Macbook Pro recommendations new or older?

[digitiki]

My current MacBook Pro just died...logic board gave out the DAY AFTER I finished mixing my last album. Seriously! Talk about timing.

Now I'm in the market for a new computer. My old MBP was an older model with the silver keys (last model before they went to the unibody). I'm using 2 MOTU 896HD's with Firewire. I'm seeing that the newest MacBook Pros do not have firewire only USB and Thunderbolt.

Does anyone have any recommendations for how to proceed from here?

Are the Thuderbolt hubs with Firewire connections fast enough to handle my 2 interfaces for recording?

Should I look for a model that still has Firewire ports on it?

Any advice is thoroughly welcome!

[mikehalloran]

Are the Thuderbolt hubs with Firewire connections fast enough to handle my 2 interfaces for recording?

All MOTU FW interfaces are FW400 (even the hybrids with the FW800 plug). You are plenty good through a TB adapter.

I and nearly everyone else will recommend you use a FW400-FW800 cable to avoid having to use two adapters - you can still use a 400 cable to daisy-chain your interfaces.

Even the 828x is no faster. Neither is usb2, 3 or anything else. Audio just doesn't put much strain on the pipe.

The MBPs with the retina display cannot be upgraded after you purchase - RAM is soldered in. Max out the RAM and SSD when you purchase. The non-Retina version can be upgraded. The SSDs are wicked fast but, one booted and DP starts, many functions do not change.

http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/macbo ... US-KWG-MAC

When you order, the i7 version adds $150 to the cost. Worth every penny if running DP. I have A/B'd nearly identical i5 and i7 iMacs.

Functionality that does not require disk access is faster on the i7; functions that write to disk are faster on the SSD.

[digitiki]

Wow thanks for the info. That was very helpful. Yeah I was wanting to get the i7 for sure.

[Tidwells@aol.com]

At Christmas, I purchased a mid-2012 15-inch macbook pro off of Ebay. It's worked out well. It has the fast i7 chip. It still has Firewire 800 port + Thunderbolt + first model with USB3. It still has a built-in Superdrive to burn cd's & dvd's. The hard drive and ram are both upgradeable. I've upgraded to a 480 GB SSD from OWC and maxed out the ram at 16GB. Hint: If buying used, get the serial number and check it out on Apple's website. This confirms it's not stolen and tells you how much Applecare coverage is left. The first week after I received the Macbook pro, I accidentally damaged the screen, and Apple replaced it free! My model identifier: Macbook Pro 9,1.

Doug

[mikehalloran]

Wow thanks for the info. That was very helpful. Yeah I was wanting to get the i7 for sure.

I was surprised by the difference which I expected to be minor. No difference on disk intensive processes, however. The i7 has an FPU processor; the i5 does not.

I saw some 16gRAM i7 Quad-Core with a 512 SSD and up in the refurb store right now.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

+1 on AppleCare. I used to buy AppleCare thinking it's a waste of money for insurance I'll never really need. Not anymore. 3 years of call in support and if the hardware blinks cross-eyed, I'm on the phone about it. I'm making them send me a new keyboard right now because I wore some of the letters off.

When I had a lot of problems with OS 10.7 -- 10.8.2, it was AppleCare techs that led me through the maze of reading crash reports and finding problems with conflicting apps and their .kext files.

[James Steele]

Man, agreed on AppleCare. Especially on laptop Macs. I recently bought a MacBook 7,1 on Craigslist and the original owner had AppleCare, which much to my delight is still in force until October 2014. I ended up getting the trackpad replaced twice at no charge as well as getting a new case bottom as the original one exhibited a common defect where the rubberized surface had delaminated.