They should stop reporting clock speed as the primary metric and find some other measure to report which more accurately determines the computers speed under normal usage, and also possibly separately for Pro usage.
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Mac Hardware and Software |OT| - All things Macintosh
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They should stop reporting clock speed as the primary metric and find some other measure to report which more accurately determines the computers speed under normal usage, and also possibly separately for Pro usage.
There is no single reasonable measure of performance that stands out over others. In a spec sheet Apple should report the exact processor model (which they do not do for some insane reason), and in the rest of the info pages they should give a bunch of standard benchmark results.
Maybe develop their own benchmark that concentrates on the "normal user" experience and measures stuff like absence of perceived lag and framerate fluctuation in web browsing, iPhoto, Expose, window resizing, launching apps etc. - things where maximum turbo boost and PCIe SSD speeds are the deciding factor rather than sustained performance. And then do the opposite and run e.g. sustained gaming and heavy productivity benchmarks where the measurement is done only after running the benchmark for an hour to fully warm up the chassis.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
You said "both" implying that my statement about the completely dead and outdated non-retina Pro was false.
Also, I am going by the processor gigahertz whereas the 13" Air is 1.7GHz dual core and the Retina 13" is 2.8GHz. Maybe it's not twice, but it's still faster I'd say. Either way, for the extra money I'd get the Retina Pro just for the better everything else. The rest of my statement stands. Clock speed doesn't mean anything anymore, sure, but the GPU is still better (Iris 5100 vs. HD5000) and I believe the Pro even has a faster Flash drive. Also more RAM possibility. It's only a few hundred more. Get the Pro.
Air 13 1.7GHz i7 with 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM is $1,549.00
rMBP 13 2.8 GHz i7 with 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM is $1,799.00
If you plan to keep your computer for as long as possible, that extra $250 now will probably give your computer a few extra years and save you the cost of buying a whole new computer sooner than you might have... That's the way I look at it.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Me too.
It's also not that much heavier. Hell, the 15" that I got seemed so heavy when I first got it coming from an Air, but it's super light. The 13" is even lighter. I believe it's only half a pound more. So for the extra speed and stuff I'd say it's worth the $250.
The RAM is the same unless you spend more for 16GB (Which I would if I could if I were you) but the SSD I believe is a faster model. (Or maybe I'm wrong and it's the same drive model?)
I dunno. I personally find it worth it for the display. With the Retina you don't see pixels anymore and can set it to a much higher setting if you need. And with a utility like QuickRes you can switch between them easily. I use 1920x1200 HiDPI on my 15". I can't go back to 1440x900. It seems so low now. (I believe the 13" defaults to 1280x800 which is lower than the 13" Air but the same as the outdated non-retina Pro, so upping the resolution setting is a must.)
I don't notice any UI lag when on my integrated Iris Pro card. I don't know if there'd be any on the 13"'s Iris at a higher resolution. Even if you just use 1440x900 HiDPI.
The only problem is AppleCare for the Pro costs like $100 more. But you can save that purchase for later.
Sorry, I was referring to your claims that the Retina Pro has 1) a twice as fast processor and 2) significantly better GPU than the Air.
I shouldn't have quoted your first paragraph that was about the old 13" MBP.
First, for the majority of people there's not much point in buying the i7 processor upgrade for either machine - it's money and battery life loss for incremental speed gain that doesn't come into play a whole lot in practice. Second, the Air's "1.3GHz" i5 actually boosts up to 2.6GHz while the rMBP's "2.4GHz" i5 boosts up to 2.9GHz. It's a similar story with the i7 upgrades on both. The actual CPU performance of the two machines is quite close. And like I said, Iris 5100 is physically pretty much the same thing as HD 5000. The higher thermal envelope of the CPU containing the 5100 may allow something like 30% more GPU performance, but that's 30% of a number that was small to begin with. If someone cares enough about performance that the minor performance difference between the 13" rMBP and the Air is significant to them, in all likelyhood they should go straight to the 15" rMBP where the real performance is.
Mr. Wonderful
Member
Fact of the matter is, the 13" rMBP is almost always the right answer over the 13" MBA at the moment. They've traded blows cannibalizing each other for years.
Battersea Power Station
Member
What does the "almost" contingency cover? Battery requirements?
Some people will always put a premium on having the lightest possible device.
If it's just going to be an basic cosumtion device, and you want lightness and smallness and don't care about super great screen quality and plan to upgrade in a few years then the MBA would be th computer for you.
The only thing I've changed recently is the time it takes to go to sleep. So, I was using my imac and, it just gets fuzzy. Then, it goes white. While, fuzzy I could still hear the podcast I was listening to. When, it went whiter he podcast stuttered. Ran a full hardware test and, of course everything is alright. Except, it's not. Is there anything else I can do on my end? Before you mention it, the ram is not bad. It's still a new imac and, I replaced the ram, anyways.
Verify disks.
Repair permissions.
Zap the PRAM.
Beyond that I'm not sure--display makes me think graphics but only doing it when it's about to go to sleep is a new type of malfunction. Are there any specific applications you always have open that could be contributing somehow?
It's not when It was going to sleep. I was actually using it. I just mentioned that I changed when it goes to sleep as the only thing I have changed recently. I use tweetbot, textual, chrome, itunes, skype, and downcast. Could it be too many applications? My computer doesn't feel warm.
New iMac? Call Apple for free tech support. Buy AppleCare if you haven't already and you still can...
Newer. It's been over a year.
Gotta always buy AppleCare my friend. I would still take it to the AppleStore Genius Bar if you can...
Nothing about the MBA makes it a "basic consumption device". I've been using one to do 70% of my work for the last three years. Academic work, programming, game development. If I had to re-buy now, I'd probably pick the MBP over MBA, but my needs are far from average.
Both the MBP and the MBA are totally valid choices at 13". Looking at the low end models of both, the MBA is lighter, has better battery life and costs $200 less (pretty substantial, $1099 vs $1299). The MBP has the retina display, and a bit more performance - not enough that the average user is going to notice, especially as driving the display eats some of it. If you take the battery life, weight and performance to offset one another, the choice boils down to "is the retina display worth $200"? And that depends on the person.
My relative recently asked me which one to buy. Told her the above. She compared the displays side by side in the store, chose to go with the Air.
Yeah for a lot of people, the Retina display is not really a big deal and they don't care. For other people the Retina display is the most important greatest thing.
Well, it's a desktop so I don't exactly fault him for not getting it.
If it's something graphics-related though you might get Apple to be nice and replace it out of the goodness of their hearts. I know there have been runs of recalled iMacs due to graphics issues in the past.
Yes sometimes Apple will just replace things for free. It seems to be happening less than it used to. And it seems to depend upon the store to some extent.
Even if it's not free they can fix it.
Probably also depends on whether Apple's seen a lot of similar issues, and whether you're an agreeable person
Going to Apple Stores I like to sit back sometimes and watch people who think that yelling about things they don't understand will get them better service.
(Also the people who rage when they realize there's nothing they can do about saving the stuff on their phone because they never bothered connecting it to a computer.)
Congrats. glad to hear it.
opticalmace
Member
Almost a week with the 13" rMBP and it is damn great. I thought that it would be laggy at the higher scaled resolutions but I find in practice it doesn't come up at all. I jump the resolution around a lot though. I use Non-HiDPI 1920x1200 when I need lots of space for work, HiDPI 1440x900 or 1680x1050 otherwise.
It's awesome not being chained to my desk anymore. My old laptop just couldn't keep. This'll last me through the end of my phd so I don't mind the expense tooo much (it's a couple/few hundred more than I planned on spending, but I wasn't happy with the first laptop I bought).
It's awesome not being chained to my desk anymore. My old laptop just couldn't keep. This'll last me through the end of my phd so I don't mind the expense tooo much (it's a couple/few hundred more than I planned on spending, but I wasn't happy with the first laptop I bought).
That hasn't happened to me yet. (knock on wood.) Any more specifics?
The document “Nameofdocumentgoeshere” could not be autosaved. The file has been changed by another application. I wasn't using it with another application. I thought it had to do with the repair I did last night.
Rename it and see if that helps ?
As of my knowledge, it still saves. It just the error is annoying, everytime it pops up.
my new rMBP 13'' is going to be delivered here to my office today! so excited! it has been nearly two months since my aging 2007 MBP was stolen from my house, glad i finally have my replacement. hope i get another 7 years out of it! maxed it out to 16gb of ram and did a small cpu upgrade bump on it.
Ken Masters
Banned
Are we to expect new laptops this June? The retina pros update didn't happen till fall last year
opticalmace
Member
Airs should get an update at WWDC.
Opened a thread but haven't got a response yet so I'll ask here too:
Currently, I'm using an early-2013 MacBook Pro Retina as my computer and am perfectly happy with it. A while ago, I installed Windows on it using Boot Camp for the occasional program that won't run on Mac and to play a few Indie games.
Now, I'd like to buy Titanfall after trying and enjoying the beta, but there's a problem: The full game will apparently be massive (around 50 GB) and the Windows partition I created is only 80 GB, with most of the space already taken up.
Opened up Disk Utility to see what could be done, and just increasing the size of the Windows partition wasn't an option. So, I thought that I could just create a third partition which I could use to store and share files between both OS. Started to put everything in place, but a warning message showed up:
I haven't got a lot of stuff installed on Windows so it wouldn't be too big of a loss to delete the partition first and then set up everything again in the right order, but it'd still be a bit annoying. Any of you know of a method that won't cause any problems?
Currently, I'm using an early-2013 MacBook Pro Retina as my computer and am perfectly happy with it. A while ago, I installed Windows on it using Boot Camp for the occasional program that won't run on Mac and to play a few Indie games.
Now, I'd like to buy Titanfall after trying and enjoying the beta, but there's a problem: The full game will apparently be massive (around 50 GB) and the Windows partition I created is only 80 GB, with most of the space already taken up.
Opened up Disk Utility to see what could be done, and just increasing the size of the Windows partition wasn't an option. So, I thought that I could just create a third partition which I could use to store and share files between both OS. Started to put everything in place, but a warning message showed up:
Looked this up on Google, and it seems like it's not just a scary message but something that really happened to people trying to do this.
"This disk appears to be partitioned for Boot Camp. Changing the partition map may make this disk unusable using Windows."
I haven't got a lot of stuff installed on Windows so it wouldn't be too big of a loss to delete the partition first and then set up everything again in the right order, but it'd still be a bit annoying. Any of you know of a method that won't cause any problems?
I have to decide at some point between 13 and 15 inch retina Macbook Pro at some point in April hopefully. My decision comes down to the high end SKU in each model. I'll need the 1 TB SSD and RAM to future proof the machine. I have some questions:
Is the 13 inch rMBP really a retina display?
How's the gaming performance on the 15 inch rMBP? I'll use steam for exclusive games I can't find on consoles.
What are owners of either machines impressions?
What's the worst thing about each one?
I'm using this as a desktop replacement for 2006 intel iMac CoreDuo. I'm using the machine for programming, gaming, light video editing, excel, hobbyist audio/video production and music downloading.
Is the 13 inch rMBP really a retina display?
How's the gaming performance on the 15 inch rMBP? I'll use steam for exclusive games I can't find on consoles.
What are owners of either machines impressions?
What's the worst thing about each one?
I'm using this as a desktop replacement for 2006 intel iMac CoreDuo. I'm using the machine for programming, gaming, light video editing, excel, hobbyist audio/video production and music downloading.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
That will definitely destroy BootCamp. Windows is very picky and will not work on a drive with more than a certain number of partitions. And since Windows creates a handful of invisible ones for itself and OS X has one of its own for Recovery, if you try to change anything it will screw it up and Windows will not work anymore.
You'll have to erase everything after OS X and repartition and reinstall Windows.
I did it once and ignored the warning. Don't ignore the warning.
You'll have to erase everything after OS X and repartition and reinstall Windows.
I did it once and ignored the warning. Don't ignore the warning.
That could be an option. How's game performance going over an external HDD (with USB 3.0 connection)? Does it even have an influence?
Never tried it myself. I assume it wouldn't be too bad.
polyh3dron
Banned
Just use an external hard drive for your games, that's what I do.
Hi guys,
My Macbook (i5, late 2012) is terrible slow. Programs are takes ages to load. It can seriously take 2 minutes for opening the operations window. Constant color wheel of death, for the simplest things (even special characters for a letter can take 10 seconds to load). I already have this for a few months, the past few days it's to fucking annoying.
Here are two screenshots for the operation window:
(the only applications open are Safari, the preview app and Spotify).
I have 150gb space left on my hdd.
I would rather not do a clean install, I'd prefer to ask here first. Does anyone have an idea what the issue could be?
My Macbook (i5, late 2012) is terrible slow. Programs are takes ages to load. It can seriously take 2 minutes for opening the operations window. Constant color wheel of death, for the simplest things (even special characters for a letter can take 10 seconds to load). I already have this for a few months, the past few days it's to fucking annoying.
Here are two screenshots for the operation window:
(the only applications open are Safari, the preview app and Spotify).
I have 150gb space left on my hdd.
I would rather not do a clean install, I'd prefer to ask here first. Does anyone have an idea what the issue could be?
Hi guys,
My Macbook (i5, late 2012) is terrible slow. Programs are takes ages to load. It can seriously take 2 minutes for opening the operations window. Constant color wheel of death, for the simplest things (even special characters for a letter can take 10 seconds to load). I already have this for a few months, the past few days it's to fucking annoying.
Here are two screenshots for the operation window:
(the only applications open are Safari, the preview app and Spotify).
I have 150gb space left on my hdd.
I would rather not do a clean install, I'd prefer to ask here first. Does anyone have an idea what the issue could be?
Could be anything really. Not enough info generally. Does your MacBook have an HDD? It could be failing slowly... Does the HDD make noise? Othersie it could be corrupted software... Do you qualify for free Apple phone support?
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
This is my assumption as well. Sudden unexplained slowdown can usually mean HDD death. SSD's die in a separate way than HDD's do, but also die more gracefully and with plenty of warning signs. HDD's like to just up and die and this is usually one of the few signs they give off before they go.
Make sure you have a backup immediately!
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
I did once. It was a SSD I bought for my 2010 MBP. It died within a month so I had it replaced and it hasn't happened since. It was a fluke I guess. But that's how I now have experience with a dying SSD.
What happened was my backup program (CCC) would report errors and there were corrupt files scattered around the drive.
A reason why having an incremental backup system like Time Machine or CrashPlan is very important. You never know if your backup program backed up a corrupted file and replaced a perfectly good copy with it.
Of course the drive company made me pay the $10 shipping to send it in.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
I should have fought it but I didn't care enough to and the new one worked fine. If it had died too I would have said something. The experience almost made me afraid of SSD's though. Fortunately it was just a 1% fluke.
Crazymoogle
Member
The NAND itself has a very low failure rate, but the controller is much more susceptible based on the manufacturer. Intel is considered to be the least likely to fail, while the older OCZ models are probably towards the most likely. (They've since switched to much more reliable controllers)
I've had 3 failed Vertex/Vertex 2 drives, and in every case what happened was the controller glitching, killing the mapping table and hence forcing a controller reflash (which wipes the drive as a result). Still usable...until the next controller glitch/failure, anyway.