which rMBP for me?

[mitch1211]

I am considering upgrading to a 13 inch rMBP. I definitely want 8GB of ram, SSD space is not so much a concern.

I will be doing a lot of spreadsheet work with heaps of numbers and charts, also matlab, mathematica etc and a little bit of programming maybe.

I'm at a crossroads between the following 2 setups:

Setup1:
Base 13 inch model, 128GB SSD
upgrade to 8GB of ram
upgrade to 2.8Ghz i7 processor

Setup2:
2nd 13 inch model, 256GB SSD
already comes with 8GB of ram
upgrade to 2.6Ghz i5

Not sure about the prices in USD, but in Australian dollars the second setup works out slightly cheaper.

The increased space of the SSD in the second setup would be nice, but is not essential. I'm just curious as to whether the i7 will make that much difference to me.

I'm also thinking about the long run, I'm assuming the i7 will be sufficient for my needs for longer than the i5 will.

Any thoughts?

Mitch

 

[aiyaaabatt]

100% pick the 2nd setup.

The 2.8 i7 is tested only 3-5% faster than the 2.6 i5. Both are dual-core.

Go for the larger SSD space.

 

[johnnylarue]

100% pick the 2nd setup.

The 2.8 i7 is tested only 3-5% faster than the 2.6 i5. Both are dual-core.

Go for the larger SSD space.

+100000! That's a no-brainer.

 

[mitch1211]

+100000! That's a no-brainer.

Thanks guys, how about upgrading to 16GB ram? I think it is probably overkill...

On my mac at the moment I have 8GB of ram running mavericks. Activity monitor says memory used 7.87GB. Out of this about 2GB is being used by applications and 4.9GB from 'file cache'.

iStat pro tells me I have 3GB inactive and 1.8GB free memory. Am I right in assuming that the file cache is just filling the ram in order to try and speed up my system and when applications need the ram the file cache will be decreased?

I think 8GB will probably be sufficient for quite a while, after all it is only a laptop

 

[simon48]

Thanks guys, how about upgrading to 16GB ram? I think it is probably overkill...

On my mac at the moment I have 8GB of ram running mavericks. Activity monitor says memory used 7.87GB. Out of this about 2GB is being used by applications and 4.9GB from 'file cache'.

iStat pro tells me I have 3GB inactive and 1.8GB free memory. Am I right in assuming that the file cache is just filling the ram in order to try and speed up my system and when applications need the ram the file cache will be decreased?

I think 8GB will probably be sufficient for quite a while, after all it is only a laptop

It depends on how long you plan on keeping it. It sounds like you might be near the edge of your RAM. It's a tough one not being able to upgrade the RAM later.

 

[mitch1211]

It depends on how long you plan on keeping it. It sounds like you might be near the edge of your RAM. It's a tough one not being able to upgrade the RAM later.

Yea exactly, I'd like to keep it at least for a couple of years...

It is roughly the same price if I reduce the SSD to 128GB, I have a 512GB external drive and am planning to setup my old mac as a internet accessible file server, so storage may not be that much of a problem.

Although in saying that the difference is only $150 to get the extra SSD space.

I guess I will probably go with 2.6Ghz i5, 16GB ram, 256GB SSD