Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Retina Macbook Pro Ram pricing

A

applewindows

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 15, 2012
3
0
Hey everyone :)

I just purchased a RMBP from Best Buy because of the sale they are having. I was able to get it for a final price of $2,782.00 which include tax! This is saving me about $180.

However, I have been thinking. Is 8gb enough? If I want to upgrade to 16gb of Ram I will have to purchase the computer from the apple store which will have a final price of $3,178.

So here's my question to you: is upgrading the Ram to 16 Gb worth $400 dollars in your opinion?

Thanks!
 
applewindows said:
Hey everyone :)

I just purchased a RMBP from Best Buy because of the sale they are having. I was able to get it for a final price of $2,782.00 which include tax! This is saving me about $180.

However, I have been thinking. Is 8gb enough? If I want to upgrade to 16gb of Ram I will have to purchase the computer from the apple store which will have a final price of $3,178.

So here's my question to you: is upgrading the Ram to 16 Gb worth $400 dollars in your opinion?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Depends on your usage. The people who won't use it shouldn't even spend $200 (but will anyways), while the people who NEED it would probably spend $400 if they needed to. It all depends on what you need to use it for.
 
8GB of ram is allot of ram. That is good enough for 90% of the people buying them. The other 10% who really needs it gets it.

The good thing about the upper base model you just got is that when you have a problem, battery, pixels, etc. You can just swap it out at the store. A BTO will have to be sent in for repair. You will have to wait.

If you never use more than 8gb, what good is it. If you need it get it. If you don't need it don't worry. 8gb is plenty.
 
Slivortal said:
Depends on your usage. The people who won't use it shouldn't even spend $200 (but will anyways), while the people who NEED it would probably spend $400 if they needed to. It all depends on what you need to use it for.
Click to expand...

this is the best way it's ever been put - for a profession editor, we'll pay $400 if we had to. Time saved is money earned.
 
mischief said:
Yes. As there is NO OTHER WAY TO ADD RAM LATER.
Click to expand...

I stick firm to my stance that future-proofing is a ridiculous concept when there are several other portions of your RMBP that will probably go obsolete before your 8GB of RAM, but then again I'm one of the people who needs 16 (and wouldn't mind 32) GB of RAM now, so maybe I'm just biased in that sense. :p
 
iamthedudeman said:
The good thing about the upper base model you just got is that when you have a problem, battery, pixels, etc. You can just swap it out at the store. A BTO will have to be sent in for repair. You will have to wait.
Click to expand...

That distinction is likely non-appliccable in the case of the RMBP as there are so few parts. Since the mounted lobo RAM is the major difference between the models and everything else is hard-mounted to the topcase it's unlikely to follow the same BTO protocol.

----------
Slivortal said:
I stick firm to my stance that future-proofing is a ridiculous concept when there are several other portions of your RMBP that will probably go obsolete before your 8GB of RAM, but then again I'm one of the people who needs 16 (and wouldn't mind 32) GB of RAM now, so maybe I'm just biased in that sense. :p
Click to expand...

Here's a horrific thought: What if there's a systemic design flaw that requires the kind of firmware chicanery they use with solid state drives to circumvent tired addresses... not enough for Apple to say they'll replace the lobo... just enough to slowly erode how much wired RAM is available at any given time.

I will be reserving some popcorn for the flaws in this design as they age.

BTW: don't go getting your hopes up that you'll be able to buy an uprated lobo from Apple the way you could buy larger RAM modules or drives through an AASP..... It won't happen. The Lobo will cost you about as much as a new Mac and yes, they do that on purpose.
 
I once read about a total geek that constructed an always on SSD out of DDR memory. Considering the speed of Thunderbolt, I wonder if such a device could have a practical application as a plug in super swap drive.

I'd be willing to pay a lot of money for a swap drive that can max Thunderbolt's 10GB per second I/O bandwidth.

It always seemed like an uber-geeky thing to do in the past, but given the limitations of new form factors and the low price of RAM, it now seems like a practical alternative to replacing a computer just because you need more memory.
 
Personally, I opted for the 16gb model, only because I'll not be able to add it later. I don't need 16gb right now, but I may down the road.

For under 200 dollars it provided me with a peace of mind and knowing I have it spec'd out to my needs now and for the foreseeable future.
 
I have an 8 and a 16 right now.

I can tell you that the performance on the 8 is better even in average everyday use.

Scrolling, opening, VMs ...

----------
maflynn said:
Personally, I opted for the 16gb model, only because I'll not be able to add it later. I don't need 16gb right now, but I may down the road.

For under 200 dollars it provided me with a peace of mind and knowing I have it spec'd out to my needs now and for the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...

Unless you're getting the edu discount...with best buys sale, its costing you 310 more than you could get today.

----------
Slivortal said:
I stick firm to my stance that future-proofing is a ridiculous concept when there are several other portions of your RMBP that will probably go obsolete before your 8GB of RAM, but then again I'm one of the people who needs 16 (and wouldn't mind 32) GB of RAM now, so maybe I'm just biased in that sense. :p
Click to expand...

I agree. But, the rMBP does seem to perform better with 16 gig...perhaps Mountain Lion will level that off.

Bet its release tomorrow.
 
Slivortal said:
I stick firm to my stance that future-proofing is a ridiculous concept when there are several other portions of your RMBP that will probably go obsolete before your 8GB of RAM, but then again I'm one of the people who needs 16 (and wouldn't mind 32) GB of RAM now, so maybe I'm just biased in that sense. :p
Click to expand...

Same here, if you dont need it now, you likely wont need it in the next year or two, unless you change your usage patten significantly. I will look again once Haswell arrives and see if a high end is of any significant value to me, 2.8, 16, 512 as standard would be reasonable, even then if the base is 2.6, 8, 256 it`s highly likely it will be still enough for my needs.

Coming from the Early 2008 15" MBP 2.4 Prenryn to the Late 2011 15" MBP 2.4 i7 Sandy Bridge performance was night & day, the Mid 2012 15" rMBP is mostly sped up by the SSD in day to day use, however under similar loads the thermals of the rMBP are amazing, I would not class my 2011 machine as a hot Mac by any means, the Retina is simply in a different league...
 
applewindows said:
Hey everyone :)

I just purchased a RMBP from Best Buy because of the sale they are having. I was able to get it for a final price of $2,782.00 which include tax! This is saving me about $180.

However, I have been thinking. Is 8gb enough? If I want to upgrade to 16gb of Ram I will have to purchase the computer from the apple store which will have a final price of $3,178.

So here's my question to you: is upgrading the Ram to 16 Gb worth $400 dollars in your opinion?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Where are you getting your numbers? 16 GB upgrade is $200 from apple order. The base model with 16gb is $2399 before tax.
 
applewindows said:
So here's my question to you: is upgrading the Ram to 16 Gb worth $400 dollars in your opinion?
Click to expand...

For me personally, it was. I often have virtual machines running, and allocating adequate RAM to a VM makes all the difference, performance-wise. I also sometimes have a development suite or Photoshop and Final Cut open concurrently. I could get away with 8GB for that use case at this point, but considering the RAM isn't upgradeable, and considering the VMWare RAM requirement, it just made no sense to NOT order 16GB.

My previous two MBPs were 17" and both had 8GB. For everything except VMWare, that was more than adequate. And it was even workable with VMWare. Now that I have 16GB I find I don't have to suspend one VM to fire up another. But I'm the first to admit that this is an unusual use case. Most people using VMWare Fusion just use it to run a single Windows VM. In that case you'd be fine with 8GB.
 
mischief said:
That distinction is likely non-appliccable in the case of the RMBP as there are so few parts. Since the mounted lobo RAM is the major difference between the models and everything else is hard-mounted to the topcase it's unlikely to follow the same BTO protocol.

----------



Here's a horrific thought: What if there's a systemic design flaw that requires the kind of firmware chicanery they use with solid state drives to circumvent tired addresses... not enough for Apple to say they'll replace the lobo... just enough to slowly erode how much wired RAM is available at any given time.

I will be reserving some popcorn for the flaws in this design as they age.

BTW: don't go getting your hopes up that you'll be able to buy an uprated lobo from Apple the way you could buy larger RAM modules or drives through an AASP..... It won't happen. The Lobo will cost you about as much as a new Mac and yes, they do that on purpose.
Click to expand...

Here's a horrific thought: What if the next OSX version after Mountain Lion is incredibly complex, and takes over 60 GB of memory? And, simultaneously, an issue with the SSD means that half of it will be dead within a year! :eek:

EVERYONE, UPGRADE TO MINIMUM 512GB, OR YOU'LL BE SORRY!!!

ZipZap said:
I have an 8 and a 16 right now.

I can tell you that the performance on the 8 is better even in average everyday use.

Scrolling, opening, VMs ...
Click to expand...

Do you actually use virtual machines? Because after the third VM, you'd be looking at less than 2GB of RAM for every virtual machine, and I've run toasters that use 2GB of RAM. :p
 
I would think apple will start stocking at least one 16gb version in store eventually. I find it utterly ridiculous that they don't offer any in store besides "the ultimate" which is nearly 4k. Seems like there is a big demand for 16gb.
 
I've been using my new MBP with 8GB of RAM and haven't even hit 50% usage so far. I only use mine for Video Editing with FCPX with Xbox gameplay and converting movies with Handbrake. Nothing that takes a huge amount of RAM though.

It just all depends on what you are going to be doing with the machine. If you are going to work with several Apps and maybe Virtual Machines they it might be worth it to you.
 
swamyg1 said:
I would think apple will start stocking at least one 16gb version in store eventually. I find it utterly ridiculous that they don't offer any in store besides "the ultimate" which is nearly 4k. Seems like there is a big demand for 16gb.
Click to expand...

First of all, these are all people posting on a tech forum. For everyday usage, I think that most people will just purchase the model they see in stores.

I honestly don't think that Apple foresaw 16GB of RAM being so popular. It should have been like every other upgrade - not very popular, but gotten by those who need it.

I feel like a lot of people start losing sight of value when they're already shelling out $2200+tax. Sure, 16GB of RAM may be less than 10% the cost of the computer, but it's still $200. You could buy a brand new Nexus 7 with that kind of money.

In the case of $400, you could buy a brand new iPad 2.
 
I just wish Apple figured out a way to put those SODIMM ram sticks somewhere, maybe across, to have the ability to upgrade.

Thankfully rMBP stock is 8GB.
 
gentlefury said:
Where are you getting your numbers? 16 GB upgrade is $200 from apple order. The base model with 16gb is $2399 before tax.
Click to expand...

I am buying the $2,799 which has 8gb of RAM and a 512gb ssd. With best buys sale and after tax my final price is $2,782. If I upgrade to 16gb of RAM at the apple store I dont get the huge discount that best buy offers. This raises my final price to $3,178 after tax. That's almost 400
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back