Not able to decide which MacBook Pro 2018, 13" i7 or 15" 2.2 Ghz i7 or 15" 2.6 Ghz i7?

[apple_pro9]

I'm using the Late 2012 MacBook Pro Retina 13" i5 8GB RAM, It is showing signs of old age.
Planning to upgrade to the latest 2018 MBP, Have three models in mind,

1. 13" 2.7GHz quad‑core 8th‑gen Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory, 512GB SSD
2. 15" 2.2GHz 6-core 8th-gen Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB, 256 GB SSD, Radeon Pro 555X with 4GB
3. 15" 2.6GHz 6-core 8th-gen Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB, 512 GB SSD, Radeon Pro 560X with 4GB

I use it for general usage and coding at work, photoshop (not too intensive tasks), FCP X rarely.

Please suggest me a version, not just from the above 3.

Not able to decide if I should upgrade it to i9 or 32 GB or neither.

Help me out.

 

[mikethebigo]

First decision - do you want a 13" or 15" monitor? Associated with that - do you want a dGPU or not? That will let you pick between the two.

For the 13", if you're considering a combo of i7 and 512 GB, you're planning to BTO. If you're doing that, my suggestion would be i5/16/512. i7 is sliiiightly faster, and I got it because it's what I had to get to not wait for shipping, but it's certainly not necessary and the difference is barely noticeable. The i7 will, for brief bursts, be about 10% faster than the i5, and it will consistently have about 10% faster iGPU as well. If you feel those upgrades are worth the cost, of course go for it.

For the 15", I personally would far prefer the 2.6 with the 560X. If you're going dGPU, go best you can, because even the top end is pretty slow compared to other cards. 2.6 for the CPU just seems like a nice middle ground to me.

 

[socialwill]

First decision - do you want a 13" or 15" monitor? Associated with that - do you want a dGPU or not? That will let you pick between the two.

For the 13", if you're considering a combo of i7 and 512 GB, you're planning to BTO. If you're doing that, my suggestion would be i5/16/512. i7 is sliiiightly faster, and I got it because it's what I had to get to not wait for shipping, but it's certainly not necessary and the difference is barely noticeable. The i7 will, for brief bursts, be about 10% faster than the i5, and it will consistently have about 10% faster iGPU as well. If you feel those upgrades are worth the cost, of course go for it.

For the 15", I personally would far prefer the 2.6 with the 560X. If you're going dGPU, go best you can, because even the top end is pretty slow compared to other cards. 2.6 for the CPU just seems like a nice middle ground to me.

I agree, the going the 13" i7 feels like you would be better with the 15" i7 just based on the price points and the extra cores and GPU you get from the 15".

The 15" 2.6 is a good machine if you are going to be doing any GPU work.

 

[hajime]

After the patch, which is silent and generally less hit so that it still feels comfortable to use it on the laps without feeling hot on the skin?

I was thinking about the 13" but then suddenly there is a thread about heat issue on the 13" due to its small chassis. Is 15" better because of larger chassis?

 

[CrashTestWalrus]

I upgraded from a 2012 15 inch Retina to the 2018 15 inch. I maxed mine out, my workflow is in a lot of VMs so I wanted to make sure that I had the hard drive and RAM for a lot of VMs. I am a little upset with the throttling and the fix being specific to macOS right now. I feel like Apple will do a longer term more far reaching fix, but I don't have any evidence to support that.

I will say that coming from a 2012 MBP no matter what one you get it will be an upgrade. I personally like the 15 inch screen because I spend a lot of time using just the builtin screen and don't use external monitors very often. For a recommendation I would go with a least a 1 TB drive since you can't upgrade the storage and dealing with externals is somewhat a pain. 32 GB of RAM only if you see yourself doing a bunch of VMs or such. If you keep this laptop as long as you kept the previous one, like I did, max out the RAM now. You don't want to be RAM constrained in three years with no way to fix that other than buying a new laptop.

 

[dannyar]

As I have mentioned in other threads, I swapped out my 13" 16/512 for a base model 15". The prices were almost identical but you get much more for the money. the i7, 16gb standard, dedicated GPU, and larger screen. I have no need for the larger drive over the 256ssd because I store all my work on an external drive. 16gb was all that mattered. This is replacing a late 2014 iMac 5k that I've had for 3 years. This machine needs to last and having the dedicated GPU and 6 core i7 will make sure of that. The 13" though smaller and great for what it is, is severally overpriced for a 13" machine. If you really wanted portability and were fine with what the 13" can accomplish you would be better served maxing out a 12" MacBook and save a few hundred dollars. Its going to accomplish the same tasks unless you want to video edit in which case you should of been looking at the 15" to begin with. Just my 2 cents.

 

[tim1000]

As I have mentioned in other threads, I swapped out my 13" 16/512 for a base model 15". The prices were almost identical but you get much more for the money. the i7, 16gb standard, dedicated GPU, and larger screen. I have no need for the larger drive over the 256ssd because I store all my work on an external drive. 16gb was all that mattered. This is replacing a late 2014 iMac 5k that I've had for 3 years. This machine needs to last and having the dedicated GPU and 6 core i7 will make sure of that. The 13" though smaller and great for what it is, is severally overpriced for a 13" machine. If you really wanted portability and were fine with what the 13" can accomplish you would be better served maxing out a 12" MacBook and save a few hundred dollars. Its going to accomplish the same tasks unless you want to video edit in which case you should of been looking at the 15" to begin with. Just my 2 cents.

the 2017s the 15 inch got better battery life than the 13 inch. is that true with the 2018 MacBook pros?

 

[dannyar]

the 2017s the 15 inch got better battery life than the 13 inch. is that true with the 2018 MacBook pros?

In my use, so far there hasn't been huge difference between the 2. The 15 has an 83.6 kWh vs a 58kwh on the 13" but they are both rated at 10 hours.