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Help choosing configuration of new MBP

Tapiture

Tapiture

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 1, 2016
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I need a MacBook Pro for school, and I made two configurations that would work for me. One 15-in, one 13-inch. I added them both to my cart and there’s only a 140 dollar price difference. Why is the 15-inch priced so close when the specs are so much better? Am I missing something? Photos of both configurations and prices below.
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A higher price tag is still associated with greater portability. I have a 2016 15" MBP simply because I decided I could not do without a quad-core processor and the larger display ... I need the screen real estate for the work I do. If you prize portability and don't need the additional size, go for the 13". The previous iteration just embodied too many sacrifices for me; with the models introduced today, that's no longer true.
 
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jmoore5196 said:
A higher price tag is still associated with greater portability. I have a 2016 15" MBP simply because I decided I could not do without a quad-core processor and the larger display ... I need the screen real estate for the work I do. If you prize portability and don't need the additional size, go for the 13". The previous iteration just embodied too many sacrifices for me; with the models introduced today, that's no longer true.
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I see. I also noticed the processor is faster for the 13 inch, but it has 2 fewer cores. What kind of performance difference can I expect between these two models?
 
Tapiture said:
I need a MacBook Pro for school, and I made two configurations that would work for me. One 15-in, one 13-inch. I added them both to my cart and there’s only a 140 dollar price difference. Why is the 15-inch priced so close when the specs are so much better? Am I missing something? Photos of both configurations and prices below.View attachment 770292View attachment 770293
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I’m not sure which models you are looking at because if you’re looking at the brand new MacBook pros that came out today, the 13” with quad core processor is $1799, while the new 15” hex core comes out at $2399.

My suggestion is get the new 13”, at $1799. With quad core processors, and a starting 256gb SSD, it’ll last you forever. The 15” will be kinda big to carry around all day at school, and the extra processors won’t be necessary unless you are doing a lot of programming or video editing.
 
I'm not sure anyone can tell you (yet) what sort of performance you can expect. The 6-core will likely be a beast, but it comes with tradeoffs in size and weight. I imagine the quad-core will handle about anything you care to throw at it for the foreseeable future.
 
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I’m curious to see what the quad 13” power is like. If it benches close to older 15” quad i say go 13 for portability and egpu down the line if you need gpu.

Side note what’s the “special offer”. Nice little savings/discount there
 
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cheezeit said:
I’m curious to see what the quad 13” power is like. If it benches close to older 15” quad i say go 13 for portability and egpu down the line if you need gpu.

Side note what’s the “special offer”. Nice little savings/discount there
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The special offer is one of the perks of being a student I suppose :)
 
cheezeit said:
Ah, probably the discount for free headphones? Too bad they can’t keep the head phones and just give $300 off!
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No it’s actually a discount off the price of the MacBook Pro, the free headphones are a bonus
 
Schranke said:
Apple have a % discount for students if they buy through unidays where enrolment is verified. I believe it is 10% for mac's and 6 or 8% for iPads
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I’m just looking on the Apple Education Store. I am a Unidays member but I didn’t get the discount through there. I’m not sure how I’ll have to verify my student status once I actually do go to purchase, but I’ll let you know!
 
Tapiture said:
I’m just looking on the Apple Education Store. I am a Unidays member but I didn’t get the discount through there. I’m not sure how I’ll have to verify my student status once I actually do go to purchase, but I’ll let you know!
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do you go through https://www.myunidays.com?
There should be an shop apple which will take you to the apple store, and you need to be verified, this usually is done through your school login credentials

Apple and other retailers (at least in Denmark) have also accepted student ID or letter of acceptance in store.
 
Not the thread jack, but i'm in the same boat. Except when it comes to the 15", I can't decide whether or not to get 32GB of RAM and an i9 vs the i7. I know that both are 6 cores 12 threads but beyond that I'm wondering if the i9 is really worht the +$350. This is just more for my wife and her business since her current mbpro has been going strong for 6 years. We want to get one that will last 6+ years and since they no longer can be upgraded post purchase, it needs to be future proof for a long time.
 
It's because you updated the 13" model to an i7 from the i5. In my opinion the CPU upgrades that Apple offers are overpriced and not really worth it unless you are doing some really CPU intensive work, in which case you should go for the 15" model anyway.
 
xealo said:
Not the thread jack, but i'm in the same boat. Except when it comes to the 15", I can't decide whether or not to get 32GB of RAM and an i9 vs the i7. I know that both are 6 cores 12 threads but beyond that I'm wondering if the i9 is really worht the +$350. This is just more for my wife and her business since her current mbpro has been going strong for 6 years. We want to get one that will last 6+ years and since they no longer can be upgraded post purchase, it needs to be future proof for a long time.
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What’s her business? Unless she’s rendering multiple 4K videos at once, it’s hard to imagine why she’d need an i9. Safe to say the i7 will be future proof for 6 years.
 
I don't understand why everyone feels the urge to buy all the best upgrades and complain how expensive it is. 32gb is an overkill and will be an overkill for most people for a long long time. Even 16gb is an overkill if you just do internet and office/school work. Same for processors and video. 12" MacBook can do video editing of your family vacation or make a youtube video.
This isn't 2005, the most basic model will be blazing fast for 99% of tasks for the next 10 years.
 
Tapiture said:
What’s her business? Unless she’s rendering multiple 4K videos at once, it’s hard to imagine why she’d need an i9. Safe to say the i7 will be future proof for 6 years.
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Yeah she doesn't nothing like that. Just works as a dispatcher for her dads trucking company, so she mostly has a bunch of browser tabs open as well as Word and Acrobat. That's about it. I just would rather spend a little more vs the 13" and get something that she can use for a long time. I think you're right about the i9 vs the i7 though. It doesn't seem to offer anything that compelling for that $350 or so markup. Now I'm trying to figure out if I should option the 32GB of ram vs 16GB. Currently, the 2012 model that she's using has 16GB of ram and it's been an absolute tank. I'm just thinking for future just like I did when we bought the current one. It came with 4GB of ram and immediately I put the 16GB in it.
 
xealo said:
Yeah she doesn't nothing like that. Just works as a dispatcher for her dads trucking company, so she mostly has a bunch of browser tabs open as well as Word and Acrobat. That's about it. I just would rather spend a little more vs the 13" and get something that she can use for a long time. I think you're right about the i9 vs the i7 though. It doesn't seem to offer anything that compelling for that $350 or so markup. Now I'm trying to figure out if I should option the 32GB of ram vs 16GB. Currently, the 2012 model that she's using has 16GB of ram and it's been an absolute tank. I'm just thinking for future just like I did when we bought the current one. It came with 4GB of ram and immediately I put the 16GB in it.
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Yeah I think 16 GB is perfectly fine. My desktop PC has 18 GB and it can run very intensive video games, play music and have chrome tabs open at the same time. Especially with a good processor, 16 GB goes a long way.
 
Tapiture said:
Yeah I think 16 GB is perfectly fine. My desktop PC has 18 GB and it can run very intensive video games, play music and have chrome tabs open at the same time. Especially with a good processor, 16 GB goes a long way.
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Well, we decided to stick with an i9 and 32GB of RAM. Here is the reason. We just opened a Chase Business CC and if we spend $3k in the next 3 months, we get $500 cashback. Not to mention that I will flip the Beats headphones so another $150 or so will be gained off of that. So with that being said, I think it's totally worth it to go the all out route.
 
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