Boots in under 20 secs and I never max it out. That's the exact machine I have and it never stumbles. NVidia GeForce GT 650M Dedicated 512mb DDR5 memoryġ5.4' Widescreen LED Backlit, Hi Res Glossy (1440x900) ScreenĬomments on this configuration?Looks good! And it's already got 16GB of RAM and an SSD drive? Very nice. Onboard Intel HD Graphics 3000 Shared 384 MB of system memory Intel Ivy Bridge i7-3615QM 2.3GHz Quad Core Processor (Turbo boost to 3.3GHz)ġ6GB DDR3 Dual Channel 1600MHz Memory (Brand New)īrand New Samsung Evo 500GB SSD SATA Hard Drive Disk I am persuaded, AND, have found a 2012 MBP i7 quad core that I can afford: Refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Pro 2.7GHz Dual-core Intel i5 with Retina Displayġ3.3-inch (diagonal) Retina display 2560-by-1600 resolution at 227 pixels per inch Refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Pro 2.9GHz Dual-core Intel i7ġ3.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display, 1280-by-800 resolutionĨx double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) Or is there something superior about the i7 itself? (i.e. What is confusing me is that the i5 is a lot newer, and only modestly weaker in terms of CPU (2.7GHZ vs 2.9GHZ for the i7), so intuitively I think it must be a better machine. Retina is nice, but I use an external monitor for serious production, so it's not a huge factor. 2015 has a 128GB flash drive which I suspect (i.e. Budget extends to EITHER (a) a 2015 i5 retina MBP, and (b) a 2012 i7. Life's too short for this pain, so I want to get a gruntier MBP. I use a variety of soft synths, record quite a bit of audio (external synths, guitar) and like to run a lot of plugins. I am tending to start maxing out on 1 x Aalto plus 2 x Reaktor instances, and a few plug in effects units, depending on the particular ensemble). I have started using Reaktor and Aalto of late (DAW is Ableton), which I love, but I am frequently maxing out CPU.

I am currently using a 1.4GB Single Core i5 Macbook Air for music production (4GB RAM).

2012 macbook pro 13 i7 8gb