Looking to upgrade for college, have some choices...

[CYB3RBYTE]

Hello! I normally spend most of my time in the PowerPC section of the forums, but today I have a few questions more pointed to modern macs.

College is right around the corner for me, and as such I have been allowed to purchase a new laptop. Obviously I want to go with a manufacturer I trust, so Apple is my choice.

My current laptop is a 2014 MacBook Air, 1.4 GHZ i5, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD. It's been a great little portable machine for me, and has handled most heavy stuff I can throw at it, like Bioshock Infinite, Borderlands: TPS, CS:GO, TF2, and GMOD. However, I am going into college for Computer Science, so I'd like something with more power.

I'm interested by these two machines:

Retina MacBook Pro 15":
- 2.5 GHZ i7
- 16GB RAM
- 512GB SSD
- Intel Iris Pro

OR

MacBook Air 13":
- 2.2 GHZ i7
- 8GB RAM
- 512 GB SSD

Now please keep in mind I already have a gaming rig I custom built that can handle my really, really tough stuff, so this will not be my only machine.

My questions are will the MacBook Pro be able to handle most games with the Iris Pro Graphics, or do I have to go for the M370x? Also, if this is just my portable machine, should I just go with the less powerful MacBook Air? Finally, should I go with the Pro instead of the Air because the Air can only be configured to have 8GB RAM or go with the Pro and be future proof with 16GB RAM?

Thanks, and sorry for the wall of text.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

To be honest the air is not enough of a step up from what you already have to make it worthwhile, also buying any computer without a hi res screen for the long term is a bit silly if you ask me.

If you want a portable powerhouse for then the 15 inch rMBP is the only way to go, the dGPU will give you better gaming than teh IRIS Pro but be much the same for everything else, however it is apples only quadcore portable and as such will be great for multiple VM's etc that may well be part of your course.

I would say that you should probably wait until the skylake rMBP's are released before even thinking about this decision.

The 13 inch rMBP is getting far better graphics albeit with a dual core proc.

And the 15 inch will get quite a proc boost, graphics boost and the possibility of some excellent new AMD graphics the details of which are just being released although there is no indication apple will use them yet.

There is even a slight possibilty of retina airs this year.