new macBook Pro or should I.........

p0testi0p0testi0
Posted:
in General Discussion
I have been considering updating my 2 A1297 17" MacBook Pros (early 2011) core i7 2.2GHz (Sandy Bridge).

Looking at the current macBook Pros at $2799
w\      i7 2.9 GHz
          16GB 2133MHz DDR3
          1TB SSD

What if I were to buy:

Samsung EVO 1TB SSD    $300
Corsair     16GB 1333MHz DDR3  $150

I can upgrade both laptops' memory and drives to the above for a total of  $450 each and $900 for BOTH.
Or I can buy the 15" MacBooks for $3300 after tax for each one, $6600 for BOTH.

What kind of performance increase will I even see between my current setup and the new MacBooks?  

Also, how much longer will new OSX releases be installable on my current MacBooks?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,435moderator
    p0testi0 said:
    I have been considering updating my 2 A1297 17" MacBook Pros (early 2011) core i7 2.2GHz (Sandy Bridge).

    Looking at the current macBook Pros at $2799
    w\      i7 2.9 GHz
              16GB 2133MHz DDR3
              1TB SSD

    What if I were to buy:

    Samsung EVO 1TB SSD    $300
    Corsair     16GB 1333MHz DDR3  $150

    I can upgrade both laptops' memory and drives to the above for a total of  $450 each and $900 for BOTH.
    Or I can buy the 15" MacBooks for $3300 after tax for each one, $6600 for BOTH.

    What kind of performance increase will I even see between my current setup and the new MacBooks?  

    Also, how much longer will new OSX releases be installable on my current MacBooks?
    You can do a mixture of upgrades. Upgrade one of the old laptops and buy one new MBP and potentially sell one of the old laptops (the one with the worst battery life). These are still selling around $500-700. The sale of one of the laptops covers the cost of upgrades to the other. You can also get better deals on MBPs than buying new.

    https://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbook_pro/15
    https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FLH52LL/A/Refurbished-154-inch-Macbook-Pro-29GHz-Quad-core-Intel-Core-i7-with-Retina-display-Space-Gray
    https://www.apple.com/shop/product/G0UC3LL/A/Refurbished-154-inch-MacBook-Pro-31GHz-Quad-core-Intel-Core-i7-with-Retina-display-Space-Gray

    The CPU on the new ones is about 40% faster, GPU is 2-3x faster depending on the model. If you don't use the GPU much, you won't see much real-world difference in processing performance. The storage will be faster though as it uses PCIe SSD. If you are coming from a hard drive, it will be about 50x faster. If you are coming from a SATA SSD, it will be about 5-8x faster. The display is also much better quality.

    Usually Apple supports products up to 7 years old. Their obsolete list here has the 2011 MBPs on it:

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

    They might not drop OS support for a while yet and you don't need the latest system to get support. They will support the last 3 systems for a while. Even if you can't go past High Sierra, that will be ok until about 2020. If you get any hardware failures though, they won't offer repair options.
    edited February 2018
  • Reply 2 of 2
    p0testi0p0testi0 Posts: 2member
    Thanks Marvin!  That was really helpful.  I like the idea of selling one to upgrade the other and buying a new one  :)
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