Which Choice? MBP 15" 2014 or 2016?

[Hentz]

Hey guys!

I'm diving into the Mac world. I've been a windows guy all my life. Well, except when I graduated high school. My parents bought me the best MBP 13" in 2011 money can buy. While I loved it for school and music production, it was time to buy my first car and well... Selling the MBP would be my down payment.

I've taken the change in life to get into programming. I've switched my major from CRJ > Software Programming. My main interest lies within Swift and iOS App Development. Swift really intrigues me, though I'll be putting in effort once I'm comfortable with Swift to learn a few other languages.

ANYWAYS,
My current rig is pretty nice. But looking to go mobile. I do light gaming (CS:GO/WoW) and I'm big into music production (FL Studio). Though with my saltwater reef hobby, I also am getting into videography and photography.

Now since I WILL be replacing my rig, I've found the 13" is just too small for me. So I'll be 15" with occasional external monitor. Money isn't completely an issue, though it's nice to save more and spend less. Duh.

I need some advice from the Mac community.

Should I:
Buy a mid-2014 MBP 15" with i7, 16gb ram, and nvidia GT 750m for $1,300?

Or

Buy the brand new 2016 MacBook Pro 15 with the Radeon Pro 450?

Now the new one with OTD price is about $1,300 more after tax. Literally double the price of the used one.

Are these two MacBooks SO much different that it would be worth spending the extra $1,300? Or would I be completely okay with the 2014 model?

Thanks guys!

 

[dk808]

I'd recommend going in the middle and getting the 2015 15 inch model if it goes on sale during Black Friday

 

[Hentz]

I'd recommend going in the middle and getting the 2015 15 inch model if it goes on sale during Black Friday

I do get the student discount, which it's $50-$100 off. Do you think it would be much more?

 

[techspin]

Get the '16 MBP so you can DJ with the touchbar.

 

[mikepro]

I'd get the 2014 at that price. I just got my new 2015 with 512GB and AMD graphics new from eBay for $1900.

 

[Hentz]

I'm leaning towards the 2014 option myself. I figure it's still plenty of power to do what I want. After doing even more research, the Radeon Pro 450 is comparable to the Radeon HD 7770. Which from what I'm reading, isn't a major improvement from the 2015 m370x model, which isn't a major update from the 2014 GT 750 model either. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Honestly, I'm not crazy about the idea of the touch bar. Quite frankly, I'd only have it if I went with the 2016 model. Though I'm not by any means going to be upset with not having it.

 

[NickPhamUK]

$1300 more for similar specs, a gimmicky OLED bar, removal of useful ports/MagSafe/glowing Apple logo and a worse keyboard.

Isn't it pretty obvious which is the better option?

 

[jackoatmon]

A grain of salt: If you're gonna develop you might want to consider getting the new one. I mean if it's for work. If you're developing apps and stuff, kinda nice to have a working watch OS bar right there on your machine to screw around with. Gives you another piece of hardware to code for, experiment.

But if you're just starting out and you don't have a stable source of income the other one is a fabulous computer too!

Both great options, just depends if you can justify the premium to have newer hardware, particularly since they've got similar specs and whatnot.

For video the 2014 is a compromise. But video sounds more like it's in "hobby" territory for you.

 

[nbritton]

I would recommend neither of them. You want the 2015 MacBook Pro 15 with ether the 2.5GHz or 2.8GHz processor (only these two have AMD Radeon R9 M370X) and 512GB or 1024GB disk. I think the 2015 MBP 15 2.8GHz 16GB 512GB is the best bang for the buck, with student pricing it is going for $2,349.

Here is a performance comparison of the 2015 MBP 15 2.8GHz vs 2016 MBP 15 2.7GHz:
https://browser.primatelabs.com/v4/cpu/compare/990489?baseline=925386

As you can see in the link the 2015 and 2016 are very comparable; the 2015 has the performance edge, it costs $564 less, and has ports.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B84n60csy_WqV015bC1KV3BVMEU

 

[MarvinHC]

I'd recommend going in the middle and getting the 2015 15 inch model if it goes on sale during Black Friday

EDIT: as pointed out, my information was wrong, please ignore comment below.

The only difference between the 2014 and 2015 model is the forectouch trackpad AFAIK. Don't see much of a point spending more on it compared to 2014.

 

[nbritton]

The only difference between the 2014 and 2015 model is the forectouch trackpad AFAIK. Don't see much of a point spending more on it compared to 2014.

Not true! The 2015 MBP 15 has a faster PCIe SSD and upgraded graphics.

According to Wikipedia:

• The 2014 SSD has a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface (1,000 MB/s).
• The 2015 SSD has a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface (3,940 MB/s).

• The 2014 has a Nvidia GeForce GT 750M w/ 2GB GDDR5.
• The 2015 has a AMD Radeon R9 M370X w/ 2GB GDDR5.

• The 2014 supports two 2560x1600 displays.
• The 2015 supports two 3840x2160 displays.

• The 2014 has a 95 Wh battery.
• The 2015 has a 99.5 Wh battery.

• The 2014 has a Broadcom BCM4360 (April 2012).
• The 2015 has a Broadcom BCM43602 (June 2014, w/CPU Offloading).

• The 2014 has a idle wattage of 16.7 watts.
• The 2015 has a idle wattage of 12.7 watts.

 

[MarvinHC]

Not true! The 2015 has a faster PCIe SSD and upgraded graphics.

The 2014 SSD has a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface (1,000 MB/s).
The 2015 SSD has a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface (3,940 MB/s).

The 2014 has a Nvidia GeForce GT 750M w/ 2GB GDDR5.
The 2015 has a AMD Radeon R9 M370X w/ 2GB GDDR5.

I stand corrected.
I just looked at the CPU which is the same and hence same geekbench scores but you are right about the SSD. I'd be curious what difference the SSD speed makes in real usage though?

Here some more comparison between 2014 and 2015:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...ook-pro-retina-display-mid-2014-mid-2015.html

 

[nbritton]

I stand corrected.
I just looked at the CPU which is the same and hence same geekbench scores but you are right about the SSD. I'd be curious what difference the SSD speed makes in real usage though?

Here some more comparison between 2014 and 2015:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...ook-pro-retina-display-mid-2014-mid-2015.html

http://blog.macsales.com/30725-owc-tests-speed-of-ssd-in-2015-15-macbook-pro-with-retina-display

 

[Hentz]

Thanks for the post guys. I'll be getting the used 2014 MBP 15