MBPr Purchase Advice

[Pronoun]

Hi All,

I am looking to get a new MacBook Pro 15" and I was looking into the refurbished ones. I wanted to get some advice between two 2013 (Feb. and Oct.). The older one is higher GHz and has the NVIDIA card, but I was sure if I should get the newer one even though the Chip is lower GHz (may be a newer chipset) and has a built in graphics card (may be newer and as good as the early 2013 NVIDIA card). I figure ask here because I haven't been paying much attention and the upgrades have seem incremental and I may be missing something that makes the Oct. 2013 a better option.

Also, with the non-upgradable RAM, is the 8GB of RAM enough?

I use Adobe CC for Print Publication and Web Design, plus I do use VMWare with XP (Soon Windows 7). I have an older MacPro (2010 - 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon with 6 GB of RAM) which is perfectly fine, but I want to switch to a MacBook that can be used as my home and work machine.

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Originally released February 2013
Refurbished 15.4-inch MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Quad-core Intel i7
8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
256GB Flash Storage
720p FaceTime HD Camera
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory

http://store.apple.com/us/product/F...-24ghz-Quad-core-Intel-i7-with-retina-Display
==================================================
Originally released October 2013
Refurbished 15.4-inch MacBook Pro 2.0GHz Quad-core Intel i7

8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
256GB Flash Storage1
720p FaceTime HD camera
Intel Iris Pro Graphics

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

Thank in advance for any input.

 

[GoCubsGo]

I think the 650M is going to run only marginally faster than the Iris Pro 5200 (it is 5200, right?). The thing is though wasn't the 650M replaced by the 750M or was the 750 only in the iMac?

Anyway, I don't know if you could detect any real difference between the two and if you don't game then you really won't detect it. For that, I would get the later retina MBP. Also, think about heat. As far as I know, heat is reduced greatly with the Iris Pro integrated graphics. Dedicated graphics tend to cause a lot of heat issues especially when you are tasking it with things like gaming or rendering. Heat does play a role in reducing the lifespan of any machine. It is likely a small role, but it is a role.

My vote would be for the later 2013 machine.

The other part is the CPU speed. I don't think you will see too much of a real world difference in CPU speed but didn't the later retina MBP come with a faster CPU option? If you think you will notice the speed difference then you should go back to the earlier model. It really depends on what you believe you will appreciate more in the machine. Based on your needs the later model would be suitable.

 

[Plerf]

According to everymac.com's comparison thingee:

The newer Mac has higher Geekbench scores in all benchmarks except the first one, which is a virtual tie.

http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-comparison-chart/?compare=all-intel-macs

What is a Geekbench? I have no idea, but higher is better, right???

Also, the newer one is an i7-4750HQ (Haswell), whereas the older one is an i7-3635QM (Ivy Bridge). Again, oversimplifying, but newer is usually better.

EDIT: Also, battery life is rated higher on the new one.

 

[brdeveloper]

According to everymac.com's comparison thingee:

The newer Mac has higher Geekbench scores in all benchmarks except the first one, which is a virtual tie.

http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-comparison-chart/?compare=all-intel-macs

What is a Geekbench? I have no idea, but higher is better, right???

Also, the newer one is an i7-4750HQ (Haswell), whereas the older one is an i7-3635QM (Ivy Bridge). Again, oversimplifying, but newer is usually better.

EDIT: Also, battery life is rated higher on the new one.

The problem is that Geekbench is sometimes oversimplified since it doesn't measure I/O (which is much faster in newer models) and GPU (which the older one is probably better in terms of speed and versatility -- cuda support). I saw benchmarks in another place (I think it was everymac or something like) and the base late-2013 is slightly slower (< 10%) than the 2.4GHz early-2013 one.

I would probably get the late-2013 one mainly because of the PCIe SSD which is at least 50% faster than its older brother.

 

[dmccloud]

The problem is that Geekbench is sometimes oversimplified since it doesn't measure I/O (which is much faster in newer models) and GPU (which the older one is probably better in terms of speed and versatility -- cuda support). I saw benchmarks in another place (I think it was everymac or something like) and the base late-2013 is slightly slower (< 10%) than the 2.4GHz early-2013 one.

I would probably get the late-2013 one mainly because of the PCIe SSD which is at least 50% faster than its older brother.

This comparison is a perfect example of why comparing specs between processor generations can be misleading. Even though the late 2013 model has a slower clock speed on the CPU, optimizations to the computing cores themselves basically render those differences to minimal at best. The Iris Pro 5200 in the new model is comparable to the 650M for most games, only newer titles would really have issues with that integrated part. The SSD is the biggest improvement, though - moving from SATA 6.0 GBps to PCIe resulted in a big jump in read/write speeds, so any activity involving a lot of disk I/O will benefit as a direct result of the change to the SSD.

 

[sixrom]

This comparison is a perfect example of why comparing specs between processor generations can be misleading. Even though the late 2013 model has a slower clock speed on the CPU, optimizations to the computing cores themselves basically render those differences to minimal at best. The Iris Pro 5200 in the new model is comparable to the 650M for most games, only newer titles would really have issues with that integrated part. The SSD is the biggest improvement, though - moving from SATA 6.0 GBps to PCIe resulted in a big jump in read/write speeds, so any activity involving a lot of disk I/O will benefit as a direct result of the change to the SSD.

The jump in read/write speeds, is what I've noticed and enjoyed the most in mine.

 

[glenthompson]

To the memory question, 8gb is usually enough unless you're working with large video files or using virtual machines. In that case it depends on how much memory you need for Windows. If running XP or 7 32 bit then 8 won't cause problems. If you want to run a 6gb Windows VM then 8 will be tight.

 

[C. Robert]

The biggest and most relevant feature of the new retina is battery life. 8GB of ram is also perfect for your needs.

 

[maflynn]

I'd go with the Iris pro model, I don't see you getting too much benefit from the dGPU.

 

[Pronoun]

Wow! thanks for all the great information, I knew this place would not disappoint. I was leaning toward the late 2013 and now it seems like that is definitely the one to get. Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated!