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Exchange Retina 2.3Ghz for Retina 2.6Ghz?

N

No-Me

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 3, 2011
574
31
Rotterdam
Hi,

I was unfortunate enough to receive my first 15" Retina with a couple of dead pixels, that one was replaced for a new one. That one has somekind of serious heat problem and will also be replaced.

For the inconvenience Apple has given me two options:
1. I get a little bit of money back
2. I upgrade to the 2.6Ghz version which I can get at a discounted rate.

I can keep using the first one with the dead pixels (that they have not picked up yet) until the new one arrives. I would love to have the 512SSD, actually that would make my life a bit easyer. If I could have the 2.3 with a 512SSD it would be quite obvious I would go for that, but unfortunately that's not an option so I have a few questions.

How is the 2.6 compared to the 2.3:
- with the battery?
- heatwise?

:)
 
battery life is about two hours shorter based on engadget, but ymmv. If the discount is enough it may be worth it.
 
mdapple said:
battery life is about two hours shorter based on engadget, but ymmv. If the discount is enough it may be worth it.
Click to expand...

lol engadget.

You may want to use a reputable site for future references ;)

Anyway, how much discount would you get? If its a significant amount, go for it, if not, then just get some money back. The 0.3GHz difference is nothing for 99% of users, so the additional money for the extra 256GB of storage just isnt worth it in most cases, and is just a marketing ploy from Apple to force people into buying the higher end model for more storage.
 
Around €200, or a €100 cashback on the 2.3Ghz/16GB I have now.

The storage is the only reason I'm considering it, the Ghz don't bother me, but can imagine it getting slightly hotter.
 
No-Me said:
Around €200, or a €100 cashback on the 2.3Ghz/16GB I have now.

The storage is the only reason I'm considering it, the Ghz don't bother me, but can imagine it getting slightly hotter.
Click to expand...

Personally I'd get the cashback and use it on an external USB3.0 or thunderbolt drive.
 
striker33 said:
Personally I'd get the cashback and use it on an external USB3.0 or thunderbolt drive.
Click to expand...

How about asking them for 2TB Time Capsule b/c of the hard drive limitation with SSDs? I have one and its great! NO lag whatsoever?

----------
striker33 said:
Personally I'd get the cashback and use it on an external USB3.0 or thunderbolt drive.
Click to expand...

To really maximize thunderbolt and USB 3.0 to the fullest you would need a External SSD drive b/c of the write speed limitation on 7200RPM Externals
 
Newbie MacUser said:
How about asking them for 2TB Time Capsule b/c of the hard drive limitation with SSDs? I have one and its great! NO lag whatsoever?

----------
Click to expand...

I'd love to know how you'd get a time capsule to work whilst on a train etc, and where you could get one for 100 euros for that matter ;)

To really maximize thunderbolt and USB 3.0 to the fullest you would need a External SSD drive b/c of the write speed limitation on 7200RPM Externals
Click to expand...

Yes.
 
Newbie MacUser said:
How about asking them for 2TB Time Capsule b/c of the hard drive limitation with SSDs? I have one and its great! NO lag whatsoever?

----------



To really maximize thunderbolt and USB 3.0 to the fullest you would need a External SSD drive b/c of the write speed limitation on 7200RPM Externals
Click to expand...

Yeah, but a USB3.0 7200RPM drive will still be faster than a USB2.0 version of the same drive. A normal HDD should be sufficient for most people (realistically, an SSD is mostly useful for the OS, programs, and frequently accessed files... for things like movies and music, a standard HDD is the way to go.. and those kind of files are usually what necessitate mass amounts of storage too).

Now with that said, if you're using the external drive as a "scratch" drive for rendering movies or whatever, then an SSD is absolutely the way to go.
 
striker33 said:
Personally I'd get the cashback and use it on an external USB3.0 or thunderbolt drive.
Click to expand...
I work a lot with aperture for work and I right now I have a USB3 drive with my huge library (on the SSD I got out of my old MBP), but it's always a bit of a hassle, that's why I'm doubting :)

The other thing I could do is go for the cashback and wait for OWC to release a new drive that I can pop in, but if I look at their prices for the MacBook air SSD upgrades it wouldn't be cheaper.
 
mdapple said:
battery life is about two hours shorter based on engadget, but ymmv. If the discount is enough it may be worth it.
Click to expand...

Apple's advertised battery numbers assume you don't use the dGPU at all. With the dGPU on, it's max minus 2 hours, give or take.
 
No-Me said:
I work a lot with aperture for work and I right now I have a USB3 drive with my huge library (on the SSD I got out of my old MBP), but it's always a bit of a hassle, that's why I'm doubting :)

The other thing I could do is go for the cashback and wait for OWC to release a new drive that I can pop in, but if I look at their prices for the MacBook air SSD upgrades it wouldn't be cheaper.
Click to expand...

If you plan on upgrading the SSD, you might as well do it from the start. When OWC releases HD upgrades, they're probably not going to be much less expensive.

Not to mention that the 2.6 GHz is probably not as big of a detriment as Engadget's singular testing purports.
 
0.3Ghz is nothing when you can overclock a PC or Hackintosh from 3.4ghz to 5ghz with the latest i7 :D

Some people feel their 2.6 or 2.7Ghz will be more future proof than the 2.3ghz model but the truth is by the time Core-i series becomes the bare minimum for softwware the difference in 0.xx Ghz is not going to help. You're going to need a new machine by that point ;)

As others have mentioned the real benefit to getting the more expensive model is for the additional storage. I have too many photos and videos to even fit on the 768GB SSD. However the 256gb SSD is MORE than enough for all my applications. Everything else is stored externally. You can stick with the 256gb model then down the road upgrade it if you're comfortable with that.

If you have deep pockets it shouldn't matter how much you spend as long as you're happy with your purchase :D
 
Last edited:
PM Harold Saxon said:
2. You upgrade to the 2.6GHz version at the discounted rate. 512GB makes all the difference in the world. 256GB is too small.
Click to expand...

256GB is too small for some but not everyone. It really depends on the user and their applications and the content they have. 768GB is too small for me if I wanted all my videos and pictures on there but 256GB is a lot considering the only apps I have installed are lightroom, photoshop, itunes, fcpx, chrome and of course OSX ;)
 
I made up my mind, the price difference isn't that big a deal as it's a company computer. I was mainy curious if the temperature/batterylife would be different. Since the bigger SSD will make my life a lot easier I go for that, can't wait until it's in, these dead pixels are starting to annoy me ;-)
 
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