Which 13" rMBP?

[ERNERTM]

Hello everyone.
I will buy a new Mac soon. There is two option i can buy. First one is 13" rMBP 8GB of Ram, i5 and 256GB flash storage and other one is 13" rMBP 16GB of Ram, i5 and 128GB flash storage. I will mostly work programing and rendering on Mac. What's your advice ?
Thanks.

 

[yjchua95]

Hello everyone.
I will buy a new Mac soon. There is two option i can buy. First one is 13" rMBP 8GB of Ram, i5 and 256GB flash storage and other one is 13" rMBP 16GB of Ram, i5 and 128GB flash storage. I will mostly work programing and rendering on Mac. What's your advice ?
Thanks.

For rendering, only one model of the rMBP will be suitable - the high-end 15" rMBP (2.5/16/512/750M).

The dual-core processor just won't cut it for rendering. Neither will an integrated GPU.

 

[ERNERTM]

I do not want to 15" because my renders not to much.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Any will do the job a bit slow maybe on the 13 but the differences in performance will be negligible between processors.

RAM while useful will not be as useful as being able to store the files you need when you need them.

Others here will always push more RAM and many seem to believe that the only computer worth the name has a dGPU so your advice will vary wildly.

Your best bet would be to take advantage of the 14 day apple return policy and try one out for a few weeks and return if it doesn't do what you need.

 

[ERNERTM]

How much free storage left for first usage of 128Gb?

 

[littlepud]

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/19552193/

 

[Blackstick]

Hello everyone.
I will buy a new Mac soon. There is two option i can buy. First one is 13" rMBP 8GB of Ram, i5 and 256GB flash storage and other one is 13" rMBP 16GB of Ram, i5 and 128GB flash storage. I will mostly work programing and rendering on Mac. What's your advice ?
Thanks.

Me personally I'd go 256gb SSD and 8GB of RAM... However, there are after-market ssd upgrades down the road, the same cannot be said for RAM that's soldered to the main logic board. Soooo if you plan on keeping this Mac more than 4 years, the 16gb of RAM will allow longevity that the 8 simply won't.

 

[acctman]

How much free storage left for first usage of 128Gb?

if you can go 512gb... you're going to run out of space fast. even if you carry around an external it'll be annoying to pull out when you're mobile or in a tight space. I would think 128gb would be for a work computer where everything is stored on a network drive or maybe a college student that just writes papers? I have 256gb on a Win8 laptop and i struggle with space as a web developer. So I went for the 512gb for my iOS dev work, you'll be amazed how fast space gets used.

 

[iBook_Clamshell]

I'd say go with the 16Gb of RAM. You can always upgrade the SSD (256GB might not be enough for you anyway), you can't upgrade the RAM.

 

[yjchua95]

Me personally I'd go 256gb SSD and 8GB of RAM... However, there are after-market ssd upgrades down the road, the same cannot be said for RAM that's soldered to the main logic board. Soooo if you plan on keeping this Mac more than 4 years, the 16gb of RAM will allow longevity that the 8 simply won't.

For the late-2013/mid-2014 models, no aftermarket SSDs are available.

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You can always upgrade the SSD (256GB might not be enough for you anyway), you can't upgrade the RAM.

See my above post.