Which MacBook Pro is faster ? (13" Retina 2.5GHz -HDD or 13" LED 2.9GHz - SDD )

The rMB Pro 2.5GHz will seem faster because of the SSD which will compensate for the slower processor.

In reality however, the 2.9GHz Macbook Pro is actually faster. Because of the hard drive however, it will seem slower.

I have a 2012 13 Inch Macbook Air which seems faster than my Late 2011 Macbook Pro. Once I took the standard hard drive out and swapped it with a 240GB Kingston Hyper X - my late 2011 Macbook Pro is much faster now.

If you need processing power, get the 2.9GHz Macbook Pro then save up a couple of $$$ and buy a nice 240GB SSD and swap it out with your hard drive and use your old hard drive as a backup drive for just in case purposes.

see image below for the geekbench scores - you'll see that the 2.9GHz is faster.

With those two machines, I would consider "speed" as secondary in terms of making a decision. There's not a huge difference in terms of performance between the two processors. The i7 is technically more powerful. As Bimmer 7 Series indicated, the SSD in the i5 Retina will make the machine seem much faster. More significant are the differences in the displays, upgrade options, and the optical drive. With the Retina, you get an amazing display, but you're giving up the optical drive and your upgrade options are limited. You can't upgrade the RAM as it is soldered to the logic board. As you've indicated you are looking at the 128GB version of the Retina, your storage space is fairly limited. I can't speak to what your usage is, so you would need to determine if that will meet your needs. The SSD can be upgraded, but not buy Apple. You need to purchase an upgrade SSD from a third party vendor.

With the 13" MacBook Pro (non-Retina), you can replace the hard drive with an SSD so you would be eliminating that big hit you're getting with a hard drive. The faster i7 would have more of an impact at that point as your system wouldn't be bogged down with a spinning hard drive and you can upgrade the RAM should you wish to at some point. Of course you get the optical drive with the MacBook Pro as well.

The only thing you give up with the MacBook Pro vs. the Retina (at least with some upgrades) is the high-rez display in the Retina. A big part of the price for the Retina is the display. If you really have your heart set on a Retina display, then the Retina is the only way to go. If that's not such a big deal for you, the standard MB Pro gives you quite a bit more flexibility. It's worth noting that so far as standard resolution displays go, the panel in the non-Retina MB Pro is a very good display. It's still a better display than most competitors at the same resolution.

The 2.9GHz will be faster - when having issues opening multiple tabs - that's usually a lack of RAM issues.

Installing an SSD to replace a HDD is the same as replacing any internal hard drive. You format the SSD, clone it with the internal HDD and then swap it. The physical swap should take 15 minutes, the cloning is a function of the amount of data to be transferred. This is not rocket science.

Ciao.

Hi Bimmer ,

i bought a new MBP MD102 i7 , 8gb , 750 HDD

as u said we can upgrade HDD to SSD by third party vendors , then whats the process .

can i keep both SSD & HDD indide my MBP for using .

also if i buy Kingston or some other SSD , how do i replace with HDD ? do we go to applestore for replacement .

or can we do it by ourself . why am asking is thers no apple store nearby my location .

pls explain me this in detail...

Thanks !

Pravi_apple wrote:

as u said we can upgrade HDD to SSD by third party vendors , then whats the process .

can i keep both SSD & HDD indide my MBP for using .

There are now some very simple kits to do this, like the OWC Data Doubler.

Pravi_apple wrote:

also if i buy Kingston or some other SSD , how do i replace with HDD ? do we go to applestore for replacement .

or can we do it by ourself . why am asking is thers no apple store nearby my location .

If you replace the existing drive, all you have to do is remove the screws on the bottom case lid and you have access to the hard drive. It's a fast, simple replacement and there are instructions and videos you can find all over the web or on Apple's site.