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upgrade from iMac to rMBP

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beerglass007

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 13, 2008
586
126
So after selling my 2008 unibody MBP and buying a 21.5" iMac i'm about to order a new rMBP and join the laptop club again

Done a ton for reading tonight and its quite scary all you people talking about heat issues.

Does the rMBP have heat problems ?

I'll be using it for light gaming, SC II and D3.

Can you safety shut the lid and use an external monitor now, the old classic MBP had problems and would fire the fans real loud.

Also have much quicker is the GPU compared to the late 2011 classic MBP ?

They have a few cheap refurbs on the store currently and caught my eye.

I'm upgrading from a i3 so hopefully the rMBP is a large enough jump to notice some speed increases in all areas

Thanks
 
I'm using my rMBP with a 2011 Thunderbolt display - previously used it with an early 2011 15-inch MBP. The rMBP definitely runs cooler than the MBP with lid closed and open. Fan speed is much slower too.

I don't do gaming but I do run batch processes with Lightroom and iMovie - both of which doesn't seem to tax the rMBP much - either in heat output or fan speed.
 
I've been puttering around on Diablo and the computer didn't get too hot. A bit, yes. But nothing ridiculous.

As for the GPU, I don't do gaming on my work computer, which is 2011, so I couldn't really compare, but what I can say is that Diablo is running great at 2880x1800 with really high settings..
 
I made the jump from 27" iMac to rMBP and I must say I don't miss the iMac at all.

I play SC2 quite a bit, and you can turn up the graphics quite a bit on the retina and still get smooth gameplay. Though of course, the higher the graphics the warmer/louder it will get. But its definitely playable!

It does get pretty hot when doing intense things but that's to be expected. During normal use like Office/Internet/Mail it will be pretty much silent and normal feeling (if not outright cold!)

Quite honestly, I don't even miss the bigger screen of the iMac. The retina display is so sharp that actually looking back at an iMac screen makes the iMac screen look blurry/old school by comparison, which was especially the case after spending a week or two looking at only retina displays (rMBP, iPhone, and new iPad) then seeing an "old" display again.

As for the i3 versus i7, not sure what tasks you got going on, but programs launch fast and things seem to go pretty quick with the i7 on here combined with the super fast SSD.

Go ahead and make the jump, I am sure you'll be happy.
 
stevelam said:
well the video card is worse. if your main priority is playing games then i guess i'd go for the RMBP. although that in itself is just stupid and money wasting.
Click to expand...

I use all the other apps OSX provide and the laptop will replace my current iMac. So a desktop replacement

But do play games, use VM's iphoto, video encoding tools
 
I only get heat problems playing games in boot camp which can be solved by cranking fans up with lubbos and hopefully better support in the future. Only games I have played under osx are Portal and Diablo and both of them didnt heat up the system too much. Played diablo for a lot time and it was a hot day too.

The rmpb video card is a lot better than the refurb one you linked as others have said, its a big jump. I opted retina over standard becuase by the time the ssd, ram and ag hi res is upgraded you end up paying more.

Go for it im happy with my purchase, I had doubts when waiting 4 weeks for it but now its here I am very happy. Problems have been very exaggerated in my opinion and theres always going to be more complaints than praise on the forums.
 
my rMBP fans will start up a couple of minutes after starting D3 so be prepared for that. When I'm running Civ 5 on lowest settings either native or Bootcamp the fans will fire up and run constantly. It really isn't that much quieter than older fans - does sound a bit different though - hard to say if it's noticeable.

Great laptop though. I'm getting frequent Kernal Panics with wake from sleep so I may need to turn it in - I must stay the startup is so fast with reboot it hardly slows me down.
 
beerglass007 said:
So after selling my 2008 unibody MBP and buying a 21.5" iMac i'm about to order a new rMBP and join the laptop club again

Done a ton for reading tonight and its quite scary all you people talking about heat issues.

Does the rMBP have heat problems ?

I'll be using it for light gaming, SC II and D3.

Can you safety shut the lid and use an external monitor now, the old classic MBP had problems and would fire the fans real loud.

Also have much quicker is the GPU compared to the late 2011 classic MBP ?

They have a few cheap refurbs on the store currently and caught my eye.

I'm upgrading from a i3 so hopefully the rMBP is a large enough jump to notice some speed increases in all areas

Thanks
Click to expand...

The biggest problem is that, the screen is so good you aren't going to want to close it and use a different display! I was planning on doing it that way, but decided that my big display will now be a second display since the rMBP is so damn clear!!!
 
gentlefury said:
The biggest problem is that, the screen is so good you aren't going to want to close it and use a different display! I was planning on doing it that way, but decided that my big display will now be a second display since the rMBP is so damn clear!!!
Click to expand...

this! +1
 
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