Should I upgrade?

[fraxool]

Hello!

I actually have a mid-2014 Macbook Pro 15" with the following configuration :

- Intel Core i7 2,5 GHz
- 16Gb RAM
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M + Intel Iris Pro 1536 Mo
- 512Gb SSD

So a pretty good configuration. I am a full-time web & app developer and I work from home exclusively on this Macbook Pro. But sometimes, I am experiencing some lags when it comes to "big tasks" like virtualization of several VM at the same time + Android & iOs emulators.

So I am beginning to think about selling my actual MBP to go to the new generation. Not a big fan of the touch bar, but I need the 15" screen. Do you think I will get better performances if I upgrade to this kind of configuration ? =>

• 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
• 16GB 2133MHz memory
• 512GB PCIe-based SSD
• Radeon Pro 460 with 4GB memory

What do you think about this choice?

Thanks!
Axel

 

[Calby]

You I'll gain some preformenc.
Both CPU and ram is faster then the 2014 model.

 

[Fishrrman]

For doing all those things at once I don't believe you'll see any significant improvements with a new MBPro.

What you need is either a high-end iMac or a Mac Pro...

 

[fraxool]

Thanks for the comments. But in fact, I still need laptop, because I move a lot. So maybe I will keep my actual MBP until the new ones come out.

But if some people here have switched from a similar configuration to the new ones, I'll be happy to hear if they experienced a little bump in the performances !

 

[ZapNZs]

I vote Not yet: I have your computer, run multiple VMs as well, and my guess is that your biggest single limitation is the 16GB RAM. The faster SSDs on the 2016 could help some, but there is still a huge gap between the SSD speed and RAM speed, so with the 32GB option likely to appear in 6-10 months, it's worth the wait to see what happens with those, in my opinion.

 

[wolfaaron]

Since you need a laptop and you work with both Android and iOS emulations. Yes, upgrade. Your scenario is one of the few exceptions that should be upgrading their Macs as often as possible, or at least when you start to experience lag or bugs.

 

[fraxool]

In fact, I mainly work like this : Android / iOs emulators, ionic server running in the background at the same time, console debugging on Google Chrome & Safari for my ionic apps. And an IDE opened : sometimes Atom, sometimes Coda 2 or Xcode. That's when I work with all of these tasks that it starts to lag. From my Monitor, it's more about the processor being fully charged than from the RAM.

I don't always work with all of that, but that's how I generally do.

 

[wolfaaron]

In fact, I mainly work like this : Android / iOs emulators, ionic server running in the background at the same time, console debugging on Google Chrome & Safari for my ionic apps. And an IDE opened : sometimes Atom, sometimes Coda 2 or Xcode. That's when I work with all of these tasks that it starts to lag. From my Monitor, it's more about the processor being fully charged than from the RAM.

I don't always work with all of that, but that's how I generally do.

The jump from your 2014 model to the 2016 model you referenced is quite a big jump. It will make a difference because the newer generations of i7's are a lot more efficient and faster. But will it stop your issues? It's hard to tell really, most likely you will notice a difference.

You could always go get one and try it for a week and if you don't like it you have another week to decide whether to return or keep. If you're thinking of waiting for the late 2016 model to come out, CPU-wise people have been telling me that it won't make much of a difference in that aspect.

 

[Sanpete]

The areas where the new MBP can really help are with thermal throttling, dGPU acceleration, and transferring very large files faster. If your machine is running hot, it's worth looking into. I don't think the programs you use draw on the dGPU.

 

[tubeexperience]

It probably won't make much of a difference.

I wouldn't upgrade.

 

[smirking]

I'm a Web Developer myself and I went from a mid-2012 MBP to the maxed 15" tbMBP. My new MBP is certainly quite a bit snappier and it's a lot faster in rendering Web pages on the client side, but I can't say that it's been a night and day difference in resource intensive areas. It's faster for sure, but it's not so fast that I could attest to getting more done. I still have to wait a long time for certain processes to finish.

On the flip side, upgrades always break things so whatever productivity gains I'd see from modestly better speed is likely obliterated for a year from having to troubleshoot login failures, reinstall software, hunt down old license codes, re-optimize dev server services, and so forth. Also if you've got a lot of legacy hardware that's not USB-C native (haha "legacy"), expect to spend lots of time figuring out exactly what dongle you need to do what because connecting your peripherals up to your new MBP isn't simply a matter of the two ends fitting together (especially with monitors or high bandwidth devices like USB3.0 storage.

On the other hand, upgrading to the 15" tbMBP allowed me to get a 5K Ultrafine, which was the real reason why I upgraded even though I'm not thrilled with the current MBP model. I can definitely say that having a crystal clear 5K display is a huge productivity boost and this was the right move. On most days, I can stare at this thing all day and not have eye strain.

Almost at all times, I'm running a dev Web server (MAMP usually), an IDE, Mail, Office Apps, Safari and Chrome with debugging extensions. On top of this I'm often also running Photoshop, Capture One Pro, Win7 on Parallels, and sometimes Final Cut Pro. If 32GB were available, I'd certainly go for it, but so far it's not really that big of a deal.

I was doing all of this on a mid-2012 and I've found that the biggest performance killer in my library were MS Office apps. That remains true on my brand new MBP. If things are dragging, I quit out of Excel and the fog lifts.

 

[jerryk]

Hello!

I actually have a mid-2014 Macbook Pro 15" with the following configuration :

- Intel Core i7 2,5 GHz
- 16Gb RAM
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M + Intel Iris Pro 1536 Mo
- 512Gb SSD

So a pretty good configuration. I am a full-time web & app developer and I work from home exclusively on this Macbook Pro. But sometimes, I am experiencing some lags when it comes to "big tasks" like virtualization of several VM at the same time + Android & iOs emulators.

So I am beginning to think about selling my actual MBP to go to the new generation. Not a big fan of the touch bar, but I need the 15" screen. Do you think I will get better performances if I upgrade to this kind of configuration ? =>

• 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
• 16GB 2133MHz memory
• 512GB PCIe-based SSD
• Radeon Pro 460 with 4GB memory

What do you think about this choice?

Thanks!
Axel

I don't think the change will be huge. I do a similar load on my 2015 15" and have tried it on a 2016 15" and it did not feel any faster.

You did not say where you are seeing lags. But, the best thing you can do for Android emulation is ensure you are running the x86 version of the phone/tablet emulator. That version is many times faster than the standard ARM based emulator.

 

[Naimfan]

Don't bother.

Wait until the 2017 with Kaby Lake; it won't be much of an improvement on Skylake, but maybe, just maybe, Apple will iron out some of the teething problems that exist with the 2016. I've had two of the 2016 models and returned both in favor of a 2015, which is a much more mature design.

 

[noteple]

A little bit faster benchmark and marginal faster memory.
You'll feel the difference but more in the wallet than keyboard.

 

[MH01]

Get a new machine in the 2 week return period, test it with your current workflow, my assumption is that it will not make a big difference and will not not be worth the upgrade

 

[fraxool]

Thanks for all of the comments. I'm not in a hurry and I can still live with the lags I experience sometimes - I just hope it will not get worse - so I think it's worth the wait for the next generation.

Kaby Lake generation should bring a significant difference with my actual MBP, I guess.

 

[Sanpete]

Kaby Lake generation should bring a significant difference with my actual MBP, I guess.

Probably about 10-15% more than the current one.