Low or high spec MBP with retina

R

Raevinn

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2008
Messages
762
Reaction score
0
Location
Joh'burg
So the low spec one has a 2.3Ghz i7 with a 256gb SSD and 8gigs of ram for R23999.

The high spec one has a 2.6Ghz i7 with a 512gb SSD and also 8 gigs of ram for R29999.

You can also have an extra 8 gigs of ram added for roughly R4000.

What would you do?

I feel the extra R6k for 256gb and 0.3Ghz might be too steep.

Also don't know if I should upgrade the ram, thing is the ram is soldered into the mobo so you can't have it upgraded at a later stage, but R4k for 8 gigs of ram is really steep.
 
Its odd how the $200 8 gig ram upgrade turns into R4000 in SA.

I'd just get the base model if i had to get one now. But personally, i'm gonna wait a year for the retina tech to spread down to the cheaper models. R13000 is a much better number than the fairly large premium we have to pay now to get the tech a year early. By this time next year all mac laptops will have retina screens. It just doesnt seem right spenidng 24K for a machine which cant be upgraded, and will be extremely expensive to fix if something goes wrong. I dunno, but 10 to13K is about my limit for an unfixable appliance type device.

In saying that, its a damn nice machine, and if you get one i'll be properly jealous for atleast 12 months. But then again, you might not be happy when i buy a retina macbook air for 13K. hehe.
 
Last edited:
I can't imagine using it for longer than 3 years, if I get a extended warranty then apple will probably have to replace the whole thing if it breaks.

I'm not sure if 8 gigs of ram will be enough though? My current laptop only has 4gigs of ram and seems ok?
 
Raevinn said:
I can't imagine using it for longer than 3 years, if I get a extended warranty then apple will probably have to replace the whole thing if it breaks.

I'm not sure if 8 gigs of ram will be enough though? My current laptop only has 4gigs of ram and seems ok?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you use the machine for. Which applications that you use are really RAM heavy?

The upgrade price for RAM from Core is criminal.
 
I'm sure guys like macsales etc will eventually have some custom ram upgrades. - well I hope, coz I ain't paying Core criminals R4K for ram!
 
Well all the hardware is bolted or glued in... no easy upgrade like on a windows custom made pc box. You pay apple for the privileged of being screwed if you buy the wrong version
 
I upgraded the RAM in my 2010 MBP myself. Pretty easy to do actually.
 
dequadin said:
The RAM and CPU in this machine IS NOT UPGRADEABLE (soldered to the motherboard). The only upgradeable component is likely to be the HDD - similar to the third party ones for the MB Air. So please stop suggesting that.
Click to expand...

How sure of this are you? As I said I upgraded the RAM in my 2010 MBP myself. When did Apple change this in the build of the laptops?
 
Speedster said:
How sure of this are you? As I said I upgraded the RAM in my 2010 MBP myself. When did Apple change this in the build of the laptops?
Click to expand...

IAbJlQbhPUYnQMOS.medium


http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Pro-with-Retina-Display-Teardown/9462/2
 
dequadin said:
The RAM and CPU in this machine IS NOT UPGRADEABLE (soldered to the motherboard). The only upgradeable component is likely to be the HDD - similar to the third party ones for the MB Air. So please stop suggesting that.

@The difference between 24K and 30K in 25%. So you have to ask yourself, percentage wise, is the maxed out version better - I'm not so sure? Obviously this will depend on your application - I don't think you get the advertised simultaneous uncompressed video stream editing on the standard version i.e. number of streams is reduced.

I'd go for the lower version with RAM upgrade.
Click to expand...

Can't say i agree with that really. Using more than 8 gigs of ram is highly unlikely 99% of the time. Unless he has specific needs which require 16gigs of ram, like running multiple vm's or something he will never need more than 8 gigs, especially considering the ssd. If he can get a friend/relative to bring him one from the US then i would consider the upgrade just for hell of it, but at R4000 core would be ripping him a new one for essentially no real world benefit (it doesnt sound like he needs a lot of ram considering his current laptop only has 4 gigs).
 
yeah I am not some uber nerd that runs 20 apps at the same time. I do some photo editing with photoshop, would be cool to do video editing on it too and maybe a game from time to time but never something that really takes up a lot of ram I guess.
 
Zyzzyva said:
Can't say i agree with that really. Using more than 8 gigs of ram is highly unlikely 99% of the time
Click to expand...

I just upgraded my iMac from 4 to 12 GB. It's performing like a new machine. IBook Author is actually usable now. Of course that program didn't exist when I bought the iMac.

CPU ceased to be the bottleneck years ago. Rather get all the RAM you can afford. This time next year, a program will come out that will need it.
 
If you dont need the retina display rather get the normal High Spec 15 inch MBP as you can upgrade it an will last longer(performance Wise) than the retina MBP which you cannot upgrade at all
 
Mac For BF2 & 3

Just a quick question... Woulda games like BF2 & 3 run on the new mac pro(without Retina)
 
Upgrading the normal spec 15 inch mbp to have 8gigs ram and a 256gig ssd makes it even more expensive than the low spec mbp with rd
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X