Im getting a Mac for school so....

[Nuke Dukem]

Can someone explain to me the difference between these computers

15-inch: 2.3 GHz

2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
4GB 1600MHz memory
500GB 5400-rpm hard drive1
Intel HD Graphics 4000
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB of GDDR5 memory
Built-in battery (7 hours)2

$1,800



15-inch: 2.6 GHz

2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
8GB 1600MHz memory
750GB 5400-rpm hard drive1
Intel HD Graphics 4000
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory
Built-in battery (7 hours)2

$2,200


So yeah a $400 price difference

is the other worth more or would I be good with the $1,800 one?

 

[Liquid]

Get the $1,800 one.

Buy an ssd, external enclosure for regular hdd, and 8gb ram on newegg for about $200.

Doing that will smoke the $2200 model.

 

[Nuke Dukem]

Get the $1,800 one.

Buy an ssd, external enclosure for regular hdd, and 8gb ram on newegg for about $200.

Doing that will smoke the $2200 model.

I was actually just gonna PM you this question before making the thread

 

[Jesus]

You lost...

 

[Liquid]

I must ask...why are you buying a Mac? Do you absolutely need os x?

 

[Spatial Paradox]

The $2,200 model is 300MHz faster (both the base clock speed and the Turbo Boost clock speeds), has double the VRAM and comes with 8GB RAM.

Unless you're planning to game on an external monitor, I'd go with the $1,800 model and do like Liquid suggested and put the extra money towards a good SSD and bumping up the RAM if you need to.

 

[Liquid]

I don't think the extra vram will help that much, maybe a couple of extra frames.

 

[Spatial Paradox]

2012 Retina MacBook Pro - Extreme 3D

I mentioned playing on an external monitor because that's the only tangible difference between the two. The $1,800 model does so poorly compared to the Retina model (which has the same GPU, just with 1GB instead of 512GB of VRAM) and last year's high-end model because of the resolution they're playing at. But yeah, it won't much of a difference at all on the internal display.

On a related note, at Apple pairing a discrete GPU with 512MB of VRAM on a $1,800 computer in 2012.

 

[kevin arnold]

i got the 1800 one