Refurbished or New?

[jh4n688]

I'm looking to spend around $1800ish for a new MacbookPro. (I will be able to get an educational discount and purchase in a sales tax-free state.)


The model that I'm most strongly considering is the brand new 13" Macbook Retina with 2.4Ghz/16MB RAM and Applecare. This puts me at $1762.


However, I looked at refurbished models and the Apple store is selling the following refurbished 15" Macbook from February 2013 for $2068 including AppleCare:
16GB of 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
256GB Flash Storage
720p FaceTime HD Camera
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory

Can someone explain to me what the speed differences will be between the two in various situations? In particular, I'm interested in how the differences might effect performance in say Logic Pro, Sibelius 7 and Max/MSP. I really don't want to have to spend the extra money to get the new 15" MacbookPro, as I feel it is beyond my price range.

Thanks.

 

[iThink Apple]

Hey there! I would say get the new one

 

[jh4n688]

Thanks for your input, but I'm curious as to the reasoning behind your recommendation.

I think I should add that I need a 27" screen to go with this laptop (not sure if that effects how many cores I should be looking for) and that I am not someone who wants to upgrade often. My last two laptops have each lasted me over 6 years. I would be willing to drop extra money at the moment, if it really "future-proofed" me (I'll be maxing the RAM regardless, for example), but am not interested in doing so unless it's relatively clear that I should. Primarily, I'm confused about what kinds of programs take advantage of the four cores vs two.