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Just got my new 15” MBP

Tommy c

Tommy c

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 9, 2012
404
237
Pocono PA
Well, I started with getting the 2018 MBA, only to realize I need more power and storage. I run virtual machines like Windows on my computer.

I decided to make a big purchase and hope it’s good for a few years at least. At least I maxed out the Ram which was the most eco option I think.

I got the 2.6 I7, 32gb Ram and a 512 SSD. I did not upgrade the graphics card to the Radeon Vega series. It would have pushed this to close to 3500.00 or so. The Touch Bar is kinda interesting to use as well.

I think this should be good, as I do not video edit for a living. Just sharing my purchase with all of you :).

I just hope I didn’t “cheap out” on the video card. I figured spend the money on the ram was the best option. If I did not get that, I could have gotten the upgraded card. But on the flip side, I can always buy a E-GPU, I suppose if I ever need that.

My wife will use the MBA.
 
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If you don't do any GPU intensive tasks then you are fine.

I also run 2 VMs on my 13" TB with only 8GB (run Windows & Linux VM at same time.
 
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I'm in the same boat and contemplating the same thing about the GPU - I just bought a 'refurb' i9\2tb\32gb without vega last week and not sure whether

1. To return it and get one with a vega gpu on black Friday deal
2. Wait until vega refurbs are available and order one then as not in a hurry
3. Keep this and get an eGPU if ever needed
 
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If you aren't doing any GPU-intensive work, no reason to spend the money on an upgrade you won't need.
And if you ever need more power in the future, the eGPU is always an option (and you can get a card much more powerful than whatever could fit into a slim laptop).
 
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bbasra said:
I'm in the same boat and contemplating the same thing about the GPU - I just bought a 'refurb' i9\2tb\32gb without vega last week and not sure whether

1. To return it and get one with a vega gpu on black Friday deal
2. Wait until vega refurbs are available and order one then as not in a hurry
3. Keep this and get an eGPU if ever needed
Click to expand...

Truthfully, the majority of users will get some kind of marginal benefit of having a faster dGPU imo rather than 32 GB RAM. I really think the 32 GB RAM upgrade for 95%+ of people is completely wasted, while you can at least save some seconds/minutes by having the faster dGPU on various tasks (or gaming).

That is not to say that the RX 560 isn't enough for most, it really is - this is more of I'd rather upgrade the dGPU/storage rather than the RAM.
 
I also just got a new MBP on Sunday actually however I notice that the battery isn't as great as it makes out to be? I mean I just do the average stuff on this no heavy usage (listen to spotify and browse the web do emails) I went from 94% battery to currently 37% in a few hours.
 
Cutiekitty92 said:
I also just got a new MBP on Sunday actually however I notice that the battery isn't as great as it makes out to be? I mean I just do the average stuff on this no heavy usage (listen to spotify and browse the web do emails) I went from 94% battery to currently 37% in a few hours.
Click to expand...

Do you use Chrome by any chance? If yes, have you disabled hardware acceleration?
 
Sterkenburg said:
If you aren't doing any GPU-intensive work, no reason to spend the money on an upgrade you won't need.
And if you ever need more power in the future, the eGPU is always an option (and you can get a card much more powerful than whatever could fit into a slim laptop).
Click to expand...

Well, that is what I was thinking also. How much better is the Vega series anyway?
[doublepost=1542854980][/doublepost]
Ma2k5 said:
Truthfully, the majority of users will get some kind of marginal benefit of having a faster dGPU imo rather than 32 GB RAM. I really think the 32 GB RAM upgrade for 95%+ of people is completely wasted, while you can at least save some seconds/minutes by having the faster dGPU on various tasks (or gaming).

That is not to say that the RX 560 isn't enough for most, it really is - this is more of I'd rather upgrade the dGPU/storage rather than the RAM.
Click to expand...

It's interesting you say that. Every other thread, people are like, you must max out the RAM Ect... So, finally, since I was able to finally afford to max out the ram, I did lol. Now, it seems to be a different story.
 
Tommy c said:
Well, that is what I was thinking also. How much better is the Vega series anyway?
[doublepost=1542854980][/doublepost]

It's interesting you say that. Every other thread, people are like, you must max out the RAM Ect... So, finally, since I was able to finally afford to max out the ram, I did lol. Now, it seems to be a different story.
Click to expand...
I thought that and done that for my iMac late 2015 which I'm trying to sell now as I've got the shiny new MacBook Pro and learnt that this time its pointless for me to do this with the MacBook just because of what I use it for and thats nothing that requires this to be done, save myself some money too its just as good
 
Tommy c said:
It's interesting you say that. Every other thread, people are like, you must max out the RAM Ect... So, finally, since I was able to finally afford to max out the ram, I did lol. Now, it seems to be a different story.
Click to expand...

Not sure why people would say that. Laptops these days are very good at utilising RAM and I have actually seen some instances of how people were actually misusing certain applications to end up actually utilising/justifying that amount of RAM. I say misusing because it isn't the normal way professionals use the applications - and the way they were using it, they could have even filled 64/128 GB RAM....

I think most people will find it hard to have high memory pressure from 8GB RAM (video tests show people having to open like 30 chrome tabs + other apps etc), let alone 16 GB RAM. Even if you have high memory pressure, thanks to the SSD being pretty damn fast, you may not even notice any slow down anyway from memory swaps in the unlikely instance you did reach it. People also don't multi-task with that much amount of RAM.

By the time 32 GB RAM could be useful for you (5 years+ in the future at the earliest?), the laptop will probably already failed for some other reason.

So save your money, or upgrade dGPU/SSD which you can actually get some benefit out of now and in the near future.

There is a good saying of, if you don't know whether you need X amount of RAM, you don't need it ;).
 
Ma2k5 said:
Not sure why people would say that. Laptops these days are very good at utilising RAM and I have actually seen some instances of how people were actually misusing certain applications to end up actually utilising/justifying that amount of RAM. I say misusing because it isn't the normal way professionals use the applications - and the way they were using it, they could have even filled 64/128 GB RAM....

I think most people will find it hard to have high memory pressure from 8GB RAM (video tests show people having to open like 30 chrome tabs + other apps etc), let alone 16 GB RAM. Even if you have high memory pressure, thanks to the SSD being pretty damn fast, you may not even notice any slow down anyway from memory swaps in the unlikely instance you did reach it. People also don't multi-task with that much amount of RAM.

By the time 32 GB RAM could be useful for you (5 years+ in the future at the earliest?), the laptop will probably already failed for some other reason.

So save your money, or upgrade dGPU/SSD which you can actually get some benefit out of now and in the near future.

There is a good saying of, if you don't know whether you need X amount of RAM, you don't need it ;).
Click to expand...

I got this from Adorama, I'm not sure if I can send this back and just ask for a different one. They might charge me a restocking fee. Is it worth all the hassle? The only intense stuff I do I guess that a GPU would use is editing photos. But I have a 27" iMac for that. That has a so-so video card in it. I bought that used.
I know on my work computer, I have 16GB and I'm almost maxing it out while using it. I run Windows and Sage software on it. That on is a 2012 iMac. I don't recall seeing what the pressure was tho.
 
Tommy c said:
I got this from Adorama, I'm not sure if I can send this back and just ask for a different one. They might charge me a restocking fee. Is it worth all the hassle? The only intense stuff I do I guess that a GPU would use is editing photos. But I have a 27" iMac for that. That has a so-so video card in it. I bought that used.
I know on my work computer, I have 16GB and I'm almost maxing it out while using it. I run Windows and Sage software on it. That on is a 2012 iMac. I don't recall seeing what the pressure was tho.
Click to expand...

If you had 32 GB RAM, your usage will go up in the high 20's. The way RAM works is, the more you have, the more your computer will use of it but it does not mean you'll feel the benefit. You could have had pretty much the same performance with 8 GB if your RAM isn't taxed.

The way you decide if you could benefit from more memory is not by usage, but by the memory pressure graph. If it is in red a lot of the times, you may benefit from higher RAM (but even then, real world benefits may be very small). With 16 GB RAM, I'm almost certain your graph is a pleasant green.

I mean if you do return it and there is no restocking fee, great you can save some money or upgrade something else. But if you can't, it isn't the end of the world - was just general buying advise from my own opinion for others who are undecided.
 
Ma2k5 said:
If you had 32 GB RAM, your usage will go up in the high 20's. The way RAM works is, the more you have, the more your computer will use of it but it does not mean you'll feel the benefit. You could have had pretty much the same performance with 8 GB if your RAM isn't taxed.

The way you decide if you could benefit from more memory is not by usage, but by the memory pressure graph. If it is in red a lot of the times, you may benefit from higher RAM (but even then, real world benefits may be very small). With 16 GB RAM, I'm almost certain your graph is a pleasant green.

I mean if you do return it and there is no restocking fee, great you can save some money or upgrade something else. But if you can't, it isn't the end of the world - was just general buying advise from my own opinion for others who are undecided.
Click to expand...
On their site, "notebooks" are not part of the returning items. I priced it out with the Vega20. Comes to 3150.00 with the 2.6i7, 16GBRAM and 512SSD. I paid 3000 for this one with the 32GB RAM. They have the same laptop with the 560X for sale at 2499.00 The only reason I paid 3000,00 was the ram upgrade because it's no longer a sale item once I upgraded it. It was then the 2799 plus 32GB ram. But I found a coupon for 100.00 which brought it back down to 2949.00.

This is the nicest MBP I have ever owned with the nicest graphics card lol. I'm still very happy with it. But I'll see what they say about returning it. Doubt it tho.
[doublepost=1542893232][/doublepost]I fully appreciate you explaining this stuff to me.
[doublepost=1542894490][/doublepost]I might be posting a new thread. I have a conundrum here lol. I also bought a iPad Pro 3rd Gen. I'm not sure if I need it. I'm getting lost with all this.
 
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Well, Adorama will take my computer back, but will have to charge a 15% percent restocking fee.
 
If you run virtual machines, the additional RAM will help - depending on the number and what you require them to do of course. I opted for a 2018 base processor with 32GB and 1TB, as I have fairly large VMs and with having to run Win 10 for development, I like to have plenty of RAM to be able to run a couple of them. That’s what makes the 6-core great too!
 
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Conutz said:
If you run virtual machines, the additional RAM will help - depending on the number and what you require them to do of course. I opted for a 2018 base processor with 32GB and 1TB, as I have fairly large VMs and with having to run Win 10 for development, I like to have plenty of RAM to be able to run a couple of them. That’s what makes the 6-core great too!
Click to expand...

Yea, I wanted to go as big as I could afford. I never thought about. Vega graphics card. I thought this 560X would have been good enough.
 
Tommy c said:
On their site, "notebooks" are not part of the returning items. I priced it out with the Vega20. Comes to 3150.00 with the 2.6i7, 16GBRAM and 512SSD. I paid 3000 for this one with the 32GB RAM. They have the same laptop with the 560X for sale at 2499.00 The only reason I paid 3000,00 was the ram upgrade because it's no longer a sale item once I upgraded it. It was then the 2799 plus 32GB ram. But I found a coupon for 100.00 which brought it back down to 2949.00.

This is the nicest MBP I have ever owned with the nicest graphics card lol. I'm still very happy with it. But I'll see what they say about returning it. Doubt it tho.
[doublepost=1542893232][/doublepost]I fully appreciate you explaining this stuff to me.
[doublepost=1542894490][/doublepost]I might be posting a new thread. I have a conundrum here lol. I also bought a iPad Pro 3rd Gen. I'm not sure if I need it. I'm getting lost with all this.
Click to expand...


Use APINSIDER coupon. It gives $225 off right now for a limited time.
 
IdentityCrisis said:
Use APINSIDER coupon. It gives $225 off right now for a limited time.
Click to expand...

Yea, I got 100 of the one I just bought with that coupon. Adorama emailed me back saying I can send this back at my cost and if it’s perfect, there may be no restocking Fee. But do I want to go through all this for the Vega 20?
 
Tommy c said:
Yea, I got 100 of the one I just bought with that coupon. Adorama emailed me back saying I can send this back at my cost and if it’s perfect, there may be no restocking Fee. But do I want to go through all this for the Vega 20?
Click to expand...
For running a couple of Windows VMs, I wouldn’t bother. More cost, more drain on the battery, more heat build-up and you don’t need it for what you’re doing. Enjoy your machine!
 
Conutz said:
For running a couple of Windows VMs, I wouldn’t bother. More cost, more drain on the battery, more heat build-up and you don’t need it for what you’re doing. Enjoy your machine!
Click to expand...
Actually the Vega drains less and causes less heat than the 560x. Already proven it is a more efficient gpu.
 
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