Is this Macbook Pro 2012, good enough for me?

[Ksubi]

I made an order on a non-retina 2012 Macbook Pro 15 inch. I've decided to choose the base model and customized to 8GB Ram

These are the specs:
* 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
* Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
* 8GB 1600MHz memory
* 500GB 5400-rpm hard drive1
* Intel HD Graphics 4000
* NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB of GDDR5 memory
* Built-in battery (7 hours)2

Would this be good enough for me? Is it fast enough? I don't really know much about Macs and I'm worried if the 2.3GHz isn't fast enough for me.

Are there any differences between 2.3GHz and 2.6GHz?

This is for personal use at home, also business/studying use in the future. I only use it for web browsing, chat, microsoft word, photoshop, etc. I don't do any hardcore gaming or do extreme graphic design.

 

[calderone]

You'll be fine.

 

[Zeov]

...yes.

 

[kfscoll]

Absolutely fast enough. In fact, it's probably overkill. Consider that just one year ago the top-of-the-line CTO MacBook Pro had a 2.3GHz i7 (almost the same as yours with slightly more L3 cache but a slower GPU), a slower discrete GPU, and slower memory...and now your entry-level model is faster than that model. you'll be fine.

 

[iThinkergoiMac]

My 2009 13" MBP would be just fine for your needs, so ANY MBP you get new will be fine.

 

[Rajpdx]

My 2009 13" MBP would be just fine for your needs, so ANY MBP you get new will be fine.

That's completely true.

Looks like the price of the memory upgrade is pretty reasonable.

The one suggestion I would make that would really enhance your user experience would be to replace the 500gb Hard drive with an SSD. A 256gb SSD (Crucial M4) will be about $200 and will make your machine feel lightning fast. This would be a far better upgrade given your use than a processor upgrade. Putting in the drive is pretty easy and you can DIY. You can then put the 500gb drive in a case and use it as an external drive - external cases start pretty cheap.

Cheers.

 

[ixodes]

More importantly are _you_ good enough for it?

Just kidding

Not only will it be a good choice, you'll really enjoy it.

 

[Braniff747SP]

More than enough for your uses.