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To 13" rMBP Users

ayeying

ayeying

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 5, 2007
4,547
13
Yay Area, CA
I'd like your input. I want some feedback from users, which the 13" model of the rMBP to comment on:

1) Virtual Machine Usage (Max of 3 VMs running at once, totaling 5GB for VMs, rest for Host)
2) Mild/Heavy Gaming (CoD: BO2, Anno 2070, Civ 5, etc.)
3) Charging Time (For Battery)

I'm looking to get a smaller laptop to supplement what I have currently (Mid-2010 15" MBP, Specs in Sig)

Obviously the video card and ram will be a limitation but considering I'm doing fine with 8GB ram and a hard drive currently, I don't believe it will be a huge issue.
 
I can comment on gaming. It won't be too great. All the 13's are integrated graphics of course, and games won't run too well.
 
It really depends on the games. I was able to play Diablo 3 with a Sandy Bridge 2.5 Core i5 and HD3000 just fine (my old laptop) and the added bonus is - the machine won't heat up too much since it doesn't use a dedicated gfx card.

Stuff like HalfLife 2 even runs at a solid 60 FPS rate.

Now the current Ivy Bridge will add like 10% CPU power and closer to 50% GPU power, so you will be able to play that and older games just fine. Just don't expect to run Crysis 3 on this unless maybe smallest resolution, everything off and lowest possible details - which kind of defeats the purpose on Crysis 3 which always has been a technology demo in my book ;)

For a detailed performance review, check out this link.
 
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From my experience, the MBPr 13" is excellent for single threaded applications (e.g. simulations in MATLAB), but your planned use really asks for 4 cores and more than 8GB RAM. The 15" Retina seems the perfect choice for you!
 
Thanks for your inputs. I'm quite surprised at how much performance issues is listed.

I've played with the 13" rMBP in stores with just web browsing. I haven't discovered any lag at all. Infact, my 15" MBP has more lag when I'm connected to the external monitors for scrolling then the 13" rMBP. I'm not sure why.

I would love to get the 15" but I already have one. The weight isn't a concern, the size is. I would like the Air but seeing how I want the retina screen, I'm limited to the 13" and 15" rMBPs.
 
I understand your concern for the size of the 15". I have the same problem: in the train the 13" is much more comfortable. I often use Windows in a Parallels VM and have no problems with the performance. I would just limit the number of active virtual machines to one at a time.

Light gaming is also no problem. I played King's Bounty and now Baldur's Gate on it, but you see, these are rather old games. In the past I also played World of Warcraft on a 2010 MBP 13" without major problems.

I really like the 13" Retina, because I can set the resolution as high as I need for the current work, or as low as comfortable for easy reading E-books. I have no obvious lags, besides some MS Word problems (Mac version 2011), and I have the 2.9GHz i7 model.
 
Given that we just saw a small update to the existing 13" retina, i guess we look at around 6 months before we see the next real update. That however should bring at least a more potent IGP and maybe even 16gb of ram.

So if you can wait 6 months, do that.
 
The 13 never has been and never will be even playable for any game that is more complex than the tablet-style doodads you can find on the Mac App Store until they give it discrete graphics (which will never happen).

Intel's roadmap is super promising for graphics, but that's relative to where they started from.
 
I thought one of the Rumors that came out a few days back on here was that a 13" Retina MBAir might be in the works for a possible Q3 launch. That's what I'm waiting for. See how the performance on that is.
 
TheNewDude said:
I thought one of the Rumors that came out a few days back on here was that a 13" Retina MBAir might be in the works for a possible Q3 launch. That's what I'm waiting for. See how the performance on that is.
Click to expand...

The performance will be worse than whatever Haswell chips they'll be dropping into the 13 Pros. They'll all be updated around the same time.
 
I have the same conundrum as the OP and the real difficulty is the performance hit (8GB vs. 16 GB for the 15 inch) Quad Core vs. Dual Core, Discrete Graphics v. On Board. All in all, the 15 appears so much better apart from the actual size of the thing. I'm going to wait until the next update to see what Apple does with respect to the 13 inch.
 
numbersyx said:
I have the same conundrum as the OP and the real difficulty is the performance hit (8GB vs. 16 GB for the 15 inch) Quad Core vs. Dual Core, Discrete Graphics v. On Board. All in all, the 15 appears so much better apart from the actual size of the thing. I'm going to wait until the next update to see what Apple does with respect to the 13 inch.
Click to expand...

If they offered at least 16GB ram for the 13 inch, I probably jump on it right now. As it stands, perhaps if there's a good enough deal, I'll jump on it.

How's the performance between the i5 and i7? I noticed my i7 dual core with the 15 inch wasn't that much different from my dads core i5 of the same generation.
 
MacKid said:
The performance will be worse than whatever Haswell chips they'll be dropping into the 13 Pros. They'll all be updated around the same time.
Click to expand...

Yes, but the OP said he was interested in the Air, so the new Air might perform better than the current 13" rMBP. Well, it most likely will with the new Haswell chips.
 
MacKid said:
,
Click to expand...

Exactly...

That's why I said, the 13" Air might come with a Retina screen in the not so distant future because he wanted an Air over the Pros. His reason for not considering that Air right now was just because of the Retina screen.

That's exactly what I'm waiting for too. Mind you I'm not as heavy a user as the OP, but I really would ideally want a 13" rMBA.
 
I have the 2.5GHz i5 and frequently run Windows 7 in Parallels Desktop (I run Office 2010 and Quicken from Windows). Both run very well (about as well as they do on my work PC with similar specifications in Windows natively, but without an SSD).
 
ayeying said:
Thanks for your inputs. I'm quite surprised at how much performance issues is listed.

I've played with the 13" rMBP in stores with just web browsing. I haven't discovered any lag at all. Infact, my 15" MBP has more lag when I'm connected to the external monitors for scrolling then the 13" rMBP. I'm not sure why.

I would love to get the 15" but I already have one. The weight isn't a concern, the size is. I would like the Air but seeing how I want the retina screen, I'm limited to the 13" and 15" rMBPs.
Click to expand...

As much as I like The Verge, they didn't really do their homework in their review. The performance issues they observed are actually related to software, NOT hardware. And furthermore, it's limited by CPU performance, not GPU!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6495/...erformance-on-macbook-pro-with-retina-display

I've used the webkit builds and there's zero scroll lag whatsoever. None. Nada. Even on The Verge's web site. Eventually Apple will (hopefully) incorporate those improvements into Safari.


That doesn't mean you'll be able to run the latest games at native panel resolution at 60fps; but the HD4000 will handle most games that are a few years old (anything based on the Source engine, for example) at lower resolutions, like 1024x768 which would be fine on that 13" panel.
 
i haven't noticed lag on my 13" rMBP i7 2.9 running Firefox or Safari
maybe it's there but i'm not noticing it which means it's a non-issue for me
 
Well, I am not a "gamer," so I have no input for you there. However, currently running on my 13" rMBP, as I type this, I have 3 VM's running (2 Windows, 1 linux). Linux is running Oracle enterprise DB, the windows machines are VPN'd to clients. I am running IntelliJ and Netbeans on the native side.... I admit, I have email closed down, but not because it wouldn't run.

16GB would be great, but 8 is getting it done (I couldn't launch another VM if I tried).

To be clear, this is the i7 2.9, 8GB, 512 Apple SSD configuration
 
mac8867 said:
Well, I am not a "gamer," so I have no input for you there. However, currently running on my 13" rMBP, as I type this, I have 3 VM's running (2 Windows, 1 linux). Linux is running Oracle enterprise DB, the windows machines are VPN'd to clients. I am running IntelliJ and Netbeans on the native side.... I admit, I have email closed down, but not because it wouldn't run.

16GB would be great, but 8 is getting it done (I couldn't launch another VM if I tried).

To be clear, this is the i7 2.9, 8GB, 512 Apple SSD configuration
Click to expand...

How much ram do you allocate your VMs? I usually run Windows Server 2008 w/ 2GB and 2x Windows 7 with 1GB for testing. Sometimes I'll allocate more ram but usually that's how much I give.
 
ayeying said:
How much ram do you allocate your VMs? I usually run Windows Server 2008 w/ 2GB and 2x Windows 7 with 1GB for testing. Sometimes I'll allocate more ram but usually that's how much I give.
Click to expand...

I currently give Windows 7 3GB but really don't notice much difference if I reduce it to 2GB or even 1.5GB. I use Windows 7 64-bit.
 
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