Help with a Macbook Pro upgrade

[Illusio]

I've been wanting to upgrade my older MBP for a while now and have been waiting for this update. Unfortunately, the MBP I thought I was going to be getting has been moved to their top of the line machine. I wanted something with the Dual video cards and hopefully more storage. However the $2,600 (plus tax) price range is a bit out of my budget. I was hoping to spend around $2k at most.

So now I'm looking at the base model 15" MBP. I don't want a 13" because I want the screen real estate. So now I'm trying to decinde between getting the base model 15" that was just refreshed or getting a used older model. Or even waiting another year in the hopes of something better. I do mainly every day tasks and design work (Adobe CS). I'd like to be able to play the occasional game (I'm mostly a console gamer) such as SC2 or Civilization.

Here is what I have right now:
Mid-2009 MBP
2.53 Core 2 Duo
8GB 1067 DDR3
Nvidia GeForce 9400M 256MB
250gb HD

Options I'm thinking of:
Just released Retina MBP
2.0GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
8GB 1600MHz memory
Intel Iris Pro Graphics
256GB PCIe-based flash storage1

Last year's Retina MBP
2.4 GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 processor
8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
Intel HD Graphics 4000 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory
256GB Flash Storage

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[JAG87]

You have to consider 2 things.

1) You can get a refurb 2012 rMBP for $1659, which is a lot cheaper than $1999

2) No matter what you hear on the internet, the 650M is still a better GPU than the Intel Iris. Not just performance wise, but driver compatibility and image quality wise.

The trade-off is that you're giving up 802.11ac, thunderbolt 2, and an extra hour of battery life. You have to weight your options and decide what matters to you. IMO, coming from an old machine like yours, the 2012 model will still feel like night and day. However, if you can buy the new one with the edu discount, or with some additional savings (i.e. through Mac Mall with no sales tax), then I would spring for the new one.

 

[Illusio]

You have to consider 2 things.

1) You can get a refurb 2012 rMBP for $1659, which is a lot cheaper than $1999

2) No matter what you hear on the internet, the 650M is still a better GPU than the Intel Iris. Not just performance wise, but driver compatibility and image quality wise.

The trade-off is that you're giving up 802.11ac, thunderbolt 2, and an extra hour of battery life. You have to weight your options and decide what matters to you. IMO, coming from an old machine like yours, the 2012 model will still feel like night and day. However, if you can buy the new one with the edu discount, or with some additional savings (i.e. through Mac Mall with no sales tax), then I would spring for the new one.

The batter life isn't a big deal for me as I'm almost always running it plugged in. The 802.11ac would be really nice and probably what I miss the most, but not sure if it's worth the extra cost.

 

[JAG87]

The batter life isn't a big deal for me as I'm almost always running it plugged in. The 802.11ac would be really nice and probably what I miss the most, but not sure if it's worth the extra cost.

Unless you are constantly transferring gigs and gigs of files across the network, I don't think you'll miss AC very much. Most internet connections don't come close to maxing out 5G 802.11n, and the range of 5G (beamforming or not), is pretty short. Which means if you live in a bigger than average sized home, you're probably connecting at 2.4G 802.11n anyways (unless you have 802.11ac access points on every floor). And if you live in an apartment, 802.11n can cover the whole thing at 5G. In reality, 802.11ac will be most useful in an average size home (i.e. 2000 sqft), where the user wants to get away with just one router. If your place is smaller than that 5G 802.11n is enough, go bigger than that and they are both pretty useless.

IMO, it's not a determining factor right now. I'd be more piqued by Thunderbolt 2 (20Gb opens doors for 4K displays) and the slightly better battery life, but turned off by the fact that I'm paying $300 more for a laptop with inferior graphics.

 

[Illusio]

Thanks for the info. The video card is probably the most important aspect of all those. So I should probably try and find some comparisons between the iris pro and the GeForce GT 650M

 

[TheStu]

Thanks for the info. The video card is probably the most important aspect of all those. So I should probably try and find some comparisons between the iris pro and the GeForce GT 650M

You'll want to look for reviews that specifically pit the 2012 rMBP against the 2013 rMBP. The 650m in the 2012 is actually overclocked and is more like a reduced memory 660m.

 

[Johnny4]

It is better to upgrade to Macbook Pro

 

[manly]

Thanks for the info. The video card is probably the most important aspect of all those. So I should probably try and find some comparisons between the iris pro and the GeForce GT 650M

JAG87 nailed it. Get last year's model or wait 11 months.

 

[alkemyst]

At this time 802.11ac is not much better than N and in some cases N is better due to better / more seasoned devices.

In a year 802.11ac will be more seasoned, but things bought now may not be capable of the better speeds newer gear will deliver.