Should I wait to purchase rMBP

[MUWarrior10]

I am considering purchasing a 15inch rMBP. Any word on whether Apple will be updating these at WWDC? I know the buyer's guide says purchase only if necessary, but waiting seems so hard!

Also, my first post so please be gentle.

 

[yjchua95]

I am considering purchasing a 15inch rMBP. Any word on whether Apple will be updating these at WWDC? I know the buyer's guide says purchase only if necessary, but waiting seems so hard!

Also, my first post so please be gentle.

If there's an update at WWDC, it'll only be a tiny speed bump (i.e. raising the processor clock speed by 0.1-0.2GHz). Broadwell isn't coming anytime soon yet, unfortunately :/

So go ahead and buy one now if you need it. There won't be any performance difference due to the 0.1-0.2GHz increase.

 

[mtneer]

I am considering purchasing a 15inch rMBP. Any word on whether Apple will be updating these at WWDC? I know the buyer's guide says purchase only if necessary, but waiting seems so hard!

Also, my first post so please be gentle.

Do you need one now? (I.e, your current machine just died or got stolen etc.) if not, why not just hunker down another month or so and buy after you see what WWDC brings?

 

[Meister]

If there's an update at WWDC, it'll only be a tiny speed bump (i.e. raising the processor clock speed by 0.1-0.2GHz). Broadwell isn't coming anytime soon yet, unfortunately :/
So go ahead and buy one now if you need it. There won't be any performance difference due to the 0.1-0.2GHz increase.

Not really related to the topic, but I just saw your signature...
What are you doing?

 

[MCAsan]

Once you see what changes they announce at WWDC, you can decide if waiting until tax free weekend in the fall is a good deal. Many states do a tax free weekend in August or September to help with kids going back to school. I know that in South Carolina no limit on the computer cost. Here in Georgia there is a limit to the computer cost that is tax free.

An education discount plus tax free may be the best deal on a new laptop. But tax free on a refurbed one from Apple is likely the best deal of all. A top of the line refurbed rMBP is $500 less than a new one....and has the same warranty.

 

[maflynn]

Since Broadwell is delayed and if there is a refresh, it will be a minor spec bump.

I'd say if you have a need that's fairly immediate then get it now.

 

[MUWarrior10]

I'll wait and see what WWDC brings. Thanks everyone!

 

[yjchua95]

Not really related to the topic, but I just saw your signature...
What are you doing?

The two Mac Pros were paid for by my dad's company, CERN. They were transferred to his ownership as part of his employment benefits. My dad's a physicist there and he uses the two Mac Pros for rendering work. The two Mac Pros are never in my home; they're in my dad's Geneva residence (I live in Queenstown, NZ)

The two iMacs were purchased to replace the elderly 2008 20" and 24" systems respectively. The 27" iMac acts as a home server and a gaming machine, as well as for running multiple VMs at the same time and 4K video editing. The 21.5" iMac is my regular desktop machine, for heavy photo editing and medium-heavy 1080p video editing.

The 15" rMBP (2.6/16/1TB/GT750M) was a free gift from my uncle (he's a software engineer at Apple). The base 13" rMBP (2.4/4/128) was won from a raffle, but I found it too underpowered for my needs and so my mom now uses it for web browsing, watching movies, iTunes and the occasional word processing. The other 13" rMBP (2.8 i7/16/512) was purchased as a lightweight but somewhat powerful machine for use outside of my home. I only carry the 15" when I need power outside of my home.

The early-2011 MBP was my main machine until it succumbed to Radeongate and got replaced by my two rMBPs.

The 2010 17" is for guest usage. It's permanently chained to the living room table with a Kensington lock.

The Mac Mini is mainly used as a HTPC as well as for web browsing and reading newspapers online in the living room. It's connected to a 42" LG Infinia Borderless in the living room.

The MacBook Air is my dad's carry-around machine.

So yeah, that's how all my Macs are being used

 

[Meister]

The two Mac Pros were paid for by my dad's company, CERN. They were transferred to his ownership as part of his employment benefits. My dad's a physicist there and he uses the two Mac Pros for rendering work. The two Mac Pros are never in my home; they're in my dad's Geneva residence (I live in Queenstown, NZ)

The two iMacs were purchased to replace the elderly 2008 20" and 24" systems respectively. The 27" iMac acts as a home server and a gaming machine, as well as for running multiple VMs at the same time and 4K video editing. The 21.5" iMac is my regular desktop machine, for heavy photo editing and medium-heavy 1080p video editing.

The 15" rMBP (2.6/16/1TB/GT750M) was a free gift from my uncle (he's a software engineer at Apple). The base 13" rMBP (2.4/4/128) was won from a raffle, but I found it too underpowered for my needs and so my mom now uses it for web browsing, watching movies, iTunes and the occasional word processing. The other 13" rMBP (2.8 i7/16/512) was purchased as a lightweight but somewhat powerful machine for use outside of my home. I only carry the 15" when I need power outside of my home.

The early-2011 MBP was my main machine until it succumbed to Radeongate and got replaced by my two rMBPs.

The 2010 17" is for guest usage. It's permanently chained to the living room table with a Kensington lock.

The Mac Mini is mainly used as a HTPC as well as for web browsing and reading newspapers online in the living room. It's connected to a 42" LG Infinia Borderless in the living room.

The MacBook Air is my dad's carry-around machine.

So yeah, that's how all my Macs are being used

thx for the explanation. Nice mac collection.
A lot of your equipment makes sense since it is work related.

Isn't it inconvenient to have that many macs since you have to keep track of where what files are stored?
I think just using the base rmbp for watching videos and webbrowsing is almost an insult.
Its not exactly underpowered for most people.
Also purchasing another maxed 13" rmbp after you won one and got a free one as a gift seems like just building a mac collection to me

 

[The Mercurian]

I live in Queenstown, NZ

You lucky bastard - I got to visit there last year its an incredible place. I don't know how you get time to use one mac never mind 11 with all the cool stuff to do there.

 

[yjchua95]

thx for the explanation. Nice mac collection.
A lot of your equipment makes sense since it is work related.

Isn't it inconvenient to have that many macs since you have to keep track of where what files are stored?
I think just using the base rmbp for watching videos and webbrowsing is almost an insult.
Its not exactly underpowered for most people.
Also purchasing another maxed 13" rmbp after you won one and got a free one as a gift seems like just building a mac collection to me

I frequently run 2 VMs together for development purposes and to test web pages

All my Macs at home are connected via Ethernet to a network attached storage, and quite a lot of stuff are synchronized over Microsoft OneDrive (I've got 28GB of lifetime storage there, and yes, it's a good Microsoft service)

Yup, having a base 13" rMBP doing iPad tasks almost seems like an insult, but my mom prefers a larger 13" screen and she also likes using a normal-sized physical keyboard. However, I feel that the base 13" rMBP is actually capable one hell of a lot more than most of us think. Read this and you'll know what I mean: http://bgr.com/2013/11/18/apple-13-inch-retina-macbook-pro-review-late-2013/

Unfortunately, the base 13" rMBP didn't meet my needs, so I bought another one that suited my needs better

On a side note, I carry the 15" with me when I need to edit 4K video on the go.

----------

You lucky bastard - I got to visit there last year its an incredible place. I don't know how you get time to use one mac never mind 11 with all the cool stuff to do there.

Queenstown's a nice place (I live in the Kelvin Heights area, at the Frankton Arm side of Lake Wakatipu), but it's boring if you stay there all year round, to the point that whenever I visit the nearby farms for fruits, I talk with the sheep out of boredom!

3 of those Macs aren't with me, they're with my dad in Geneva, Switzerland

 

[Creibold]

Wait.

The Nvidia 800 series "Maxwell" architecture is worth the wait.

Other than that, the Haswell refresh wasn't anything special - All CPUs still have the same number of cores and threads, the size of cache, the type of supported memory, the type of graphics unit, and GPU base and maximum frequencies as their predecessors.

At least the new 9-series chipsets support PCI-e M.2 - so we can get that sweet 1Gb/s performance - but i'm not sure the mobile version will get that. I can't see why not.

 

[MyiBill]

I'm going to be in the market for a new MacBook soon as mine just died. I'm probably going to wait for WWDC just in case, but I'll buy it right after that if nothing is announced.

 

[dmccloud]

Wait.

The Nvidia 800 series "Maxwell" architecture is worth the wait.

Other than that, the Haswell refresh wasn't anything special - All CPUs still have the same number of cores and threads, the size of cache, the type of supported memory, the type of graphics unit, and GPU base and maximum frequencies as their predecessors.

At least the new 9-series chipsets support PCI-e M.2 - so we can get that sweet 1Gb/s performance - but i'm not sure the mobile version will get that. I can't see why not.

Chances are any refresh at WWDC won't include a Maxwell GPU. Apple is probably saving that for when the Broadwell system is released, which would be late 2014/early 2015.

 

[yjchua95]

At least the new 9-series chipsets support PCI-e M.2 - so we can get that sweet 1Gb/s performance - but i'm not sure the mobile version will get that. I can't see why not.

The current rMBPs already support 4x PCIe - given that you have a 1TB SSD in it. I get read/writes of over 1GB/s on a good day, and on average, I get 980-1040 MB/s.

 

[thenteavill]

It's worth waiting for the best.

 

[HappyDude20]

So for sure any updates to the retina MacBook Pro line in 2014 will only be minor spec bumps?

I'm holding out in buying a rMBP myself but do find myself needing a computer more and more. I'd go for one that's at least 512GB, screen size doesn't matter so long as the price is right and it's a great machine.

I'm seeing the original 2012 15inch summer rMBPs for $1100 but feel it may be outdated. However it is opt he only rMBP with a dedicated gaming card..