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Wait for Haswell for architecture student?

imoss92

imoss92

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 8, 2009
43
26
Huntington Beach, CA
Hey guys so I just wanted some advice here on what to do... I'm planning on getting a 15" retina MacBook Pro within the next month or two. I'm an architecture student so I'll be running some pretty intense apps (autocad, illustrator, photoshop, rendering software, along with parallels running things like revit.) I know that the current gen rMBP can handle all of this but my question is if I should wait for the rumored nex gen ones coming out soon. Is it worth waiting for Haswell? I'm not overly concerned about battery life improvements since it'll be plugged in most of the time. My question is if Haswell will provide sufficient processing power improvements over what they currently have right now? Also, they will likely be getting the new SSD that are in the new airs... How much faster will those SSD's be compared to now?

I'm studying abroad this coming year in Italy so I would want to buy it before I leave in the end of August. I don't want to buy it while I'm in Italy since it'll be more expensive. I know that nobody knows besides those at Apple but what do you all think are the chances of the new rMBP coming out before the end of August?

Sorry for the long post! Thanks anyone for the feedback :)
 
Performance wise I expect very little improvements with Haswell - a few % on the CPU side. If you don't care about the potential improvements in battery life, you might as well buy one of the current generation rMBPs.

Concerning the new SSDs: They are faster. But compared to the current SSDs I would say that you have to run a benchmark to note the difference.

Whether it comes before August... I don't know... maybe 50% chance I would say.
 
I'm kind of in the same boat. If I do wait and get a Haswell, I was thinking of doing the 16 GB memory upgrade.

I am seriously considering buying the $1599 refurb model though. There is about a $600 difference between a new rMBP with 16 GB of RAM and an 8 GB Refurb Ivy Bridge. Have you looked at the refurb model at all? If I were going to get an Ivy Bridge-based rMBP, the refurb is the one I would personally feel best about.
 
No there won't be any noticeable speed improvements. Intel focused on battery life only. Haswell is only in the single digits percent faster or just equal.

For processing power it really won't make any difference.

SSD will just be as fast as those in the Air but that is pretty much pointless. A mobile processor cannot make any use of that anyway. Already most SATA 3 SSDs are really too fast. Some unpacking of uncompressed archives is the only thing were you can really expect any noticeable difference due to the faster SSDs.
It would help more on a fast big two socket Mac Pro on a MacBook Pro it won't make a difference for anything except showing of benchmarking scores. The CPU cannot keep up except for plan file copy and except from and to RAM there is no way to move any data fast enough around.

The GPU is really the only thing with a significant difference but it will essentially be only a overclocked 650M which is still Kepler and not great for what you need anyway. There might be a HD 5200 based MBP coming out which would again only really help with battery life and might in some CAD situations be better than Kepler but not by much. In other situations it will be slower.

If you wait for speed, don't. Waiting is worth it if one wants battery life and is hoping for a HD 5200 version without any dedicated GPU.
Even on a current one you can overclock a 650M enough to get very close to what the 2013 model would come with if there is a dGPU at all (at least for Windows gaming).
 
The only things really worth waiting for are the PCIe SSD and the 802.11ac wireless.

PCIe SSD is about 2x faster than SATA III, but the thing is that SATA III was already really fast. Once things get loaded into the ram, you wouldn't ever notice a difference anyway.

802.11ac is a nice upgrade, but routers that support it are currently rare and expensive. You probably won't see anyone using this protocol much for the next couple years.

It's also likely that it will use the Iris Pro 5200, which is actually slower than the 650m currently used. However, it uses less power...only when being taxed heavily.
 
Haswell MBP is probably pretty soon. CPU performance upgrade is negligible. iGPU upgrade is apparently substantial, and the SSDs are substantially faster. It's either going to be the same price or cheaper. I think it'll be out before the end of August as well. Just wait for it.
 
If its just an cpu, ssd, wifi upgrade on the new rMBP we could be lucky enough to see it pretty soon.
But if there is more upgrades, its probably not gonna be released util the fall anyway. And thats to late for you.
We could see a screen upgrade to IGZO or even higher dpi. Or even a small design change. Or even a big one.
But strictly performance wise you probably wont notice a big difference.

Wait as long as you can and hope for a stealth launch.
And if its not out in time for you leaving, just pick up a ivy bridge model.

One thing is for sure tho. Buying one now if you really dont need it immediately is not that smart. Since even if you would decide to buy the older ivy bridge model. Its still going to be cheaper after the launch of the haswell one.

So buying now if you dont really need it this second is not to smart.

So wait as long as you can and hope for the best :)
 
Hmmm from what it sounds like then it won't really be that much of an upgrade in terms of processing and gpu power. I think I'll just wait until about August and if the new ones are out then great if not then I'll still be getting an amazing computer.
 
imoss92 said:
Hmmm from what it sounds like then it won't really be that much of an upgrade in terms of processing and gpu power. I think I'll just wait until about August and if the new ones are out then great if not then I'll still be getting an amazing computer.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the best way to do it.
Even if its annoying to wait. Its even more annoying to buy it and then find out the Haswell come out 2-3 weeks later and that you could have waited :)

But like you said. No matter what you will get a great laptop. Thats for sure.

I bought the 2013 feb release my self about 2 weeks before WWDC. Cos i knew i could return it if a new one came with big upgrades.
If not i would keep it.
It turned out tho that there was something wrong with it and the dGPU wouldn't work. So i returned it anyway.

And now im waiting for haswell. Without any laptop since i sold my old one before i bought the rMBP.
And the waiting is AGONY!!!!!
I hope we will have a release soon. But also i dont since if we dont (and i doubt we will) i think its because they are doing more upgrades then just cpu and such.

Only time will tell tho :)
 
FWIW-

Expect the new rMBP to have haswell 802.11 AC and Thunderbolt 2;

As an Arch student myself, I think your fine either way-AutoCAD is amazing on this machine (upgrade the memory to 16 of course). Haven't played too much into the photoshop and graphics but it still has been able to handle more than I can throw at it.
 
If I get the current gen rMBP is it worth upgrading to the 2.8 i7? Or is the 2.7 i7 fine and not worth the money to upgrade to the 2.8?

If I stick with the 2.7 then I'd probably get a refurb with 16 gigs of ram and that 768 SSD and still save money compared to a brand new one :D
 
You'd be fine without the processor upgrade. Go for the memory and ssd if you so desire. External storage like on a card or portable drive is a good choice too, especially if your school/class is running in a windows environment so you can hop back and forth with your files if need be.

Personal example: doing autocad last semester the teacher was strictly pc, if I was able to I'd just connect to the school network and use Dropbox, if not I'd have to save quickly to a USB and login on a lab computer and do whatever I had to do. Moral of the story-only go for internal storage if you have or want too. If the 512 option was available for the base model when I got mine I would have but 256 and external/cloud solutions I haven't broken 150 gb used.
 
I think that the 15" rMBP will get very little benefit from the Haswell upgrade other than a slightly faster SSD and possibly longer battery life.

The 13" rMBP will probably see a pretty nice jump in GPU power due to the new Iris integrated graphics.

I would say go ahead and get a 15" if you can get a good deal on it through MacMall or Apple refurbished.
 
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