MBP Vs. MBPR for heating issues, and other questions

Hi All,

I am planning on buying my wife a new macbook as she has had hers since 2007 and I think it is high time for an upgrade! I'm a windows guy so I'm not as familiar with the MBP's though I've done some reading over the last couple of days. Based on my research I think the regular MBP with upgraded parts makes more sense than the MBPR. A couple of questions

1) With regards to heating, I know she has complained about overheating in her current MBP, do the current MBP's have similar issues with heating? Has the MBPR introduced a new heating system which alleviates this?

2) All the reviews I read about the MBPR talk about how fast it is. But correct me if I'm wrong, wouldn't a MBP with the fastest i7 processor and an SSD be just as fast? What exactly about the MBPR makes it faster? Is it the fusion drive? Isn't that just a hybrid drive which an SSD should outperform. I know there is proprietary tech which makes the fusion drive more efficient than a regular hybrid drive but does that extend to an SSD as well?

3) From the more technologically informed of you out there, wouldn't apple eventually release the fusion drive so that it could be fitted onto current MBP's? I have doubts about this because I read somewhere that the connector in the MBPR is proprietary and different which is why replacing the HDD is much harder.

Thanks in advance!

 

The Retina MacBook Pro only offers SSD storage, so no Fusion Drive.

 

MBPs feel hot.. and run hot when pushed hard. the rMBP is better at cooling than the older style, but none of them should "overheat"

Of course a MBP with the same specs will be pretty much the same performance. The cooling in the rMBP though helps with less throttling due to heat, so overall it will benchmark better when taking into account throttling due to heat.

Fusion Drives are only on iMacs and Mac minis right now... not on any of the Macbook models. The standard MBP models have hard drives, and you can swap that out with any normal 2.5" SSD you want. The Macbook Air and the rMBPs have specialized flash storage... not standard 2.5" SSDs... but they are basically like a SSD, just made physically smaller so the laptop can be more compact.

 

1) The MBP and MBPr run about the same temperature. The MBPr might run a tad hotter under load since it's more compact, but it also has a better cooling system to compensate.

2) You didn't mention whether these reviews said that it was faster than the MBP. You may have made a false assumption here. The MBPR retina is fast, so the reviews were right, but it isn't faster than any other laptop with the same specs, including the regular MBP.

3) Not very likely. Fusion is a medium-term desktop technology. Laptops work much better with solid state drives.

 

not to highjack this tread or anything, but in terms of gaming how big of a difference would be there in going with the 512mb ddr5 650M in regular mbp vs the 1gig ddr5 650M found in the retina? also if I plan to use win 7/8 via bootcamp will the nvidia optimus tech still work in that it will use the integrated card until I start playing a game or something?

 

The extra vRAM will make a small difference when playing at higher resolutions. You can get the 1 GB 650 in the classic MBP which will be a good fit for the optional 1680x1050 screen.

GPU switching is not available in Windows. The 650M runs all the time. Good for not worrying about the dGPU activating when playing a game. Bad for battery life.

 

From what I read over in the steam forums and over in the gaming section nowadays VRAM can make a big difference in some games ( both at 1080 and 1200 ) if you want to run higher textures. over in Steam they show that games such as Rage with its huge amount of textures actually uses 1GB or more, as do a number of more new titles. ( BF3, Oblivion, GTA 4, the witcher, Etc. )

Is it common for games to use more than 1GB of VRAM? - GameSpot.com

 

Have I done my sums wrong?
A 15" MBP is £1499 here in the UK
A15" rMBP is £1799 (I know coz I just bought one )

If you upgrade the ram in the MBP and put in a SSD aren't you getting very near to the rMBP price anyway? And you don't have the Retina display!

I know Macs are pretty expensive, but I think the Retina's are actually quite competitively priced, considering what you're getting.

Just my 2 cents :thumbsup:

 

It can make a big difference when you have video cards that are fast enough to take advantage of the extra memory. The 650M doesn't fall into that category.

 

The base Retina model and top-end "classic" MBP are the same price in the US. They both have 8 GB of RAM but the classic has a faster CPU.

I personally think the Retina display is gimmicky and would take a classic with the matte screen upgrade every day of the week.

 

Both machines are priced very high, and the upgrades are also priced very high. If your buying considerations consist of only Apple laptops and Apple upgrades, then you are absolutely correct.

 

Hey everyone thanks for the responses much appreciated. The reason why I am leaning towards the mbp as opposed to the mbpr is mainly that repair is much easier for the mbp from what I have read. Also for more or less the same price you get an optical drive and an ethernet jack. The retina is neat I agree, but it comes across as fairly gimmicky. The optical drive and ethernet cable would be of more use to here.

 

For me, it's all about the matte display on the MBP. The MBPr is not usable until they offer a matte display variant.

 

Thanks for answering this. I also saw in a later post of yours that you would go with a mbp classic over retina and this was my question as well.

I wanted to go with the base mbp classic starting at 1799 and then adding the 100 bucks for the anti glare screen. Then upgrade to an ssd and 16 gig ram on my own later on. The only issue for me is that you can't add the 1gig version of the graphics card to the base model and I would have to go the 2199 model to get it, then add $100 bucks to get the anti glare screen. I would like to keep this laptop for at least 3-4 years which is why I want the 1 gig version of the video card. Can you explain a bit more on why the 512mb vs 1 gig doesn't matter for this card? I just can't see paying over 2k for a laptop and still not having an ssd (the 2299 mbp classic still would have a 750gig hd - which is why I was leaning towards the mbpr)

I'm still considering a windows machine but I'm having a very hard time finding any windows laptop that comes with as good battery(5+ hrs), weight(5.5 pounds or less) and 650M video card, so if you know of any please let me know.

 

post over in the WNSIB forums. there are apparently quite a few, from ASUS, Samsung, HP Business Lenovo and others. the W530 with a k2000 GPU ( pro version of the 650 ) comes to mind personally