Getting a new Macbook, which one to get?

[riki2]

Hi,
I just looked over posts about what laptop to get, but it was a bit too technical terms for me, so I'm writing a new post.
I am getting a new macbook and basically want to know which one to get. Retina or not, more ram etc.

I would be using Live and I do use lots of vst's like Reaktor. I will probably be using some heavy plug-ins.
Maybe a bit of video editing.

So should I get 2.3GHz quad-core or Retina 2.7GHz quad-core? Would I be needing more Ram? 7200 rpm upgrade? Would this all be necessary?
I do want to use my macbook longer than 3 years though.
Thanks

[eddiex]

whatever you can afford, get the best. i always buy the best processor i can afford,and the lowest amount of RAM and HARDDRIVE, then upgrade the RAM and HARDDRIVE myself, apple charges a lot for that stuff. its moderately easy to do yourself, welll the RAM is. if you don't want to do that stuff yourself.
if you can afford it, get as much as you can, get the 2.7GHz quad core, the 7200 rpm harddrive would be the best.

[CancerRidden]

i was in the same boat as you. I ended up purchasing the Mac Book Pro, NON retina, 2.7 ghz, with the hi-res anti-glare screen.

I then replaced all the shitty components with high grade components. so I have 16gb RAM, a 512gb SSD, and I even replaced the optical drive with the internal 512gb drive that originally came with it. So now I have an SSD for the OS, and another HD internal for session files and samples.

this is the 15 inch screen.

I'm really happy with the setup. With the Retina you can't have 2 internal hds, and there is no firewire.

Only one thunderbolt on the NON retina but I don't understand why you need more than one... thunderbolt devices can be daisy chained.

[infernal.machine]

The most expensive one obviously.

[tecgen]

Be aware, you can not upgrade RAM on the retina model. Moreover the retina model does not use standard SSDs.

http://store.apple.com/us/question/answ ... FDYXDPYUCA

I bought an used Macbook Pro 17 (i7 quad core, 2.3 Ghz) with 1920x1200px antiglare display and 256 SSD some months ago. I updated the RAM to 16GB by myself and exchange the DVD drive with another big SSD next week.

[riki2]

Great, thanks for the suggestions. so all the add ons, rams are necessary. Yeah I found out you can't add ram on Retina. Someone said with all the upgrades, sometimes, you don't even know the difference, so I asked.
I will probably do whatever you have done to your macs. didn't think of 512gb SSD so will look into it. Thanks!