MBP 15" 2012: 2.6 or 2.7GHz?

[wuchtbrumme]

Hi,

I am thinking about buying the 2012 Macbook Pro in its 15 inch non-Retina incarnation.
I definitely want the 2.6GHz 3720QM CPU (at the least) because this will upgrade the graphics memory to 1GB (which cannot be upgraded after purchase and might trouble me when running the Thunderbolt display and 3D).

As far as i can see, the only differences between 3720QM and 3820QM (the 2.7Ghz option for a whopping 270 Euros) are 100Mhz higher frequency (both on stock and on turbo frequency) plus 2MB larger third level cache.

Are there any more differences on the CPU? Does the upgrade from 2.6 to 2.7Ghz imply any more changes on the Macbook?
I assume the upgrade is not worth the money unless you do hefty processing (which i usually dont do)? Any pros/cons or can i safely safe the 270 bucks? I nderstand that for the highest-end model you pay more, even mor than in relation. On the other hand, my high end 2010 MBP 2.66 i7 8GB is still well-suited for daily work and i understand the 270 are only a small fraction of the complete purchase...

I am doing system administration, programming (Java/Xcode/Web), VM, web research and a whole bunch of what-you-do-with-a-computer (Aperture, Final Cut,...).

Thanks for any help!

 

[overanalyzer]

I didn't personally think it was worth the $250 upgrade. In daily use, I haven't even come close to pegging the processor, even with 2 Windows VMs running with multiple applications/services on each, and multiple applications actively running. I think the only way it would be relevant is for video rendering or other operations that by design utilize the entirety of the processing resources.

 

[leenak]

In general, buying the highest spec generally isn't worth it. I know you often get to a point where you say that you are spending $3k, what is another $250? I went with the 2.6GHZ/500GB/16GB and I'm pretty happy with it and expect I will be for years to come.