Upgrade or Not?

[david02]

Hello,

Trying to determine if it's time for an upgrade. A little bit about what I do and what I have. Currently only using my computer for casual browsing (email, eBay, documents, pics, music, etc.) and gaming (Diablo 3, Starcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, etc.).

What I have: Macbook Pro 15" early-2011 model. 2.2 GHz i7, 8 GB Ram, 750 GB HD, Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB, normal screen.

What I'd get: Macbook Pro 15" late-2013 model. 2.3 GHz i7 with turbo boost to 3.5 GHz, 16 GB Ram, 500 GB solid state HD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M, retina screen.

Is it worth it? Is there that big of a difference in the video cards? I play my current games and what not pretty easily but they are all on low/medium graphics and there is occasionally the noted lag. Any help with this decision would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[david02]

Just an update: the video card on the upgrade option is 2 GB vs the 1 GB I currently have. Any thoughts on this? Is it worth it or should I wait another year?

 

[walkie]

You already have a nice configuration, the best thing you may get from the current rMBP (apart from the hiDPI screen) would be the SSD, this is a HUGE improvement compared to HD's.

 

[david02]

You already have a nice configuration, the best thing you may get from the current rMBP (apart from the hiDPI screen) would be the SSD, this is a HUGE improvement compared to HD's.

Hmm probably right. May not be that big of an improvement for the money. Going to wait another year. Really hoping one day we will have 4 GB cards in the rMBP's! One can hope, right?

 

[jmoore5196]

I've been agonizing over the same issue ... I have an early '11 2.0GHz MBP, to which I've added a 512GB SSD and increased RAM to 16GB.

The machine spends most of its life tethered to my Thunderbolt display, otherwise, the retina screen incorporated in the new models would be an almost irresistible draw.

My thought is to continue to use my MBP until the QC problems with the current 15" machines sort themselves out. I don't want to spend time looking for yellow tinges or image retention. Meanwhile, my MBP Geekbenches around 10,000 ... not bad for a machine that's nearly three years old.