New or Refurb 15" MBPr?

[darcmasta]

All,

I hate to spam this forum with more decision thread but I have a dilemma. This is going to be my first mac purchase. I just bought a new MBP:
2.6 / 512 / 16GB

But looking at the refurbs...I notice that I can grab a refurb for ~600 less, which is not really chump change The specs are:
2.7 / 512 / 16GB

Sure I know Haswell saves battery, but I heard that was more Mavericks than anything else. My questions are:

1) How much of a difference is there between the PCIe and the old Flash?
2) My main tasks in a day are running VM's, developing, and testing video (not encoding). Would there be any benefit in terms of the new MBP that could assist me in doing this? If so, is it even noticeable?
3) Anything that I am missing? I mean I don't care about TB2 (there are no accessories). How is the build quality of refurbished macs? Will I ever say...If I just got a new one, X wouldnt happen?

Thanks all!

 

[Striker-UMB]

All,

I hate to spam this forum with more decision thread but I have a dilemma. This is going to be my first mac purchase. I just bought a new MBP:
2.6 / 512 / 16GB

But looking at the refurbs...I notice that I can grab a refurb for ~600 less, which is not really chump change The specs are:
2.7 / 512 / 16GB

Sure I know Haswell saves battery, but I heard that was more Mavericks than anything else. My questions are:

1) How much of a difference is there between the PCIe and the old Flash?
2) My main tasks in a day are running VM's, developing, and testing video (not encoding). Would there be any benefit in terms of the new MBP that could assist me in doing this? If so, is it even noticeable?
3) Anything that I am missing? I mean I don't care about TB2 (there are no accessories). How is the build quality of refurbished macs? Will I ever say...If I just got a new one, X wouldnt happen?

Thanks all!

It's all up to you in the end but to be honest the haswell processor is nice but if you can save $600+ that is the better deal. Is haswell really worth an extra $600 to you? The bump in performance in real time day to day tasks sure as hell isn't worth spending $600 on. Apple refurbs are amazing, Appel ensures that they are dent,scratch and in perfect condition. They replace the battery and screen if it is showing signs of image retention. You also get a year warranty, and a year to extend your warranty through Apple care.

Just remember benchmarks and "real world" perfomance are two entirely different things, that 2012/2013 refurb will handle anything you throw at it just fine and will be a powerhouse for years. As you said $600 isn't chump change, is a performance gain of 15%-20% really worth that?

 

[darcmasta]

It's all up to you in the end but to be honest the haswell processor is nice but if you can save $600+ that is the better deal. Is haswell really worth an extra $600 to you? The bump in performance in real time day to day tasks sure as hell isn't worth spending $600 on. Apple refurbs are amazing, Appel ensures that they are dent,scratch and in perfect condition. They replace the battery and screen if it is showing signs of image retention. You also get a year warranty, and a year to extend your warranty through Apple care.

Just remember benchmarks and "real world" perfomance are two entirely different things, that 2012/2013 refurb will handle anything you throw at it just fine and will be a powerhouse for years. As you said $600 isn't chump change, is a performance gain of 15%-20% really worth that?

Yeah you are right. And to be honest I can even opt for the 768GB with the savings...but prob won't. I mean my only fear is the SSD vs the new one; that seems like the only improvement? Processor wise I think the 2.7 is comparable with the 2.6 has well right? I don't care about video card cause...well I have a gaming PC for that... Lol