Looking for replacement for my old Macbook Pro 17 Late 2011

[Aleke23]

Hi everyone! I'm new here.
I am currently looking for replacement for my old Macbook Pro 17-inch (late 2011)
I have already upgraded my machine with 512GB Samsung 850 Pro SSD and added 2133MHz DDR3 16 GB.
It is still fast enough and I love my screen size, however I'm feeling that it is time to switch to newer machine.
Things that I cannot upgrade are obviuosly lack of USB 3, slow wi-fi, processor is also is not the fastest for modern apps. Plus the weight of my Mac is way too heavy to carry it around. 3 Kgs are not easy to carry on daily basis.
I work in studio and at home, so I need lighter machine. From what I have seen on the market, Retina (1-st gen) Macbook Pros are great and light, but those new MacBooks Pros are incredibly beautiful, however, I have read many articles saying that Performance wise the new generation is a step back comparing to 2014 machines. Any suggestions and ideas about that?
I work with PS, Big databases in Excel, do some video editing and playing games on weekends.

Thanks in advance!

 

[maflynn]

What's your budget, are you looking for a new machine, or an older one?

 

[Aleke23]

I was thinking of selling my laptop first and add roughly around GBP 500-600
I guess my budget might be between GBP 1300-1400. So it all depends on how much I will get from my old machine.
I would love to buy new MBP, but considering my budget I assume I can afford second hand to get best possible performance/price combo.

 

[ZapNZs]

With video editing and playing games, the Radeon Pro 455/460 on the 2016 might be a good match for your usage.

If you are on a budget, it might be worth waiting a few months to see how much you could save on a refurbished 2016 model with one of the two higher-end GPUs, and perhaps comparing the pricing to the 2015 refurb with the R9-M370X GPU (which is still a respectable GPU and a massive advancement over what you currently have.) As Apple gets ready to shift to the 2017 update in a few quarters, and the 2016s start becoming the primary refurbs they sell, there could be huge blowout pricing on both the 2016 and the 2015 models (new and refurb and open box models), and sometimes you find stupid crazy random deals.