How would you order?

The only long-term performance difference between these two would be the processor and it is very little. The greater storage will benefit you more down the road than a small bump in cpu.

 

Personally, I'd go with option #2 because I'm positive I won't be needing the entire 256GB (even over several years). However, if you're on the edge (even a little bit), go with option #1.

 

First, do you really need 16GB RAM?

I'd say the sweet spot would be 2.7/8/256.

Apple updated the SSDs to 4 lanes across all capacities. Not sure whether they still use a mishmash of Toshiba, SanDisk and Samsung or not.

Samsung drives tend to be faster and perform almost equally at 256GB and above.

 

Go with the storage. Processor bump won't be noticed.

 

Option 1.

FWIW, the SSDs in it are new. So, it's still too early to say if the larger ones will have better performance or not. It would be nothing more than an assumption at this point to say larger = faster.

If you really want an answer to that question, I would wait until some sites have reviewed the new systems and done their benchmarks on the different sizes.

 

I'd pick Option 2.

 

I'd go option 1 all day. The processor will be barely noticeable if you don't do a ton of CPU-intensive stuff. Not fully upgrading the ram is silly if you're trying to keep it 5+ years, so 16 gb is a good idea. I don't know how anyone makes do with less than 500 gb of storage these days, believe me you'll thank yourself for that down the road. You won't even notice or care if you went with the slightly faster processor.

Option 1 by far.

 

No brainer to go with Option 2. Better processor and higher resale value for when you decide to get rid of it 2 or 3 years down the line for newer model. The storage isn't a problem as you can store pictures, videos, etc on external. The core applications can be installed on SSD.

Again, Option 2 is a no brainer in this case.

 

Honestly, on a budget, 2.9+256GB, and put the other $200 either into AppleCare or some nice peripheral.

But of the two posted, I'd go 2.9+512GB. You're talking double storage vs. a 7% increase in CPU clock. Both the i5 and the i7 are hyperthreaded, so the only advantage to the architecture is the bigger L3 cache, and it's really not that big of a deal for most applications.

And since neither is going to game worth a damn past basic stuff on an Iris 6100, there's really just not a ton of point in spending the extra for that little performance gain. It is resale value, but not $200 more resale value.

The one counterargument I'd make is that you can buy external drives, but you can't buy external CPUs.

As far as the drive space goes, my 256GB work laptop is still only maybe 2/3 full after two years, and that has VM images and all kinds of projects on it. If you're not installing a bunch of games or storing a bunch of movies you'd probably be OK at even the lower capacity.

But still, of the two, I'd put the money in the SSD. It's really the better bargain IMO.

 

I think he can pick up AppleCare on Amazon for less than what Apple charges. I saw one on there for $175. Might want to keep that in mind. Didn't do much research into it but I'm sure it'll work. Hopefully it helps with the OP's budget.

 

Is there really a noticeable difference between 2.9 GHz i5 and 3.1 GHz i7?

 

No

Unless you are maxing out all your cores for a significant period of time it'll make no noticable difference.