing and you can eat up your entire 512gb disk quickly.

Trust me, this is something I deal with regularly with 512gb on my Mid-2012. I had to move a couple of light use VMs off to a USB drive, plus delete my entire Dropbox folder from OSX so I could convert a VM's disk from 1 file to 2gb files so I could back it up to a FAT32 partition.

eh, so maybe I should do 1 TB since I will be dual booting... I wish I could just make up my mind. I have a feeling Ill be still sitting here next week

 

[yjchua95]

eh, so maybe I should do 1 TB since I will be dual booting... I wish I could just make up my mind. I have a feeling Ill be still sitting here next week

If you're gonna dual boot, why not just get a way cheaper external USB 3 SSD (like a 240GB Transcend 720 JetDrive that costs $178 - it's an entire kit with a slim enclosure and all to fit the mSATA drive) and install Windows there?

 

[Cuniac]

If you're gonna dual boot, why not just get a way cheaper external USB 3 SSD (like a 240GB Transcend 720 JetDrive that costs $178 - it's an entire kit with a slim enclosure and all to fit the mSATA drive) and install Windows there?

I had thought of that but then I cant use the super fast PCIe SSD. Regular SSD is fast but this is 3 times faster. Windows would really pop with this drive.

 

[yjchua95]

I had thought of that but then I cant use the super fast PCIe SSD. Regular SSD is fast but this is 3 times faster. Windows would really pop with this drive.

Actually, it doesn't. I'm hard pressed to tell the difference in real life usage between a regular SATA3 Samsung 840 Pro SSD and the superfast PCIe SSD used in my early-2015 13" rMBP.

 

[wct097]

eh, so maybe I should do 1 TB since I will be dual booting... I wish I could just make up my mind. I have a feeling Ill be still sitting here next week

I personally found bootcamp to be more of a hassle than it was worth for what I use Windows on my Mac for. YMMV, but VMWare Fusion really worked out best for me. Granted, I'm not using Windows for gaming, so that would probably change my mind on using VMWare.

Do you want to run Windows 8? IIRC, Bootcamp won't let you boot Windows 7 anymore, which also rules out Server 2008 and earlier stuff if you use that for testing. I'm not sure what you use your Windows install for, but as a developer I find it useful to be able to run a variety of versions for testing. I currently keep an XP and Windows 7 VM on my MBP, but I'm probably going to ditch the XP VM and start running a Server 2012 or Windows 8 VM soon. I've also been known to have a pair of 2008R2 servers when working on a web/database app.

You really need to decide exactly what you're using it for and what kind of tradeoffs you're willing to deal with. Are you OK with having to plug in a USB drive every time you want to boot Windows? How would you feel if your MBP went to sleep while running a Windows VM from USB and woke back up without it mounted causing you to lose all of your work? How often are you going to be using/booting Windows?

I think about it like this. Buy the right tool for the job. If you can't accomplish the task with the laptop and have to expand the machine with external resources, you don't have the right tool for the job. Over the years, having made do with the wrong tool for various jobs (working on cars, computers, guns, houses, etc), I'll always elect to get the right tool from the start if I at all possible.

 

[placidity44]

Have you considered a high end refurb 15? Other than Force Touch and improved flash storage speeds (Which you probably won't notice) it's a marginal upgrade over last gen. If you're spending upwards of 2000 dollars why not wait until skylake is released in august? I'll bet that there's a redesign before the years out.

 

[Cuniac]

I personally found bootcamp to be more of a hassle than it was worth for what I use Windows on my Mac for. YMMV, but VMWare Fusion really worked out best for me. Granted, I'm not using Windows for gaming, so that would probably change my mind on using VMWare.

Do you want to run Windows 8? IIRC, Bootcamp won't let you boot Windows 7 anymore, which also rules out Server 2008 and earlier stuff if you use that for testing. I'm not sure what you use your Windows install for, but as a developer I find it useful to be able to run a variety of versions for testing. I currently keep an XP and Windows 7 VM on my MBP, but I'm probably going to ditch the XP VM and start running a Server 2012 or Windows 8 VM soon. I've also been known to have a pair of 2008R2 servers when working on a web/database app.

You really need to decide exactly what you're using it for and what kind of tradeoffs you're willing to deal with. Are you OK with having to plug in a USB drive every time you want to boot Windows? How would you feel if your MBP went to sleep while running a Windows VM from USB and woke back up without it mounted causing you to lose all of your work? How often are you going to be using/booting Windows?

I think about it like this. Buy the right tool for the job. If you can't accomplish the task with the laptop and have to expand the machine with external resources, you don't have the right tool for the job. Over the years, having made do with the wrong tool for various jobs (working on cars, computers, guns, houses, etc), I'll always elect to get the right tool from the start if I at all possible.

I would be using windows 8. And it would be a trade off between work and games. Before anyone says anything, Yes I know the MBP is not a gaming laptop. However, it will run games well. Sure I'm not going to max out GTA V, but I will run it at good settings.

This is turning more and more into I know what I want, But its making me sick to spend that much money because of this SSD. I may just bite the bullet and get the base +CPU bump. See how it is after I load everything. If I see within the first week that I need more. I'll swallow the bullet and get the 1TB. I would rather just get the 1TB. But I may throw up lol. Seriously though, its been literally making me sick lol

----------

Have you considered a high end refurb 15? Other than Force Touch and improved flash storage speeds (Which you probably won't notice) it's a marginal upgrade over last gen. If you're spending upwards of 2000 dollars why not wait until skylake is released in august? I'll bet that there's a redesign before the years out.

Because, While its been rumored that Skylake will be released in August. That does not mean a new MacBook will be. Apple has never done an Mid then a Late before. Its always Early then Late, or Mid Then Early. Or in this last case Mid to Mid. The chances that a new MacBook 15 will come out this year is super unlikely.

 

[wct097]

I still maintain that the vast majority of users won't be able to realize a noticeable gain in performance of 300mhz within the same processor family.

Think about it like this. You're buying a pickup truck to haul stuff. The size of the gas tanks (RAM) determines the distance you can drive. The size of the bed (SSD) determines how much stuff you can haul. The size of the engine (processor) determines how fast you can get up to speed.

If you need to haul 8ft pieces of drywall on a regular basis, you can buy the smaller (small SSD & USB drive) 6ft bed truck and a trailer to haul the big stuff on, or you can buy the 8ft bed and use the truck without needing a trailer to do the work. The 5.4L vs 5.8L engine option is irrelevant unless you use it for bragging rights.

Your processor sits idle the vast majority of the time, and when you really need it and it's pegged out, you're talking about milliseconds of difference in the result.

 

[mcarling]

I bought the 2.8GHz 256GB configuration without the discrete GPU (which I think is a ridiculous waste of money) for $2299 (no discounts).

 

[wct097]

Agree that the dGPU is a waste if you don't need it. Especially when you consider the longevity issues plaguing dGPU MBPs over the years.

 

[Cuniac]

Agree that the dGPU is a waste if you don't need it. Especially when you consider the longevity issues plaguing dGPU MBPs over the years.

I know this first hand. I had to have my 17" 2011 MBP serviced a few months ago with the program they have going for it. But I love me some dGPU.

Easiest way to deal with this? Get AppleCare, and Sell it as soon as it runs out . Although I can never sell my 17 since they don't make it anymore

 

[MBHockey]

Wow, such awful advice I had to log in and say something. Going to a 1TB is a huge waste. If it was more affordable then maybe worth it, but no way it's worth an additional 20%/$500 over the base price. And it's something you may never get to even use considering 512gb is still a lot.

Unless you are a professional video editor or something (and if you were, you'd know you needed it) there's just no need to have huge amounts of local storage anymore. With videos and music stored on the net, there just isn't anything that's going to eat up your space in such large quantities. Save yourself $500 and get the 512gb, and IF you find that you need more, the look at cloud storage. Tons of free cloud storage providers out there that you can access remotely from any computer, your phone, and tablet. Google drive, iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive etc. Can't do that with excess local storage. If you need more space still, they all offer affordable upgrade plans you pay monthly. $500 will get you like 10 years of cloud storage.

The CPU bump is a wash. I wouldn't say either way is a good or bad decision, but it's inexpensive enough to consider and you always get the performance increase (unlike the 1TB which you may never use). It does not generate more heat or use more battery as others stated earlier. The CPU Upgrade also increases the clock speed of the Iris Pro GPU by 100mhz (about 10%) as well, which is nice but not a huge deal. I'd say if the cost was a concern, then don't bother.

Have you considered that some people need more local storage than yourself? :gasp:

 

[Cuniac]

Ok, Ive got it. Someone send me $500 for the 1TB lol . Its sad because if I could upgrade it later I would totally get the 512 and just bump it up when I need to. But that's not even an option. If I get stuck with the 512 my only option is to sell it and buy an new one. I really just need to buy the 512 and see how it works

 

[MBHockey]

Ok, Ive got it. Someone send me $500 for the 1TB lol . Its sad because if I could upgrade it later I would totally get the 512 and just bump it up when I need to. But that's not even an option. If I get stuck with the 512 my only option is to sell it and buy an new one. I really just need to buy the 512 and see how it works

I ordered the 1 TB because I do not like having to drag around external drives with me. I currently have a 256 GB SSD that is 90% full and 2 500 GB drives that are nearly full which I use daily. I am happy we have a 1 TB SSD option and that I'll be able to take everything with me simply by placing the MBP in a bag.

 

[Kal-037]

High end model with upped CPU (2.8GHz,) I have no real need for 1TB internal Drive as work will get done on this guy but will be saved to a separate drive, I wanted the added 10% CPU boost to better keep that blasted rainbow beach ball away, lol.



K.

 

[newellj]

I would be using windows 8. And it would be a trade off between work and games. Before anyone says anything, Yes I know the MBP is not a gaming laptop. However, it will run games well. Sure I'm not going to max out GTA V, but I will run it at good settings.

This is turning more and more into I know what I want, But its making me sick to spend that much money because of this SSD. I may just bite the bullet and get the base +CPU bump. See how it is after I load everything. If I see within the first week that I need more. I'll swallow the bullet and get the 1TB. I would rather just get the 1TB. But I may throw up lol. Seriously though, its been literally making me sick lol

----------



Because, While its been rumored that Skylake will be released in August. That does not mean a new MacBook will be. Apple has never done an Mid then a Late before. Its always Early then Late, or Mid Then Early. Or in this last case Mid to Mid. The chances that a new MacBook 15 will come out this year is super unlikely.

You are probably overestimating the impact of the SSD. I just upgraded from a late 2013 13" to a 2015 13", mostly because I was finding I needed more storage. The SSD is easily twice as fast as the 2013. The RAM is faster (don't remember how much). The CPU has a clock speed fully 20% faster. You would think I notice the difference? - I don't. Yeah, with benchmarks I can prove that the new machine is faster, but in real life it isn't enough faster to notice. Doesn't boot noticeably faster, doesn't load programs noticeably faster, doesn't even do normal file ops noticeably faster. Maybe your uses would show up the difference, but if they do you're the exception rather than the rule.

----------

I still maintain that the vast majority of users won't be able to realize a noticeable gain in performance of 300mhz within the same processor family.

Think about it like this. You're buying a pickup truck to haul stuff. The size of the gas tanks (RAM) determines the distance you can drive. The size of the bed (SSD) determines how much stuff you can haul. The size of the engine (processor) determines how fast you can get up to speed.

If you need to haul 8ft pieces of drywall on a regular basis, you can buy the smaller (small SSD & USB drive) 6ft bed truck and a trailer to haul the big stuff on, or you can buy the 8ft bed and use the truck without needing a trailer to do the work. The 5.4L vs 5.8L engine option is irrelevant unless you use it for bragging rights.

Your processor sits idle the vast majority of the time, and when you really need it and it's pegged out, you're talking about milliseconds of difference in the result.

I think you're right on target.

 

[mcarling]

You are probably overestimating the impact of the SSD. I just upgraded from a late 2013 13" to a 2015 13", mostly because I was finding I needed more storage. The SSD is easily twice as fast as the 2013. The RAM is faster (don't remember how much). The CPU has a clock speed fully 20% faster. You would think I notice the difference? - I don't. Yeah, with benchmarks I can prove that the new machine is faster, but in real life it isn't enough faster to notice. Doesn't boot noticeably faster, doesn't load programs noticeably faster, doesn't even do normal file ops noticeably faster. Maybe your uses would show up the difference, but if they do you're the exception rather than the rule.

Try switching back to the older, slower machine. That's when it tends to be really noticeable.

 

[yjchua95]

Ok, Ive got it. Someone send me $500 for the 1TB lol . Its sad because if I could upgrade it later I would totally get the 512 and just bump it up when I need to. But that's not even an option. If I get stuck with the 512 my only option is to sell it and buy an new one. I really just need to buy the 512 and see how it works

I've had my late-2013 13" rMBP since it first came out (i7/16/512) and to this day, I still have 430GB free.

It depends on how you manage your storage, really. I leave my Aperture library and my iTunes library in my external 1TB HDD, along with photos and movies. As for Windows, I just use a 960GB Transcend external SSD to boot off it and use it for gaming and for some Windows-specific work. It's constantly hooked up between several Macs, depending on usage, and there's separate partitions for gaming and work.

 

[Cuniac]

I've had my late-2013 13" rMBP since it first came out (i7/16/512) and to this day, I still have 430GB free.

It depends on how you manage your storage, really. I leave my Aperture library and my iTunes library in my external 1TB HDD, along with photos and movies. As for Windows, I just use a 960GB Transcend external SSD to boot off it and use it for gaming and for some Windows-specific work. It's constantly hooked up between several Macs, depending on usage, and there's separate partitions for gaming and work.

Ya, That's a good point. I really just need to order it and be done with it. Ill probably just go ahead and get the 512 test if for a couple days. If its to small I can return it and get the 1TB. but I'll probably be fine.

 

[shoehornhands]

One other consideration is if you upgrade the processor to the 2.8 GHz chip, the integrated graphics (Intel Iris Pro 5200) get a small speed bump from 1.2 GHz to 1.3 GHz.

It's still really hard to justify $200 for such a small bump in performance though.

On an unrelated note, I wonder why Apple uses the 2.2 GHz chip in the $1999 15" model instead of the 2.5 GHz chip given that the tray price is the exact same on both chips. Would have been nice if they made the 2.5 GHz chip the base option for both 15" models.

 

[Cuniac]

One other consideration is if you upgrade the processor to the 2.8 GHz chip, the integrated graphics (Intel Iris Pro 5200) get a small speed bump from 1.2 GHz to 1.3 GHz.

It's still really hard to justify $200 for such a small bump in performance though.

On an unrelated note, I wonder why Apple uses the 2.2 GHz chip in the $1999 15" model instead of the 2.5 GHz chip given that the tray price is the exact same on both chips. Would have been nice if they made the 2.5 GHz chip the base option for both 15" models.

Ya this going to make me want to get the CPU bump. it will be amazing. Maybe not to much different but I will make myself believe that its huge hahaha