is it worth upgrading

[marlon bishop]

is it worth upgrading from a 2011 macbook pro 4 gb ram 320 Hard drive non SSD
to a 15 inch macbook retina display decked out 16 gb ram and 512 SSD HD.

 

[Naimfan]

is it worth upgrading from a 2011 macbook pro 4 gb ram 320 Hard drive non SSD
to a 15 inch macbook retina display decked out 16 gb ram and 512 SSD HD.

It depends.

If money is no object, of course.

If you need more processing power, screen size, etc., sure.

What do you do with it?

 

[marlon bishop]

It depends.

If money is no object, of course.

If you need more processing power, screen size, etc., sure.

What do you do with it?

I do a lot of video editing and photo. and i run paralles for windows when needed for work. is the display a big difference

 

[Naimfan]

Given your usage, yep, probably is worth upgrading.

The retina display is much better on text, etc., though for some things I prefer the screen on my 17".

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Yes it is

Given your use and the massive upgrade in specs you will be blown away I think.

Retina screen scaling is awesome for photo and video editing meaning you can run 1080p natively and still have space to work around it.

The SSD and masses of Ram will make rendering and after effects immeasurably quicker and that dGPU will be great for any cuda enabled apps.

You can connect to up to 3 external screens also making it a great desktop replacement when needed.

 

[Cloudsurfer]

I do a lot of video editing

Then yes, you will notice the difference between:

USB 3 and USB 2

H.264 Hardware encoding and software encoding

Retina display and traditional (as a video editor to another video editor: you will never want to go back after Retina)

SSD vs HDD (the biggest leap by far)

16GB vs 4GB (which is fantastic for Parallels)

 

[brdeveloper]

It depends. It's not worth upgrading if you have a 2011 15" MBP which will face GPU failure sooner or later.

If you have a 2011 13-inch MBP, then you're free from radeongate. Perhaps you could try upgrading RAM and to a SSD. Since your Mac is SATAIII capable, you should see big improvements when processing large files.

It would be a ~$300 upgrade (16GB + 512GB SSD) or ~$240 (16GB + 256GB) or even ~$170 (8GB + 256GB SSD).

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I do a lot of video editing and photo. and i run paralles for windows when needed for work. is the display a big difference

No. If you're looking for printing fidelity, then definitely not. Retina displays don't calibrate well and you'll face color accuracy problems. Otherwise, it's a grade display for watching videos (since it's IPS and you don't have narrow viewing angles).

 

[marlon bishop]

It depends. It's not worth upgrading if you have a 2011 15" MBP which will face GPU failure sooner or later.

If you have a 2011 13-inch MBP, then you're free from radeongate. Perhaps you could try upgrading RAM and to a SSD. Since your Mac is SATAIII capable, you should see big improvements when processing large files.

It would be a ~$300 upgrade (16GB + 512GB SSD) or ~$240 (16GB + 256GB) or even ~$170 (8GB + 256GB SSD).

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No. If you're looking for printing fidelity, then definitely not. Retina displays don't calibrate well and you'll face color accuracy problems. Otherwise, it's a grade display for watching videos (since it's IPS and you don't have narrow viewing angles).

ty for all yall input.. might buy next year...

BTW when do they refresh this lineup? by the end of next year?