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Max it out or take the base

P

pragmatous

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 23, 2012
1,378
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I'm looking to upgrade my mid-2012 cMBP to the mid 2014 rMBP. Edit: The 15" top end model with dGPU.

I'm trying to decide if the extra 700 bucks is worth it to max it out or not.

I use xcode and adobe illustrator. The better resolution in retina is primarily why I'm upgrading.

I can't find any benchmarks that show the difference between the 2.5ghz and the 2.8ghz. I can't imagine it being faster by much.

Any thoughts on the 500 bucks for the 1TB SSD verses the 512GB it defaults to?

I will probably keep this macbook pro longer. Probably until there's a better resolution or some other technology that comes out that I want.
 
I doubt you'll see significant gains in performance for the extra 300MHz in CPU. As for the SSD, if you can afford the 1TB, go for it. Otherwise, get the 512GB and seek an external SSD (or HDD) for additional storage so you can save a lot of money.
 
agreed.

So my cMBP has
2.6ghz IvyBridge
8GB RAM
750gb HDD 7200rpm (I upgraded it to a 180gb SSD)
1680x800 antiglare screen

To the rMBP in my card:
2.5ghz Haswell
16GB RAM
512GB SSD
Retina screen

Paying the same amount. Technology is :cool:

SandboxGeneral said:
I doubt you'll see significant gains in performance for the extra 300MHz in CPU. As for the SSD, if you can afford the 1TB, go for it. Otherwise, get the 512GB and seek an external SSD (or HDD) for additional storage so you can save a lot of money.
Click to expand...
 
Bought it and I took the base with dGPU. It's shipping much faster than if I customized it too so.
 
That's been my thought too. I have a problem where I want the best of the best. I sometimes have to step back and go "Wait a minute thats 700 dollars for what. That's the cost of my iphone 6" heh...

yjchua95 said:
The base with dGPU and the maxed-out variant are almost identical in performance, and have completely zero noticeable difference 95% of the time.
Click to expand...
 
pragmatous said:
That's been my thought too. I have a problem where I want the best of the best. I sometimes have to step back and go "Wait a minute thats 700 dollars for what. That's the cost of my iphone 6" heh...
Click to expand...

That's a wise way to put it into perspective.
 
Thanks for starting this thread.

Seven days ago I bought the maxed out $3299 rMBP 15" and yesterday I saw the rumored refresh came to fruition.

I'm now going to go to the store in about an hour and pick up the upper level base model and see if I can still get the tax free savings if I bring the receipt in on Friday when the tax free weekend starts. Or else I will just exchange the whole thing on Friday.

In the end with the tax free savings, I'll be getting almost $1000 back for almost the same machine minus 512gb of SSD space.

I use a 1TB Thunderbolt drive which is a great complement for workflow.
 
pragmatous said:
Any thoughts on the 500 bucks for the 1TB SSD verses the 512GB it defaults to?
Click to expand...

Personal opinion - 500 is plenty - externals for large storage are cheap and fast these days. a 4TB Caldigit AV Pro is around 320-340 - Cheaper models can be had for 200 or less.

Whatever you decide - Nice Mac!
 
I just exchanged my 7 day old maxed out rMBP 15" October '13 machine for the base dGPU 15" and got refunded $781. Basically I lose 100mhz CPU and 512mb SSD space(which costs $500). But I got a Lacie thunderbolt 1tb drive which will more than suffice.
 
I'm good on storage. I have a 8TB synology NAS.

I'm coming from an upgraded 180GB SSD (it had a 750gb 7200rpm HDD) going to a 512GB SSD so I'm thrilled about that. I can do bootcamp with parallels again. Nice retina resolution. 802.3ac wifi. 16GB RAM. For the same price I paid for my cMBP.

I'm sure I'll want to upgrade again in 2 years with the next redesign but I think this time around I'll keep this a bit longer.

thedeske said:
Personal opinion - 500 is plenty - externals for large storage are cheap and fast these days. a 4TB Caldigit AV Pro is around 320-340 - Cheaper models can be had for 200 or less.

Whatever you decide - Nice Mac!
Click to expand...
 
Yes that is true but I've learned to deal with 180GB of storage for awhile now in sacrifice for speed. Edit: The 512GB upgrade will be a nice upgrade though. Especially now that I can put winows back onto my machine and use it with parallels.

Plus I can gain access to my files from my computer if there's an internet connection. The synology NAS can be accessed from the internet. So I can do pretty cool things with it being an engineer.

ColdCase said:
Its kinda hard to carry that around with you, isn't it :).

I can never have enough internal storage.... and hate lugging external drives along. They always seem to get lost.
Click to expand...
 
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