Who here is using the MacBook Pro retina for hardcore photoshop use and or Large Logic Pro sessions? How is it performing when being put through the paces? I might order one today. I need to make an educated decision and need your help. Thanks guys.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Question about MacBook Pro retina and performance
- Thread starter Flood123
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I don't want to be a pain, but I am looking to pull the trigger on this purchase today. I was hoping for some sort of info that would help educate me. Pretty please 
I don't have mine yet, but the machine is built to do those things. Quad-Core Processor, a great GPU for a laptop and up to 16GB of RAM? Not to mention it's all flash storage. You'll love it!
best laptop i've owned, period. i've owned quite a few, including several oldschool dell pentium 3 laptops with nvidia graphics cards, a Dell XPS M1730 with SLI graphics cards, an Alienware M17x, an Alienware M11x, and now the 16/2.3/256gb retinabook.
Diablo 3 runs like butter (lol) at 2048x1280 with maxed graphics.. the laptop runs cool (imho) compared to many of the other laptops i've owned. cooling can be controlled with extra apps. OSX is fine and secretly i like it much better than windows 8, and i'm a windows guy.
I use aperture, iphoto, light gaming with diablo 3 and some other games, i use office and email, calendar obviously, browsing and reading, i watch movies and tv shows on it. listen to music.
-its fast
-cooling is bar none the best on any of the laptops i've owned
-screen is bar none the best of any laptop i've owned
-ssd is strong, and 256 is fine for me (came from 160gb ssd on previous machine)
-usb 3.0 with a 500gb 7200rpm external works just as if it was built in
-its very very light, if you look at my previous machines even the m11x, this thing is so light and the thin form factor makes it fit perfectly in your bag.
- web browsing is a pleasure. small stutters on the UI because of the crazy amounts of pixels being pushed, but i imagine it will be refined, and most of the time its smooth.
blows a way every laptop out there. obviously i'm a fan. everyone who knows me would have bet a lot of money i'd never buy a mac and here i am, even made it past the return period.
also, keyboard is great to type on
Diablo 3 runs like butter (lol) at 2048x1280 with maxed graphics.. the laptop runs cool (imho) compared to many of the other laptops i've owned. cooling can be controlled with extra apps. OSX is fine and secretly i like it much better than windows 8, and i'm a windows guy.
I use aperture, iphoto, light gaming with diablo 3 and some other games, i use office and email, calendar obviously, browsing and reading, i watch movies and tv shows on it. listen to music.
-its fast
-cooling is bar none the best on any of the laptops i've owned
-screen is bar none the best of any laptop i've owned
-ssd is strong, and 256 is fine for me (came from 160gb ssd on previous machine)
-usb 3.0 with a 500gb 7200rpm external works just as if it was built in
-its very very light, if you look at my previous machines even the m11x, this thing is so light and the thin form factor makes it fit perfectly in your bag.
- web browsing is a pleasure. small stutters on the UI because of the crazy amounts of pixels being pushed, but i imagine it will be refined, and most of the time its smooth.
blows a way every laptop out there. obviously i'm a fan. everyone who knows me would have bet a lot of money i'd never buy a mac and here i am, even made it past the return period.
also, keyboard is great to type on
well you cant use photoshop on the RMBP unless you have an external monitor. otherwise its just too fuzzy/blurry. the screen also slows the whole process down anyway. when i have photoshop on my external monitor i can drag the photoshop window around and its quite smooth. if i have the photoshop window on my retina screen, dragging it around causes serious lag.
People like you make me not want to be a part of a community. I have seen your posts lately and they are all negative and toxic, making an unpleasant experience of people just asking for help, far from giving and advice, you just judge and try to fight with whoever doesn't agree with you. Seriously, stop it.
OP: I have Photoshop and it's totally usable at 1920x1200, not exactly crisp but it's only a bit worse than in a cMBP, and will get an update sometime this year.
I'm sure the machine will be enough for your needs, give it a try.
its people like you who are so desperate and refuse to acknowledge any critique on the RMBP that actually do the 'community' a disservice by making false promises and claims just to make yourself feel better.
Are we reading the right posts here? I didn't read a lick of negativity or toxicity in his post at all. I rather found it informative and helpful. I'm glad to know that Adobe has not yet optimized their products for retina display.
Btw OP: I'm curious as to how well Logic runs on the rMBP as well.
Nope, it had nothing to do with this post, except the part that is 'unusable' which is far from true, but that's a matter of perspective I guess. I meant the posts when he call people 'stupid' for asking a question that may be simple for him or "This thread can't be real" or maybe "tell that to the suckers who got the first gen product" and that's only from the pasts days, you can check it under his profile.
Far from giving an advice, he's offensive. I just asked him to stop, and by his response to me, I can only tell he's going to keep it aggresive, unable to listen and comprehend what I asked for, so nothing more to say.
Does that have to do with the fact that it's pushing so many more pixels than the Original MBP yet using the same GPU. Underpowered GPU for the MBPr? What is the spec of the machine you tested?
I am really surprised we haven't seen more information regarding this yet.
I held off buying today because it's just way too expensive of a machine to not have 100% of the information needed to make an educated decision. I am still very interested to hear peoples experience with the MBPr. I am not saying no to this lap top just yet.
I might just have to buck up and run down to the local Apple store. Only problem there is that I would be getting the 2.7ghz and the 16gb ram. I am almost 100% that is a special order so to truly know is impossible till you have it in your hot little hands.
I have no doubt in my mind its an amazing computer. I just want to make sure I am buying something that will work for me, or if I just need to hold tight for something else not necessarily a lap top.
Thank you very much for all of the responses. Keep the info coming friends. I am sure there are a lot of folks with the same questions.
Last edited:
I never understood why people say it's blurry. When an application is not retina ready, the pixels are doubled up. So it looks almost identical to the non-retina version. Does that mean you find every non-retina laptop fuzzy/blurry?
I have a retina MBP, and the screen is just amazing. Even non-retina ready apps look way better than on my old 17" MBP. The fact that it's an IPS display means it's got a very good view angle and great colors. My old MBP display would change in brightness depending on the vertical view angle.
This display is an upgrade no matter how you look at it. Worst case, it looks identical to a non-retina display. But I don't see how it could ever look worse or more fuzzy.
Hi Guys,
Just chiming in with my experience with my RMBP and Logic Pro. I should start by saying I am new to logic so my experience is definitely that of a casual user at this point. I got this machine specifically with Logic in mind as I desperately needed to upgrade my old macbook and was hoping to create a portable recording station. I have a 2.6/512/16gb model and have been using Logic 9.1.7.
So far I haven`t even been able to push the cpu above 20%. I`m also yet to see my free ram count dip below 10gb! And there have been occasions when i`ve tried to test the machine out by opening up several live audio tracks along with several midi instruments all running several plugins across the channel. I really haven`t seen the machine begin to stall with logic so i`m pretty stoked with my experience thus far. Time will tell I guess...
Just chiming in with my experience with my RMBP and Logic Pro. I should start by saying I am new to logic so my experience is definitely that of a casual user at this point. I got this machine specifically with Logic in mind as I desperately needed to upgrade my old macbook and was hoping to create a portable recording station. I have a 2.6/512/16gb model and have been using Logic 9.1.7.
So far I haven`t even been able to push the cpu above 20%. I`m also yet to see my free ram count dip below 10gb! And there have been occasions when i`ve tried to test the machine out by opening up several live audio tracks along with several midi instruments all running several plugins across the channel. I really haven`t seen the machine begin to stall with logic so i`m pretty stoked with my experience thus far. Time will tell I guess...