Questions for MacBook Pro 15' Mid-2014

[hannan8v8]

I am going to a buy a MacBook with education discount and I have two choices:

MacBook Pro 15', 2.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, 256 GB HDD – NOTE THAT I WILL BE UPGRADING CPU TO 2.5 GHZ when I buy.

MacBook Pro 15', 2.5 GHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB GDDR5 memory

My main dilemma is, does having a 750M card and a 512GB drive affect the battery of the laptop? Which of these 2 laptops have a better battery life?

I mainly used my old HP laptop for browsing, music, movies, and microsoft office. I dont play much games on laptops since I have a PS4 for that.

Lastly I have a very stupid question, is PCIe-based flash storage a SSD or HDD? Whats the difference? (im new to mac)

 

[yjchua95]

I am going to a buy a MacBook with education discount and I have two choices:

MacBook Pro 15', 2.2 GHz, 16GB RAM, 256 GB HDD – NOTE THAT I WILL BE UPGRADING CPU TO 2.5 GHZ when I buy.

MacBook Pro 15', 2.5 GHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB GDDR5 memory

My main dilemma is, does having a 750M card and a 512GB drive affect the battery of the laptop? Which of these 2 laptops have a better battery life?

I mainly used my old HP laptop for browsing, music, movies, and microsoft office. I dont play much games on laptops since I have a PS4 for that.

Lastly I have a very stupid question, is PCIe-based flash storage a SSD or HDD? Whats the difference? (im new to mac)

Any form of flash storage is an SSD.

Battery life is identical, as both processors have the same TDP, but on the model with the 750M, you'll have to use gfxcardstatus to disable the 750M to get identical battery life to the base model.

Go for the 2.5/16/512/750M model straight away.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Might as well go for the high end

If you are going to upgrade the processor then economically you might as well get the high end with the dGPU and the bigger SSD.

PCIE is just a direct to mther board connection that allows much higher band width and allows the top speeds of your SSD to be reached without being a bottle neck.

 

[nudoru]

Max out the ram (because you can't change that later) and get the 512gb drive. The 750m will affect the battery when it's turned on, but then you have to think about playing games for stress relief also

 

[hannan8v8]

I cant upgrade the ram from 16gb since its the max, however i can upgrade the processor from 2.5 to 2.8ghz on the high end 15" macbook, will the processor upgrade be noticeable? Or is it worth it?

Is there an option in macbooks where i can turn off the geforce 750m card so it doesnt use up the battery?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

There si a good third party app

I cant upgrade the ram from 16gb since its the max, however i can upgrade the processor from 2.5 to 2.8ghz on the high end 15" macbook, will the processor upgrade be noticeable? Or is it worth it?

Is there an option in macbooks where i can turn off the geforce 750m card so it doesnt use up the battery?

GFXcardstatus app is used by many 15 inch macbook pro users here, it has a good reputation on these boards.

To be honest once you are into quad cores and apps that can use all the cores then the speed is not such an issue for a CPU. Unless you are going to be maxing out every core for hours at a time, rendering 4K video for example, then it'll make very little difference.

 

[hannan8v8]

Ive never done video edition or rendering etc infact ive never done any of the creative editing stuff. Im studyknng accounting so i just need a good laptop which i can use for a good 4-5 years. My daily usage is mostly browsing, youtube, and ms office. I dont think so ill need a 2.8ghz for that. 2.2 will be fine in my opinion