rMPB - which one to buy

[williamguy]

I have an early 2008 15" MBP... and finally decided to upgrade.

I am heading to university in February to study medicine, so won't need something that can handle graphic intense Adobe applications, but I have a few questions.

I have decided the 15" is too big and too pricey, so I'm looking at the 13".

I will be using this for university papers, and want to run Windows via bootcamp and play a few games (DayZ, Arma II and Pro Cycling Manager).

I have come up with a couple of ideas and want to hear your thoughts (prices are in NZD).

128GB, 2.6GHz i5 13" rMPB with 8GB RAM for $2139

256GB, 2.4GHz i5 13" rMP with 8GB RAM for $2148

I understand that the Windows partition with games would be ~40GB, so if I was to get the 128GB I would be left with ~80GB to use for university. I plan to use an external HD to save my work so this most likely wouldn't be a problem.

Which one would be best for running the games in Windows? Which one would you buy?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I would get the 256 GB model, as the extra 200 MHz will hardly be noticeable, unless you need to save a minute or two during daily hourlong computations that hog the CPU.

 

[williamguy]

Thanks for the fast response.

What are thoughts on 8 or 16GB of RAM? What would I need for high graphics gaming through bootcamp?

Do you recommend any external HD's? I don't need thunderbolt, USB 3.0 preferably but I could live with 2.0.

 

[SVT Amateur]

I echo what the previous poster said - you won't notice the difference in CPU speed but will want the bigger hard drive if you are going to run Boot Camp. Also, the bigger the SSD the faster the read and write speeds are - which you may actually notice in performance.

I have a 15" rMBP with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB hard drive and it runs games in Boot Camp perfectly. I have no issues with having only 8 GB of RAM.

 

[yjchua95]

I have an early 2008 15" MBP... and finally decided to upgrade.

I am heading to university in February to study medicine, so won't need something that can handle graphic intense Adobe applications, but I have a few questions.

I have decided the 15" is too big and too pricey, so I'm looking at the 13".

I will be using this for university papers, and want to run Windows via bootcamp and play a few games (DayZ, Arma II and Pro Cycling Manager).

I have come up with a couple of ideas and want to hear your thoughts (prices are in NZD).

128GB, 2.6GHz i5 13" rMPB with 8GB RAM for $2139

256GB, 2.4GHz i5 13" rMP with 8GB RAM for $2148

I understand that the Windows partition with games would be ~40GB, so if I was to get the 128GB I would be left with ~80GB to use for university. I plan to use an external HD to save my work so this most likely wouldn't be a problem.

Which one would be best for running the games in Windows? Which one would you buy?

40GB for the Boot Camp partition is unrealistic. It'd leave too little room for anything else. You should dedicate at least 60GB to it.

If you're going to play games, integrated cards can give a somewhat adequate performance only.