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Choosing best processor for new 13"MBPr

Some of the contributions here made me laugh out louder than I should have in the library :D ...

Kidding aside (I'm honestly serious, OP), since none of these processors will disappoint you in terms of power, you might want to shift your focus on battery life instead. I had a 2011 MBA that was advertised with 5 hours of battery life at the time. From the beginning on I barely ever got 3 hours. I took it back to Apple manifold times, but in all their system tests the battery turned out to be fine. We clean-installed the OS multiple times to make sure nothing was secretly eating battery life in the background... no avail.
Long story short, one genius pointed out that the short battery life was due to me having upgraded the processor to an 1.8 GHz i7, whereas the battery tests that provided the numbers for the Apple ads were run on the base model's i5 processor, which - at least at the time - consumed much much less power.

I don't know if any of this still plays a factor in today's processor-battery-relationships (I'd like to think they harmonize a lot better now), but I surely stuck to an i5 core on my new rMBP for this very reason.
 
Meister said:
You mean I aquired :apple: shares?

Think about it: You cannot upgrade later, so get the ram and cpu upgrade now!
I mean the base 13" rmbp can barely handle webbrowsing. Now imagine you want to multitask safari with a dozend tabs open and work on a heavy word file.
You wish you would've gone for that quadcore and those 32gb RAM then.
Click to expand...

Not sure if troll...but I lol'ed

In all seriousness... a dual core i7 is going to be obsolete just like a dual core i5 after a few years and it probably won't be the first thing to cause a bottleneck (hello iris). You don't buy a dual core machine with integrated only graphics in the hopes of future proofing anything.
 
blooperz said:
In all seriousness... a dual core i7 is going to be obsolete just like a dual core i5 after a few years and it probably won't be the first thing to cause a bottleneck (hello iris). You don't buy a dual core machine with integrated only graphics in the hopes of future proofing anything.
Click to expand...
Iris Pro alone can barely handle hd netflix playback.
That's why the OP should go for the high end 15" and wait for broadwell.
 
Meister said:
Iris Pro alone can barely handle hd netflix playback.
That's why the OP should go for the high end 15" and wait for broadwell.
Click to expand...

My wife's 2010 unibody white mac can handle that...the iris can easily handle it, let alone the iris pro. Maybe you got a dud :confused:
 
Choosing best processor for new 13"MBPr

Meister said:
Iris Pro alone can barely handle hd netflix playback.

That's why the OP should go for the high end 15" and wait for broadwell.
Click to expand...


I highly recommend going the eGPU route. Pushing the retina screen and viewing Full HD video (let alone 4K) on it , might push it to its limits.
Recommend to buy a GTX 980 SLI in an external Gpu case.
Oh and if your eGPU config is below 1500$ you have done something wrong.
 
chrizzz09 said:
I highly recommend going the eGPU route. Pushing the retina screen and viewing Full HD video (let alone 4K) on it , might push it to its limits.
Recommend to buy a GTX 980 SLI in an external Gpu case.
Oh and if your eGPU config is below 1500$ you have done something wrong.
Click to expand...
Or max out a MacPro and carry it around in a backpack for mobile email reception.
Don't forget :apple:care+ and to send a clean $100 bill to infinity loop once a month to apeace the ghost of Steve Jobs.
 
How about helping the OP? He clearly isn't a computer expert and turned to macrumors hoping to get some genuine advice, not to be made a laughing stock. :confused:
 
cairene2011 said:
How about helping the OP? He clearly isn't a computer expert and turned to macrumors hoping to get some genuine advice, not to be made a laughing stock. :confused:
Click to expand...
Grow a funny bone!
I was clearly joking about that $100 bill. Steve is not an angry deity and he doesn't need special sacrifices ;)

The OP has otherwise received impecable advice.
Everything is soldered in, in those 2015 rmbp and that's why the cpu and ram needs to be upgraded. Especially with the OPs heavy needs.
 
Meister said:
Or max out a MacPro and carry it around in a backpack for mobile email reception.
Don't forget :apple:care+ and to send a clean $100 bill to infinity loop once a month to apeace the ghost of Steve Jobs.
Click to expand...

You might require heavy video editing capabilities, to update your video blog about how it's possible to carry a MacPro in a backpack now. Edited on the same MacPro of course, in the backpack.
 
Remember that while you get a performance bump from the i7, you also get a hit on the battery.

When I contemplated this choice, I decided to get the i5 due to better battery. If your after performance, just get the base 15".

----------
cairene2011 said:
Some of the contributions here made me laugh out louder than I should have in the library :D ...

Kidding aside (I'm honestly serious, OP), since none of these processors will disappoint you in terms of power, you might want to shift your focus on battery life instead. I had a 2011 MBA that was advertised with 5 hours of battery life at the time. From the beginning on I barely ever got 3 hours. I took it back to Apple manifold times, but in all their system tests the battery turned out to be fine. We clean-installed the OS multiple times to make sure nothing was secretly eating battery life in the background... no avail.
Long story short, one genius pointed out that the short battery life was due to me having upgraded the processor to an 1.8 GHz i7, whereas the battery tests that provided the numbers for the Apple ads were run on the base model's i5 processor, which - at least at the time - consumed much much less power.

I don't know if any of this still plays a factor in today's processor-battery-relationships (I'd like to think they harmonize a lot better now), but I surely stuck to an i5 core on my new rMBP for this very reason.
Click to expand...

It does.

Though I would never accept Apple numbers for battery usage, there is a lot of marketing fudge in those figures. Though, yes upgrading the CPU, will lower the battery life.
 
Well after considering these posts I'm heading towards the 13" 2.8GHz i5/8GB RAM/512GB SSD.
This should be great for my needs now and hopefully the next couple of years.
Thanks to all
 
Meister said:
Grow a funny bone!
I was clearly joking about that $100 bill. Steve is not an angry deity and he doesn't need special sacrifices ;)

The OP has otherwise received impecable advice.
Everything is soldered in, in those 2015 rmbp and that's why the cpu and ram needs to be upgraded. Especially with the OPs heavy needs.
Click to expand...

You see in my first post in this thread, that I indeed chuckled over your sarcasm. But then it just dragged on and on and on and just didn't sound funny anymore, just mean. And now again a snide remark over the OP's "heavy needs"... why is this necessary, he just asked for advice. Not all of us are macrumors Demi-Gods. ;)


@Retroglide08: I hope you enjoy your new machine for many years to come! :)
 
Good choice

Retroglide08 said:
Well after considering these posts I'm heading towards the 13" 2.8GHz i5/8GB RAM/512GB SSD.
This should be great for my needs now and hopefully the next couple of years.
Thanks to all
Click to expand...

That will certainly see you good for a fair few years, I have the 2013 of this configuration (and yes it is more than I need) I went for it for the ssd size and it is a great little laptop.
 
Retroglide08 said:
Well after considering these posts I'm heading towards the 13" 2.8GHz i5/8GB RAM/512GB SSD.
This should be great for my needs now and hopefully the next couple of years.
Thanks to all
Click to expand...
that is a great machine. Enjoy! :)
 
Well my MacBook should be arriving today. Had a turn of luck while ordering. I have had nearly 4 years of hassle free use with my refurbished IMac that I purchased. So decided to have a a peek at the refurbished section.
To my delight there was the same spec MBPr that I was going to order but with 16GB RAM instead of the 8GB I was going to get.
So with this, and the fact I was VERY impressed with my previous refurb purchase, I decided to get the refurb MBPr with the 16GB RAM and saving £250 in the process.
 
Obviously the best processor is the i7. But even between the i7 and the base model the differences are so low that it simply doesn't justify the $100 more.
Just look at the benchmarks and see how Haswell refresh fares against Haswell.
 
cheesyappleuser said:
Obviously the best processor is the i7. But even between the i7 and the base model the differences are so low that it simply doesn't justify the $100 more.
Just look at the benchmarks and see how Haswell refresh fares against Haswell.
Click to expand...

You've gotta laugh. Have just collected the MBPr and turned on. Decided to check how many battery cycles it had and to my surprise they sent the wrong model!!!
 
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