I'm going to be purchasing a new 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro to replace my mid-2009 MacBook Pro. What I am stuck on is deciding whether to put more money into upgrading the RAM or into upgrading the processor. So far, I have 16gb in RAM upgrades (the limit) with a 2.4ghz i5 Haswell processor. Do you guys think it'd be better to take the base processor (2.4ghz) and 16gb of RAM or do you guys think it would be better to take the mid-level processor (2.6ghz) and 8gb of RAM?
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Upgrade processor or RAM? NEW RETINA MBP
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Mainly school(pages and keynote) and then web browsing, spotify, and some iPhoto and iMovie when needed. Also, I hope to be able to play the new Simcity with ease.
In your case, probably neither. Save the money, you're not very likely to see any difference seeing as you won't be using the extra power anyway.
I want to get a future proof Mac. Which is why I'm getting the retina for the screen for one. But as far as the processor goes, it turbo boosts to 2.9ghz anyway which is much more power than my little core 2 duo has in my current macboook pro. But I think I'm going with the base processor and then 8gb of ram. Unless you guys think I should spend the money now and max out the ram because it's soldered to the board.
There's really no such thing as future-proofing a computer. Especially not in terms of CPU upgrades, where you'll trade battery life and heat for 7% performance increments which aren't going to mean anything compared to future CPUs. Check out the single core benchmarks on your current machine vs. even the low end 13" Haswell chip and you'll see what I mean.
RAM upgrades make more sense in this context, but not for all users. The RAM requirements of "normal" software won't push non-power users over 8GB within the next few years, by which point the system's going to feel obsolete in terms of raw performance. On the other hand if you find yourself using nearly 8GB now or foresee a change in your usage (maybe you plan to get into 3D graphics, video editing, running VMs, whatever) then it might be a valuable long-term upgrade.
Fast obsolescence is basically just part of the deal with computers in general. They increase in power so quickly that current-day software, designed for current-day computers, will quickly bring a 3-4 year old machine to its knees regardless of how well-upgraded it seemed at the time.
If you want longevity out of the computer, a RAM upgrade is probably better. If you really can't decide, maybe save up and get both but your CPU is fine for those tasks.
RAM all the way and then some. You're gonna be stuck with a non-upgradeable 8 gigs a few years down the road which will hurt both performance and resale value. The base processor is still a powerhouse for everything you need to do and more, it's got more than enough power for the next five years, honestly, and if you ever feel that it's getting too slow, the upgraded spec processor will feel the exact same for all of your stated uses.
Go for RAM you cant have too much RAM.... When all said and done modern computer usually bottleneck happens when you don't have enough memory. In the future if they release a better and faster processor. Your current processor upgrade is not the fastest and greatest anymore. But if you upgrade your memory is like your future proofing. Esp, you cant upgrade memory in rMBP. So go for larger memory.