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Which MacBook Pro 13.3"

  • MacBook Pro w/o Touch Bar - Dual Core, 8GB Ram, 640 Graphics

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • MacBook Pro w/o Touch Bar - Dual Core, 16GB Ram, 640 Graphics

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • MacBook Pro w/Touch Bar - Quad Core, 8GB Ram, 655 Graphics

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    18

FrankySavvy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 4, 2010
1,616
808
Long Island, NY
I am a Graphic Designer looking for some guidance.

I want to get a 13.3" MacBook Pro - for portability - no 15"

I basically live in Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Main work flow is print design, logo design, web design. I am never handling images higher than 12MP. Occasionally use may include After Effects for quick Logo animations and Premiere for short 1-3 minute standard HD videos (not 4k).

Now that you know my use case - three questions.

1) Dual Core or Quad Core Processor?

2) 8GB or 16GB Memory?

3) Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 or 655?

What matters for my work flow?

Thanks
 

DougFNJ

macrumors 65816
Jan 22, 2008
1,485
1,212
NJ
Quad Core was a game changer for the 13 Inch. It basically caught it up to the 13 inch from 2 years ago with a much more compact size.

I found it to be a HUGE difference in my video editing and rendering flies compared to 2 core. Photo editing is supposed to be as much of a resource hog as video editing to my understanding.

With your workflow, 16GB Ram will serve you well. Good luck, please let us know what you decide and what you think.
 
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FrankySavvy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 4, 2010
1,616
808
Long Island, NY
Quad Core was a game changer for the 13 Inch. It basically caught it up to the 13 inch from 2 years ago with a much more compact size.

I found it to be a HUGE difference in my video editing and rendering flies compared to 2 core. Photo editing is supposed to be as much of a resource hog as video editing to my understanding.

With your workflow, 16GB Ram will serve you well. Good luck, please let us know what you decide and what you think.

You think 8gb is too low? Looking at a cost difference of $200 bucks, will I notice the difference?
 

chrfr

macrumors G5
Jul 11, 2009
13,706
7,271
I would pass on the non-touch bar model now. It's 2 years old and has the keyboard that's even more flawed than the 2019 with no redesign.
 

FrankySavvy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 4, 2010
1,616
808
Long Island, NY
I would pass on the non-touch bar model now. It's 2 years old and has the keyboard that's even more flawed than the 2019 with no redesign.

Okay so I’ll definitely get the quad core, now comes the big decision of 8gb or 16gb ram, is it worth the $200 for my workflow?
 

Spankey

macrumors 6502a
Sep 30, 2007
869
341
NJ
If you get the 8GB and find out you need more your screwed. Bite the bullet on the 16GB for insurance.
 

FrankySavvy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 4, 2010
1,616
808
Long Island, NY
A bit of a dilemma - Best Buy has the base 2019 model 13.3” with Touch Bar, 2.4ghz Quad Core processor, 256gb storage, 8gb ram for $1599, it will cost me almost $300 bucks to double the memory which seems rather pricey for what kind of gain? Are we talking a couple of seconds in photo editing?
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,510
19,646
A bit of a dilemma - Best Buy has the base 2019 model 13.3” with Touch Bar, 2.4ghz Quad Core processor, 256gb storage, 8gb ram for $1599, it will cost me almost $300 bucks to double the memory which seems rather pricey for what kind of gain? Are we talking a couple of seconds in photo editing?

With RAM, the speedup is basically either nothing or it slows down the processing by factor of X. The question is whether you have enough RAM for the software to perform the task efficiently. If you habe more, it won’t really give you any benefit.

Since hi-res and wide-gamut content is only going to become more ubiquitous, I also think it might be a good idea to get 16GB. Or just go for the 15” straight away.
 

Gooberton

macrumors 65816
Jun 20, 2010
1,280
672
A bit of a dilemma - Best Buy has the base 2019 model 13.3” with Touch Bar, 2.4ghz Quad Core processor, 256gb storage, 8gb ram for $1599, it will cost me almost $300 bucks to double the memory which seems rather pricey for what kind of gain? Are we talking a couple of seconds in photo editing?

I’m telling you right now. When using photoshop for anything never ever ever get the base ram. You will be sorry
 
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57004

Cancelled
Aug 18, 2005
1,022
341
Too bad there's no Quad core without touch bar :( I really prefer having real function keys as I use them a lot in SSH connections.
 

FrankySavvy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 4, 2010
1,616
808
Long Island, NY
I’m curious what happens when the ram is not enough for a task? Does it grab extra memory from the computers storage? will the program crash or just slow down?
 

buran-energia

macrumors 6502
Oct 9, 2017
298
115
I’m curious what happens when the ram is not enough for a task? Does it grab extra memory from the computers storage? will the program crash or just slow down?

The OS will write lesser used memory blocks to the disk and back when it is needed. The disk is slower than memory, albeit to a lesser degree with recent MBP's SSDs. So if software needs to access all that memory very fast and constantly, you should notice slowdowns.

Afaik, 8 GB for Adobe software is the bare minimum. Get 16GB, stay away from non-touch bar models (as internals like the cooling solution, cpu, gpu, etc., are way worse), and that's it.

edit: Btw, macOS won't use all available disk space to replace your memory. There's some relatively small amount, which probably can be adjusted.
 
Last edited:

bill-p

macrumors 68030
Jul 23, 2011
2,929
1,589
I follow this general guideline when purchasing any technology: "never go for what you need, always go for what you want, because eventually, what you want will become what you need".

edit: Btw, macOS won't use all available disk space to replace your memory. There's some relatively small amount, which probably can be adjusted.

Actually... that's not quite true.

User account:
https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/4hfq9p/osx_takes_too_much_swap_storage/

And some technical info:
https://medium.com/@ayltai/need-for...ry-last-drop-out-of-macos-sierra-7ac17b680c98

Granted, it's not just "swap memory" that's the culprit, but a multitude of things. But... honestly, there are situations where you will literally run out of space on a Mac just by closing the lid. This is especially true when you have a lot of apps open, few free RAM, and limited free storage remaining.

Lightroom writes caches of image previews to memory and will cause things to blow up.
Photoshop also writes caches of layers and images to memory AND storage (they call it scratch disk or something like that?) and will cause things to blow up even more than Lightroom.
Combine the two like any unsuspecting photographer and you will most likely engage memory swapping even with 16GB of RAM and only Lightroom and Photoshop running.

A bit of a dilemma - Best Buy has the base 2019 model 13.3” with Touch Bar, 2.4ghz Quad Core processor, 256gb storage, 8gb ram for $1599, it will cost me almost $300 bucks to double the memory which seems rather pricey for what kind of gain? Are we talking a couple of seconds in photo editing?

Yeah, a couple of seconds... per photo.

So say, you have a project that needs you to process... about 1000 - 2000 photos. And it takes you... 5 seconds just to open and view each photo.

It'll take something like... 1.5 hours just to review the photos and decide on which ones to delete or not.

Versus... if it takes only 2-3 seconds to open and view each photo.

It'll take only... 30-40 minutes for the same task. So you save on average about AN HOUR every single time you review the photos.

That's just viewing and deleting, not even counting editing time.

So yeah, decide for yourself whether saving that one hour is worth it or not.
 

FrankySavvy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 4, 2010
1,616
808
Long Island, NY
The OS will write lesser used memory blocks to the disk and back when it is needed. The disk is slower than memory, albeit to a lesser degree with recent MBP's SSDs. So if software needs to access all that memory very fast and constantly, you should notice slowdowns.

Afaik, 8 GB for Adobe software is the bare minimum. Get 16GB, stay away from non-touch bar models (as internals like the cooling solution, cpu, gpu, etc., are way worse), and that's it.

edit: Btw, macOS won't use all available disk space to replace your memory. There's some relatively small amount, which probably can be adjusted.

Thank you for the explanation, just having trouble spending an extra $300 bucks for just ram, by that point Best Buy is selling the base 15” 6 core, 256gb, 16gb ram Touch Bar model MacBook Pro for $2099 (originally $2399)
 

FrankySavvy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 4, 2010
1,616
808
Long Island, NY
I follow this general guideline when purchasing any technology: "never go for what you need, always go for what you want, because eventually, what you want will become what you need".



Actually... that's not quite true.

User account:
https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/4hfq9p/osx_takes_too_much_swap_storage/

And some technical info:
https://medium.com/@ayltai/need-for...ry-last-drop-out-of-macos-sierra-7ac17b680c98

Granted, it's not just "swap memory" that's the culprit, but a multitude of things. But... honestly, there are situations where you will literally run out of space on a Mac just by closing the lid. This is especially true when you have a lot of apps open, few free m

RAM, and limited free storage remaining.

Lightroom writes caches of image previews to memory and will cause things to blow up.
Photoshop also writes caches of layers and images to memory AND storage (they call it scratch disk or something like that?) and will cause things to blow up even more than Lightroom.
Combine the two like any unsuspecting photographer and you will most likely engage memory swapping even with 16GB of RAM and only Lightroom and Photoshop running.



Yeah, a couple of seconds... per photo.

So say, you have a project that needs you to process... about 1000 - 2000 photos. And it takes you... 5 seconds just to open and view each photo.

It'll take something like... 1.5 hours just to review the photos and decide on which ones to delete or not.

Versus... if it takes only 2-3 seconds to open and view each photo.

It'll take only... 30-40 minutes for the same task. So you save on average about AN HOUR every single time you review the photos.

That's just viewing and deleting, not even counting editing time.

So yeah, decide for yourself whether saving that one hour is worth it or not.
I follow this general guideline when purchasing any technology: "never go for what you need, always go for what you want, because eventually, what you want will become what you need".



Actually... that's not quite true.

User account:
https://www.reddit.com/r/osx/comments/4hfq9p/osx_takes_too_much_swap_storage/

And some technical info:
https://medium.com/@ayltai/need-for...ry-last-drop-out-of-macos-sierra-7ac17b680c98

Granted, it's not just "swap memory" that's the culprit, but a multitude of things. But... honestly, there are situations where you will literally run out of space on a Mac just by closing the lid. This is especially true when you have a lot of apps open, few free RAM, and limited free storage remaining.

Lightroom writes caches of image previews to memory and will cause things to blow up.
Photoshop also writes caches of layers and images to memory AND storage (they call it scratch disk or something like that?) and will cause things to blow up even more than Lightroom.
Combine the two like any unsuspecting photographer and you will most likely engage memory swapping even with 16GB of RAM and only Lightroom and Photoshop running.



Yeah, a couple of seconds... per photo.

So say, you have a project that needs you to process... about 1000 - 2000 photos. And it takes you... 5 seconds just to open and view each photo.

It'll take something like... 1.5 hours just to review the photos and decide on which ones to delete or not.

Versus... if it takes only 2-3 seconds to open and view each photo.

It'll take only... 30-40 minutes for the same task. So you save on average about AN HOUR every single time you review the photos.

That's just viewing and deleting, not even counting editing time.

So yeah, decide for yourself whether saving that one hour is worth it or not.

I am never batching that many photos, at a time. My workload is pretty light, I mostly create logos in Illustrator, do some basic photo manipulation, background removal in Photoshop, design business cards flyers/brochures in InDesign. Web site design via the web or Dreamweaver, and on occasion use After Effects for short logo intro/outros and Premiere for quick 30-45 second business centric videos.

Never all at once for multiple clients at the moment. Just one project at a time.
 

Hieveryone

macrumors 603
Apr 11, 2014
5,627
2,339
USA
I used to think touch bar was a gimmick and thought if I ever upgraded i would get non touch bar version.

But then I needed the 15" which comes with touch bar and while I still think it's a gimmick, touch ID is AWESOME.

i don't know if the non touch bar comes with touch ID or not, but for me it's a must. I honestly would hate to go back.
 

FrankySavvy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 4, 2010
1,616
808
Long Island, NY
So I bought the 13.3” Touch Bar with 8gb of ram and couldn’t get it to peak over 6.25gb while running photoshop with two multi layer files open, indesign with a 3 page document with words and images, Maps, Pages, numbers, Keynote, Messages, Photos and Safari with google maps, weather.com, Apple.com and pandora all open.

I think that’s a pretty hefty load.

Am I missing something that will really put it over the edge?
 

57004

Cancelled
Aug 18, 2005
1,022
341
I used to think touch bar was a gimmick and thought if I ever upgraded i would get non touch bar version.

But then I needed the 15" which comes with touch bar and while I still think it's a gimmick, touch ID is AWESOME.

i don't know if the non touch bar comes with touch ID or not, but for me it's a must. I honestly would hate to go back.

The thing is, if you get the non touch bar you also get a CPU from more than 2 years old, dualcore instead of quad and less ports, and a keyboard that is known to have many reliability issues. Because that model is still the exact same as it was in 2015 when it was released. It's just a non-starter IMO.

If you want Touch ID without touch bar you could get the Air. But you'll still be stuck with dualcore and only 2 ports :(
 
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