Macbook pro buying help

[ankitprashar]

So i should start by welcoming myself to Radeongate! Mac Book pro 15 late 2011

Absolute bonkers, what a fantastic machine to work with for 3 years and suddenly it goes blank! Its a real shame. No longer in warranty, i got the GPU replace from outside apple repair shop. It worked flawlessly for a month and the problems have appeared again. I have read and researched and it looks like this cannot be repaired. No sign of apple issuing a recall, what happened to Here's To the Crazy Ones.

I am still trying to convince myself to buy a new macbook pro but the current options have somewhat left me confused.My late 2011 came with a discrete GPU and 500Gb HDD with core i7. I can no longer afford the new 15 retinas. So my main concern is how much would i be downgrading if i go for a 13 retina.
-No dedicated GPU
-A core i5
-A joke of a HDD space with 128GB SSD
- High res screen (which may make downgrading from a 15 easier i hope)

My main usage is photoshop and other image editing softwares. No gaming, just pure image editing. So i would just like to understand how much of a downgrade or a minor upgrade (with iris 5100) should i be expecting in terms of performance.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Look at refurbs

You can get some good deals on refurbished 2013 15 inch rMBP.

The base new 13 inch rMBP is $1300

The base 2013 15 inch rMBP quad core i7, 256gb ssd and iris pro graphics is $1489 on the refurb store.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/F...-20ghz-quad-core-intel-i7-with-retina-display

Depending where you are Amazon does some good deals too in the UK the prices can be £350 less than the apple store.

Don't be fooled by hard drive space, once you use an SSD equipped computer you'll never go back to a spinning disk the difference is night and day.

The IRIS graphics are pretty good for imaging shouldn't have too many issues at all they do use 1.5gb of shared RAM and are fairly fast for integrated.

The IRIS pro on the 15 inch above though are about 40% faster and a much better bet. I would certainly go for the refurb for less than $200 more..

 

[ankitprashar]

Refurbished does look like a nice deal. Having never bought a refurb, i have my own concerns but then the price is quite enticing.
As i understand iris pro is about 40% faster than iris. What about the ATI HD 6750M vs Iris? Just trying to get an idea of the performance gains/drops.

How much would be the difference between a non retina 15inch and retina 13 inch considering the latter has a higher resolution, would it compensate the need for a bigger screen. Also core i5 as compared to i7, any worthwhile performance differences?

Apologies for too many questions.

 

[ABC5S]

Retina 15 inch mid 2014 now on sale for $1799.00 at Best Buy, 256 GB SSD 16 GB, if interested for non GPU card, but the very good Iris Pro. Got mine today from PeachMac with price matching, and it's for video editing. No need for the dedicated GPU that is problematic for some

 

[BenTrovato]

I just bought a refurb late 2013 rMBP. It's my first refurb purchase and it's stellar. The typical config i5 2.4/256/8gb is on sale right now for a pretty good deal. Really happy with this machine. I can't comment on the Iris vs the dedicated GPU but it's fine so far.