Help Me Understand the Difference

[samo1215]

What is really the true differences in terms of speed and general performance between this refurb:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/F...-23ghz-quad-core-intel-i7-with-retina-display

and a comperable Macbook Pro that was just released in October. I get that they were refreshed with the Haswell CPU and the graphics card is the 750 vs the 650 in the refurb but what does that really translate into in terms of actual performance?

 

[hova]

The newer 15 inch rMBP has 1 hour longer battery life and like you said the haswell chip along with Iris Pro and a dedicated GPU which is kinda crazy in terms of graphics power. The 650M is still good though especially for the refurbished price, RAM and storage. I personally would get the refurbished one.

 

[samo1215]

Thanks for the response. I guess what I still don't understand is how much of a performance increase would I get with Haswell and the 750 video card vs the refurb? If I was to go with the new 15-inch I would most likely want the dedicated graphics card.

Part of why I am confused is I noticed that the high-end 15-inch with the NVIDIA 750 comes with a 2.3GHz CPU which can be upgraded to a 2.6GHz while the older model refurb has a 2.7GHz CPU. Also, many of the comments I have read say the 750 isn't a huge step-up from the 650.

The complicating factor is I can get the new one with an educational discount so the price difference isn't tremendous but I'm really confused about how much extra power I would be getting from the new Haswell chip and 750 graphics card.

 

[john123]

The model you are looking at would have CPU performance pretty comparable to the "new" 2.3Ghz model.

As for the GPU, the 750 is not much of an increase over the 650. The previous poster seemed to think the Iris Pro + 750 combination was somehow a great thing; I disagree. The HD4000 does just fine for the day-to-day tasks it's intended to execute, and for everything else, that's why you have the dGPU in the first place.

Frankly, your biggest boost in performance comes from the PCIe storage in the new ones—although whether it will equate to real-world performance is less clear.

Most of the premium you are paying for won't result in performance today, but is rather an investment in the future (i.e., ThunderBolt 2, 802.11ac wireless). So, you're talking about $230 difference (given your educational discount) for that. I personally don't think that's worth it, but I also sell and buy laptops fairly frequently.

 

[samo1215]

Excellent, that clears helps a lot. Appreciate the help.