Updating from a 2010 mbp, 13 or 15?? Help!!

[g0002]

Hi all! I'm updating from a 15" 2010 mbp i7 to something 2015ish. I was thinking that I wanted to go a little smaller with a 13" i7 16 gb ram rmbp. I will do some work on Final Cut Pro but nothing huge. I really just want the computer to last at least 5 years. My current i7 is just too slow. I really want to go smaller but it's hard to pass up the quad core 15". Will the 13 inch last? Thanks for your help, figured I'd ask since apple is waiting on the back to school sale. Thanks!!

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Hi all! I'm updating from a 15" 2010 mbp i7 to something 2015ish. I was thinking that I wanted to go a little smaller with a 13" i7 16 gb ram rmbp. I will do some work on Final Cut Pro but nothing huge. I really just want the computer to last at least 5 years. My current i7 is just too slow. I really want to go smaller but it's hard to pass up the quad core 15". Will the 13 inch last? Thanks for your help, figured I'd ask since apple is waiting on the back to school sale. Thanks!!

The 13 inch will last as long as it's still doing what you need, FCP loves a good GPU so the better the GPU you have the longer it will do what you want. If the quad i7 you currently have doesn't cut it then then the dual core in the 13 inch certainly won't. However I think you are probably limited by a spinning hard drive and a rubbish GPU rather than the CPU which is much the same performance wise as you'd get in todays 15 inch i7.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Agreed with the poster above, you should max out the RAM and throw an SSD into your 15" 2010 MBP. It'll be like a new computer.

 

[kohlson]

Agreed with above that SSD and max RAM will make your 2010 run better than ever. This may buy you a couple more years. But your FCP encoding will probably not be appreciably faster. 13 MBPs come with dual core only - 15 MBP have quad core, and video loves compute resources.

 

[g0002]

Hey Gang,

Thanks for the replies! The 2010 MBP was the first Core i7 and is a single core. If it was a quad core, trust me, the SSD drive would be the first thing to happen! As always, my computer upgrades happen right before big jumps! Though my Powerbook G4 lasted me 10 years and my wife's mom still uses it to surf the web. I did max out my ram which is only 8 gb.

I upgraded on Tuesday, to the 13inch i7(I know some would not have and would have kept the i5) and also upgraded to the 16 gb of ram. So far so good! I love it and I love how much more portable it is. The screen is also amazing!

Thanks for the replies folks! I love this website!