Which 15" MacBook pro to buy

[davidfl]

Hello. Looking for advice on a computer for my daughter. She is entering a graphic design program at university. I have narrowed down the choice to the 15" macbook pro. Debating between the base or upgraded model. Thoughts on if the increased speed, drive size and graphics is a good investment would be appreciated . In Canada the top model is $480 more. Thanks for any help. David

 

[techiesteve]

If your budget allows, I believe the most important upgrades to consider would be first, storage, a larger flash storage SSD. Secondly speed, then graphics. Choose wisely, as none of these are retrospectively upgradable.

 

[davidfl]

If your budget allows, I believe the most important upgrades to consider would be first, storage, a larger flash storage SSD. Secondly speed, then graphics. Choose wisely, as none of these are retrospectively upgradable.

Thanks for the reply. So do you believe that a processor upgrade from 2.2 to 2.5 GHz, a ssdupgrade from 256 GB to 512 GB and an upgrade to AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB GDDR5 memory is worth a $470 premium? If the money was available?

Are these necessary, desirable upgrades for graphic design?

Thanks again
David

 

[chas_m]

It depends a great deal on how disciplined your daughter is about backing up and organizing projects. The graphics card upgrade is definitely worth it for someone working with graphics, obviously, but the hard drive upgrade wouldn't be quite so important if she invested in an external drive for projects (which take up a lot of space) and religiously backed up that external drive to another one (a separate drive, not another partition). Since I think you have to do the whole package at once, you probably should -- it should help the machine stay relevant to her work longer, which is important to the overall value of it, and it will increase the resale value when it is time to move on (which will probably come quicker than you think -- graphic artists tend to be power users, so they'll want/need something ever more powerful in less time than a typical home user).

 

[davidfl]

It depends a great deal on how disciplined your daughter is about backing up and organizing projects. The graphics card upgrade is definitely worth it for someone working with graphics, obviously, but the hard drive upgrade wouldn't be quite so important if she invested in an external drive for projects (which take up a lot of space) and religiously backed up that external drive to another one (a separate drive, not another partition). Since I think you have to do the whole package at once, you probably should -- it should help the machine stay relevant to her work longer, which is important to the overall value of it, and it will increase the resale value when it is time to move on (which will probably come quicker than you think -- graphic artists tend to be power users, so they'll want/need something ever more powerful in less time than a typical home user).

Thanks Chas.

That's what I was figuring. As a guy who basically buys cheap windows laptops, I had to get used to the initial price. But I want to get her the tools she needs to succeed.

Thanks

David