Decision Help

[Boca]

Looking to buy for a student that is doing Science Olympiad work. (high school Junior). Will be taking machine to college in 18 months (we HOPE )

Is there significant benefit for calculations in his work, like running computer modeling by increasing from 2.9 to 3.1 or 3.3 mhz or does increasing the RAM help more. It's all getting costly and $ is a consideration for sure.

Below clipped from Apple sight:
For both 13-inch MacBook Pro models, the 2.9GHz processor can be upgraded to 3.1GHz for $100 or 3.3GHz (Core i7) for $300. The RAM can be upgraded to 16GB for an additional $200.

any input for me, newbie, appreciated. Happy Holidays.

 

[dark_mark]

Looking to buy for a student that is doing Science Olympiad work. (high school Junior). Will be taking machine to college in 18 months (we HOPE )

Is there significant benefit for calculations in his work, like running computer modeling by increasing from 2.9 to 3.1 or 3.3 mhz or does increasing the RAM help more. It's all getting costly and $ is a consideration for sure.

Below clipped from Apple sight:
For both 13-inch MacBook Pro models, the 2.9GHz processor can be upgraded to 3.1GHz for $100 or 3.3GHz (Core i7) for $300. The RAM can be upgraded to 16GB for an additional $200.

any input for me, newbie, appreciated. Happy Holidays.

Save your money on CPU. It makes only 5% difference in performance at $300. Not worth the money.
Ram maybe worth it, depending on what you will be doing. But 8gb will also be fine for next 4 years.

 

[Toutou]

The CPU upgrades aren't worth it unless you absolutely need them.

 

[therealseebs]

Memory's more important than CPU, CPU's probably optional.

That said, I would also probably recommend a 2015 model, possibly with dGPU, over the 2016.