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Retina Macbook pro 15 good time to buy?

S

sl2obel2ts

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 5, 2012
1
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I am using 13" 2009 late model. I remember regretting buying it 4 months in because minor update was released... 13 is too small for me. and the new retina is actually lighter than my 2009 13?!

Its been about 3 months since the 15 retina was released. Is it a good time buy? When would be minor cpu/ram update expected to be released? I remember buying mine around mid october in 2009.

Thanks
 
Stetrain said:
I doubt it will be updated until spring or summer of 2013.
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It's always possible you'll see a mid ivy bump of some kind depending on what intel has in their pipeline. Haswell won't be out until the second half of next year. The absolute earliest is likely to be July there. Other than that just look at what is planned for mid ivy.
 
thekev said:
It's always possible you'll see a mid ivy bump of some kind depending on what intel has in their pipeline. Haswell won't be out until the second half of next year. The absolute earliest is likely to be July there. Other than that just look at what is planned for mid ivy.
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I guess it would be possible to see a bump in early 2013 with Haswell in mid summer. Seems like a pretty tight schedule and I don't think Apple likes to release things right around the holidays.
 
Stetrain said:
I guess it would be possible to see a bump in early 2013 with Haswell in mid summer. Seems like a pretty tight schedule and I don't think Apple likes to release things right around the holidays.
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There was a rumor of a 13" rMBP. I can't find much on bumps from Intel. We saw them last year, but the initial Sandy was out the door in February with almost a year and a half gap to ivy. It may not happen this time, although they did recently add an extreme edition to their lineup, and a couple low end desktop i3s also debut this month. Anyway the real point was that Haswell won't be out in the Spring if we're going by the seasons of the northern hemisphere. I'd expect something in the July to August realm. It could slip further, but Intel is not in a habit of releasing things early. After their Sandy Bridge problems, which reverberated into Sandy Bridge E, I expect they will be cautious.
 
thekev said:
Anyway the real point was that Haswell won't be out in the Spring if we're going by the seasons of the northern hemisphere. I'd expect something in the July to August realm. It could slip further, but Intel is not in a habit of releasing things early.
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Agreed. The Sandy bridge bump made sense given the long wait to Ivy Bridge. Looking back it was about halfway between the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge refreshes, 8 months after Sandy Bridge and 8 months before Ivy Bridge.

I guess they could do a tweak on GPUs and such at the 8 month mark again, but if Haswell is going to be right around the corner it would make sense to wait. Otherwise we'd be looking at October-November '13 for the Haswell refresh.

The average MBP refresh cycle according to the MR buyer's guide is just shy of 9 months.
 
Yeah I'm wondering the same thing. I didn't have money for retina when it came out. I might have it soon. Should I just buy it or wait for the mid cycle bump? Haswell is too far away and will probably be delayed. Also, it is heavily rumored that the next year mbps won't have a dedicated gpu. I'm not going into why right now but that limits the choice for me to the latest ones and the mid cycle bump.

I don't expect the mid cycle bump to come until around February though.
 
I wouldn't expect a mid-cycle specs bump. What would they even bump? Give 16GB RAM standard? The best we could expect is a price drop since SSD prices will have gotten down, but I don't even expect that.

I say now is a good time to buy. Next year's version will of course have a faster CPU and GPU and probably 802.11ac but nothing revolutionary, and almost a year is a long wait.
 
3X40QM CPUs are due out in Q4 but they will only offer a 100MHz base and turbo clock boost. I'm currently running a 3740QM QS CPU in my Clevo.

Not worth waiting for IMHO.
 
Newbie MacUser said:
I would wait. The overall processor bump performance/battery life advantage on the current Ivy Bridge is minimal. Apparently intel released an article saying that the next gen processors will provide a much much better battery life improvement.
Here's the cnet article on it:http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57506075-92/intel-4th-gen-core-chips-to-slash-power-consumption/
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Then the following year will be the same and so on. Can't keep up with tech, buy what you can afford now.
 
rockyroad55 said:
Then the following year will be the same and so on. Can't keep up with tech, buy what you can afford now.
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Well i'm actually drawing a comparison about the step up from 2nd Gen Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge. There wasn't as much a a performance bump as people expected. All i'm saying is if you're going to spend $3K on a laptop wait for the next gen retina MBP. Intel is saying it will boost battery life another 40%. Which means if people are getting 10 +/-2 hours now, it will be like 14 hrs +/- 2hrs. Which makes a much bigger difference. Especially to those people that are graphic design/engineering/architecture people that use processor intensive programs.
 
i have rmbp, and would not recommend anyone upgrade to rmbp unless you are doing video or 3d rending etc type of work.

image retenntion and overheating are two major problems, especially for gaming.
 
h3blade said:
i have rmbp, and would not recommend anyone upgrade to rmbp unless you are doing video or 3d rending etc type of work.

image retenntion and overheating are two major problems, especially for gaming.
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I bought it to use Facebook and Word. I enjoy it and if you do get lucky from the IR issues, this computer will be the best you will ever use (for now).
 
Newbie MacUser said:
Well i'm actually drawing a comparison about the step up from 2nd Gen Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge. There wasn't as much a a performance bump as people expected. All i'm saying is if you're going to spend $3K on a laptop wait for the next gen retina MBP. Intel is saying it will boost battery life another 40%. Which means if people are getting 10 +/-2 hours now, it will be like 14 hrs +/- 2hrs. Which makes a much bigger difference. Especially to those people that are graphic design/engineering/architecture people that use processor intensive programs.
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Projected improvement is never real.

Plus if you work in any of those fields, you'd realize that your monthly income far offset the cost of the upgrade. In fact, a rMBP is simply a fraction of your income.

Considering people who work in design/engineering/architecture, or in my case, software development, will get a lot of use out of the machine in 7-8 months, I think it's worth it to make the jump now.

Now, if you were a student looking to get this machine for... whatever reason you may have, then yeah, it's good being cautious. But really, 7-8 months is a very long wait. You can get a lot done on a rMBP during that time.

h3blade said:
i have rmbp, and would not recommend anyone upgrade to rmbp unless you are doing video or 3d rending etc type of work.

image retenntion and overheating are two major problems, especially for gaming.
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Well, then... do less gaming? I have never had the fan rev up during the time I use my rMBP for AutoCAD, Photoshop, Xcode, etc...
 
I just came out what 2-3 months ago?

When you buy a car, do you go, "This vehicle design came out two years ago, let's wait six more for the refreshed model?"
 
rockyroad55 said:
I bought it to use Facebook and Word. I enjoy it and if you do get lucky from the IR issues, this computer will be the best you will ever use (for now).
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Aren't those the 2 worst things to use a rMBP for? :D
Word isn't going to be supported as stated by MS and Facebook has all kinds of users complaining on FPS performance. Unless of course this is hilarious sarcasm.
 
derbothaus said:
Aren't those the 2 worst things to use a rMBP for? :D
Word isn't going to be supported as stated by MS and Facebook has all kinds of users complaining on FPS performance. Unless of course this is hilarious sarcasm.
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Nah those weren't my original intentions but I do use Facebook and Word quite often. I don't have any issues with Facebook. Now, for Office, that's a whole different story.
 
it is not just gaming, in fact I should say heavy cpu and gpu usage like final cut pro or 3d rending.
yes rmbp is overkill for facebook and photo editing or internet

i am happy with rmbp except gaming or overheat issues when using alot of cpu or GPU
 
sl2obel2ts said:
Its been about 3 months since the 15 retina was released. Is it a good time buy?
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I wouldn't expect any type of updates to the rMBP anytime soon. Buy now and enjoy. Don't worry when apple will give the rMBP a speed bump.
 
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