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How about these specs??

R

redneck6497

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 6, 2009
43
0
I have looked at most of the questions regarding the new 2015 13" MBP. I currently have a MBA which I have been happy with (other than the battery life). The battery life on the MBA is around 4hrs.

If I'm doing photo editing and Final Cut Pro, web browsing, run parallels machine when needed, other misc low level tasks. what do you think of these specs?

i5 2.9 (I figure for $100 this gives me a little more than the lowest level proc. I convinced myself out of the i7 due to other opinions.

512G HD (I decided it would be good to get a larger HD so I don't have to carry
an external, plus the speed on the 2015 SSD is great!

8GB - I'm sort of teetering on the 16GB upgrade, but I'm thinking I probably don't need it. Although, a lot of people have said this is one you can't go back on, so if you think you'll use it get it. Just not sure if 16GB is worth the 200.00


I guess my biggest concern is making sure I have enough for the VMs and the final cut. I was hoping for a retina MBA announcement, but it didn't happen. I figure this is the next best thing.
 
redneck6497 said:
I have looked at most of the questions regarding the new 2015 13" MBP. I currently have a MBA which I have been happy with (other than the battery life). The battery life on the MBA is around 4hrs.

If I'm doing photo editing and Final Cut Pro, web browsing, run parallels machine when needed, other misc low level tasks. what do you think of these specs?

i5 2.9 (I figure for $100 this gives me a little more than the lowest level proc. I convinced myself out of the i7 due to other opinions.

512G HD (I decided it would be good to get a larger HD so I don't have to carry
an external, plus the speed on the 2015 SSD is great!

8GB - I'm sort of teetering on the 16GB upgrade, but I'm thinking I probably don't need it. Although, a lot of people have said this is one you can't go back on, so if you think you'll use it get it. Just not sure if 16GB is worth the 200.00


I guess my biggest concern is making sure I have enough for the VMs and the final cut. I was hoping for a retina MBA announcement, but it didn't happen. I figure this is the next best thing.
Click to expand...

Skip the processor upgrade entirely, you won't notice much if any difference. I'd get RAM instead if I were you with the stated uses.
 
I looks like only the 2.9 is available in the conguration with the 512GB HD and 16GB RAM.
 
One question i have is about memory performance. Since any deficit in RAM would require paging, wouldn't the SSD be able to perform pretty well in providing that "extra" memory needed? So, my thought is maybe bump the HD to 512, keep the memory at 8GB, and go with the lowest i5??

I'm driving myself nuts with this. I want it all!!!
 
I'd imagine

redneck6497 said:
One question i have is about memory performance. Since any deficit in RAM would require paging, wouldn't the SSD be able to perform pretty well in providing that "extra" memory needed? So, my thought is maybe bump the HD to 512, keep the memory at 8GB, and go with the lowest i5??

I'm driving myself nuts with this. I want it all!!!
Click to expand...

That the iris 6100 will be your bottleneck before your RAM in Final Cut Pro. With VM's at the same time it will be tight, it'll do it though and virtual memory and memory compression should make you ok.

check here for RAm needs a great thread...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1756865/

To be honest with your use case you are on the edge of being better off with a 15 inch machine for the quad core and far superior graphics performance. Maybe a 2014 refurb 15 inch would be a better bet for you???
 
I would avoid upgrades. If you think you need more power, go all the way to the 15". Especially for video editing this makes more sense.
 
Meister said:
I would avoid upgrades. If you think you need more power, go all the way to the 15". Especially for video editing this makes more sense.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The 15 inch with quad core i7 and discrete GPU would work out much zippier for VMs and FCX etc.
 
These are all good suggestions. I guess the part I didn't really mention is that portability is something I'm really interested in. I am replacing my 2012 MBA 8G i7. I was hoping that the announcement last week would have been a retina MBA which would have been a sure fire thing. My MBA works really well, and is very snappy both with VMs and Final Cut pro. The only real reason I am looking at replacing it is that the battery life of the 2012 version isn't anywhere near what these newer machines are getting. Would I like a 15", definitely, but its just not portable enough to take the place of the MBA. '

Currently I have a 2009 15" MBP that I put an SSD in last year. It is performing okay for photoshop, but grinds for any graphic intensive VMs. Final Cut is okay I guess, but not great. I love the screen size, but its somewhat impractical to lug around every day.

----------
Samuelsan2001 said:
That the iris 6100 will be your bottleneck before your RAM in Final Cut Pro. With VM's at the same time it will be tight, it'll do it though and virtual memory and memory compression should make you ok.

check here for RAm needs a great thread...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1756865/

To be honest with your use case you are on the edge of being better off with a 15 inch machine for the quad core and far superior graphics performance. Maybe a 2014 refurb 15 inch would be a better bet for you???
Click to expand...

That is a good thread on memory requirements. Thanks
 
Just wanted to let everyone know what I settled on

i5 2.9
512GB HD
16GB RAM

Love it so far!
 
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