Need help deciding MBP upgrade

[bniu]

It’s the year 2020 and my late 2013 MBP 15” is vintage and the battery pack is starting to swell and I’m finally deciding that it is time to upgrade.

So my current one is a Quad Core Haswell i7 15” MBP from 2013 with 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and 2GB Nvidia GT750m. I guess I’ve got two paths: 13” or 16”.

I’m trying to decide on a few key areas. As for storage, I’ve found that with iCloud hosting most of my files, I can carry on with 1TB of storage.

32GB of RAM is something I definitely want as I’m constantly maxing RAM on my current machine. Question is if I get the 16” MBP, then what would the benefits of 64GB RAM provide?

As for CPU, I’m trying to understand if the 2020 MBP 13” 10th Gen Quad Core i5 is still a decent upgrade from my 2013 MBP 15” 4th Gen Quad Core i7. My initial sights are set on the 2019 16” MBP with 8 core i9 CPU. I do like to run Handbrake a lot and do some occasional iMovie editing.

The big one would be Graphics, and probably the area I need most help on. If I get the 13” MBP, how well does the 10th Gen Iris Plus graphics compare against the GT750M? I’d really like to get the AMD 5500M GPU 8GB on the 16” but wondering if the integrated graphics are good enough on the 13”. My main uses for this would be playing Sims 4 on the highest settings, and most likely Sims 5 when it comes out on max settings, along with other games like XPlane, and also playing these while hooked up to a 4K screen on clamshell mode.

I’m pretty much set on a MBP as going forward, I want to eliminate my iPad and have just a MBP along with my iPhone as my two devices. I find that the iPad doesn’t really add any value to me, but my wife loves using it, so I’ll give it to her.

 

[iRun26.2]

I think you should consider the 16" unless you really need portability.

What you want to do seems to best fit the 16" version (Handbrake, better graphics processing).

 

[pshufd]

I restored an ancient desktop with a lot of RAM capacity and I'm running my programs that require a lot of RAM on that. I'm using a 2015 15 MBP for work - where about half the work is hosted on clouds. I generally run my personal stuff on the Windows desktop though. I am looking for a 2010-2012 Mac Pro with 12 cores and 128 GB of RAM capability. The ask in my area for these kinds of machines is $750 to $2,000 depending on how fast the CPUs are and how much RAM they have. I'd guess that a 2012 12-core 3.0 Ghz Mac Pro, with suitable graphics card, could outperform 2020 MacBook Pros in a lot of workloads.

Going with a powerful desktop + less powered MacBook Pro gives me some flexibility in keeping my old equipment running longer.

If I only had one machine right now, I'd go with at least 32 GB. My Windows Desktop is currently using 23+ GB of RAM.

 

[DanMan619]

I do like to run Handbrake a lot and do some occasional iMovie editing.

If you aren't going to be using a beefier editing program like Final Cut or Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve. iMovie with just basic h264 files and stuff, you likely don't need the i9 CPU for that. However, you also mentioned gaming and i don't know how CPU intensive those games are, so they might warrant the 2.3 GHz 8-core i9 CPU.

32GB of RAM is something I definitely want as I’m constantly maxing RAM on my current machine. Question is if I get the 16” MBP, then what would the benefits of 64GB RAM provide?

The benefits of 32GB vs 64GB of RAM really depends on what you are doing on your computer. Next time your RAM use-age gets high, open Activity Monitor and see what programs are using the most RAM. If it's just your web browser/Chrome, throwing more RAM at it is a costly solution and you'd be better off just closing tabs (i speak as a person who always has a bajillion tabs open and Chrome is a RAM hog). If you're doing heavy music production or something else high end that really benefits from having as much RAM as possible, then the 64GB RAM may be worth considering if you can afford it.

My main uses for this would be playing Sims 4 on the highest settings, and most likely Sims 5 when it comes out on max settings, along with other games like XPlane, and also playing these while hooked up to a 4K screen on clamshell mode.

The 13inch MBP can probably handle outputting to the 4k screen (it supports outputting to the Apple Pro Display XDR even) but it almost certainly will not handle running those games at max settings. The 5300m 4GB GPU would be able to run games decently well if you are more conservative with the graphics settings. If you're dead set on maxing everything out as much as possible though, then you will want the 5500m 4GB GPU or even the 5500m 8GB GPU. The difference between those two GPUs is small in some uses and big/noticeable in others, i don't game on Mac so i wouldn't know details.

Based on what you've described, barring getting more info on your RAM use. This is the spec i would get if i was you.

16 inch MBP
2.3GHz 8-Core i9 CPU
32GB RAM
5500M 8GB GPU
1TB Storage

$3300 (assuming you're in the U.S.)

If you're dead set on the max settings gaming and 1TB storage and are certain 16GB RAM is no longer enough. The only other spec in question is the CPU. All the rest set in stone, the 6-core vs 8-core CPU is just a $100 difference, so you might as well just throw it in there in case your video editing (which can be both CPU and GPU intensive depending on your workflow) needs beef up over time.