some advice rMBP

[JMCM]

Hello Mac rumors. been lurking forever, but finally decided to join and register. I'm currently in need of a macbook or computer in that case.

My daily tasks handled on my old laptop gone bad are, or were, Photoshop, and a little bit of after affects. I usually do a lot of photo manipulation. Some minor gaming, but not severe. Streaming online. Not really a pack rat with storage usage overly compiling saving, photos, videos and such.

My question(s) arises, when it comes to ssd storage, since it is faster than hdd. Does having a sufficient or large free storage space effect on performance speed, or is the speed the same as having 80% of storage used. Is there any advantage to having a 1tb flash ssd to a 256gb flash ssd other than the space space advantage, speed wise.

I obviously want to get a macbook pro 13"

I'm looking at rmbp with 3.1ghz i7 16gb ram 256 GB

Or

rmpbp 3.1 ghz i7 16gb ram 128gb

Or

rmbp 3.1 ghz i7 16gb ram 512gb

Or

rmbp 2.9 ghz i5 8gb ram 1tb Flash storage.

Having 1tb ssd have any significant performance increase with the i5 and 8gb ram? Instead with the other combinations? Any advice is fully appreciated.

 

[Orr]

Minor CPU upgrades are practically worthless nowadays in relation to cost. The only difference worth paying for is going from dual to quad core. Save your $ and get the stock middle 13" option 2.7/8/256. Will be blazing fast and should serve your needs well for years to come. Get a cheap external drive to offload your excess photos/movies.

 

[JMCM]

Minor CPU upgrades are practically worthless nowadays in relation to cost. The only difference worth paying for is going from dual to quad core. Save your $ and get the stock middle 13" option 2.7/8/256. Will be blazing fast and should serve your needs well for years to come. Get a cheap external drive to offload your excess photos/movies.

Thanks for replying. What's your take on ram from 8 to 16?

 

[Orr]

The Pandora's box (along with iPhone RAM) of MR.
8 is plenty for your purposes.

 

[bwernsman]

I agree with the 2.7/8/256, I have 16 gig of ram in my 15" rmbp and it is complete overkill. Any more that a 256 ssd is not worth it for me (because of cost), and I just backup my files on an external drive. Unless you are working with huge PS files (upwards of a gig) I don't really see the 13" rmbp having a problem.

 

[JMCM]

I just want to avoid the spinning beach ball. As I will have this laptop for some time.

 

[Shirasaki]

My advice is you should choose the one with 512 GB of storage. Trust me. No matter how much you may use, offloading all your data to external drive is not a good idea.

I have a Macbook Air 11-inch with extremely small 128GB of ssd. You know what? I cannot even put my iTunes library on it! And since mac OS X is so bad in some ways, I need to install windows on it.

Now, I always need to take my external drive wherever I go, if I need to use computer, because my iTunes library is in there, my OneDrive library is in there, and all stuff I downloaded is in there. And what's worse, I don't have a backup! If I forget plugging in my external hard drive, some applications will not work property.

If those handy things can go with you, this is surely a great advantage. Put your handy data on your mac, and offload all not so necessary data to external hard drive. This should be the better way to store data.

 

[JMCM]

the 512gb, starting to lean on that one. Now that I think about it. I do tend to save psd files, quite a few. What's your take on the i5 i7 on that gb model.

 

[Shirasaki]

the 512gb, starting to lean on that one. Now that I think about it. I do tend to save psd files, quite a few. What's your take on the i5 i7 on that gb model.

In my view, i7 is definitely better. Remember, process it faster means you can do more and cost less.

If you want to keep the balance between cash and performance, I recommend you to browse some tech sites discussing the latest desktop hardware. CNET might be a good choice.

After reviewing the spec of two processors, I bet you can make your own decision.

 

[z31fanatic]

I would said 512GB storage and 16GB RAM but these upgrades put it in the 15 territory which has better graphics.
You are getting terrible value with the 13 when you max the RAM, CPU, and storage. I can't think of any other computers with worse value.

If you do photo editing then you need the RAM so that would be my top priority when looking at upgrades.

 

[Orr]

You are getting terrible value with the 13 when you max the RAM, CPU, and storage. I can't think of any other computers with worse value.

The latter is quite true. The 13" rMBP offers strong value in its base and middle stock iterations. Once you start adding on the 'Apple tax' for CPU and RAM upgrades, and to a lesser extent storage, your price-performance becomes extremely hard to justify. And you might as well spring for the vastly superior 15" quad core once you enter that price range. Apple has up-selling down to a science.

 

[JMCM]

I see that the quad core is better, but is it really that superior 13 But ram is not custom on the 15".

 

[Shirasaki]

I see that the quad core is better, but is it really that superior 13 But ram is not custom on the 15".

For 13 or 15, it is completely up to you.

Want a wider range? 15. Want higher portability? 13.

 

[z31fanatic]

It's criminal, isn't it? $2700 for the maxed out 13 compared to $2500 for the 15 (512 storage) with double the processing power and dedicated GPU.

 

[Shirasaki]

It's criminal, isn't it? $2700 for the maxed out 13 compared to $2500 for the 15 (512 storage) with double the processing power and dedicated GPU.

However, that is apple.

That is the tech company always overpricing everything they want to sell. And that is all.

 

[Aloko]

If you seriously do some photo manipulations, go for the 15".
I've got the following rMBP :
i7 2.3GHz
NVidia 650M
16Gb Ram
512 SSD

I work with photo everyday on my laptop and the most important feature to me is the 15" screen. The 2.3Ghz i7 is nice for effects, export etc. I usually dont use more than 8Go of RAM but I dont do a lot of mutiple layers work.

512 SSD is nice and this **** is incredibly fast. My Working Catalogs are on the internal SSD, the pics on a USB3 SSD.

 

[JMCM]

If you seriously do some photo manipulations, go for the 15".
I've got the following rMBP :
i7 2.3GHz
NVidia 650M
16Gb Ram
512 SSD

I work with photo everyday on my laptop and the most important feature to me is the 15" screen. The 2.3Ghz i7 is nice for effects, export etc. I usually dont use more than 8Go of RAM but I dont do a lot of mutiple layers work.

512 SSD is nice and this **** is incredibly fast. My Working Catalogs are on the internal SSD, the pics on a USB3 SSD.

Sweet machine. Question, do the dual cores for the 13 have hyper threading.

 

[Moshu]

Sweet machine. Question, do the dual cores for the 13 have hyper threading.

They have - and so do the 4 cores on the i7

Edit: don't forget that Hyperthreading does not equal 1 extra core. For all-purpose use, it might equal half'a'core ;-)