[marcoarment]

  Thanks for the advice, many good points. Do you think the graphics cards they are going to use on the next rMBPs (likely NVIDIA GT 8xxs) will allow for improved 4k support? That's one of the only things holding me back from the retina. 

 
The current 15" RMBPs already support 4K via Thunderbolt 2 and HDMI. What improvements are you waiting for?
 

  Is clamshell mode bad for it? Cause if I get a laptop it'll probably be used clamshell on my desk a decent amount. I've done it with this laptop and the fans go absolutely nuts. 
 

 
The RMBP has a better cooling system than the previous MBPs, and the vent layout is less hostile to clamshell mode. But it's still a hack, it will probably shorten the life of the screen, it's still not really recommended, and it won't let you forget it. It'll still run hotter than normal, the fans will run higher than normal, and you'll have to fight it to keep it in the right sleep/monitors state (lid closed but computer not asleep, internal monitor asleep and disabled).
 
A side-by-side arrangement with the RMBP on a stand acting as a second screen is much better in every possible regard. It's not even that much more desk space, and you'll have enough. My ****ty college-dorm desk easily fit my full tower — not a midtower, a full tower — with a 19" CRT monitor and an entire Pioneer integrated stereo system next to it with room to spare.
 

  Is there any chance of HDMI 2.0 in the next generation of rMBP? I also would love a third USB port, but we all know that won't be happening. Luckily hubs are cheap on Amazon.

 
Depends entirely on Intel's chipset plans. HDMI 2.0 might be a bit aggressive for a consumer mobile chipset that's supposed to come out in about 10 months.
 
But that's the problem: when are you going to college? This fall? The next RMBP update is unlikely to happen until next June. If you can't or won't wait that long, might as well buy now, right after their midcycle minor-spec bump that made the entire lineup a better value.
 
The Broadwell update next year probably won't be a huge deal — it's most likely to be incremental, not revolutionary. Something on the order of 15% faster, 20% better battery life, 50% faster GPU. Is that worth waiting an entire extra year for? (keep in mind that GPUs get about 50% faster every year)
 

  The next headphone upgrade I get will be a pair of HD 800s and that's not going to be until after college. I'm not going to bother with a minor upgrade (like from the DT 990s that I have to the T90). 

 
That's not a minor upgrade. That said, at T90 price levels, if I had a powerful enough amp already, I'd be looking at the HE-500, which would be a bigger upgrade. And I love the T90. (Or stretch a few hundred more dollars that you aren't setting on fire for a Chromebook and get the HE-560.)
 
College is a long time. There might be an HD 900 by then.
 
That said, you're unlikely to be able to enjoy open headphones very much until you get your own place. If you want something great for college, I'd stick with great closed sets that isolate well, ideally that can also serve portable roles, like the DT-770, T70p, K545, or HP50.
 

  I honestly think the DAC is limiting my current setup.

 
It's not.
 
Allocate funds to great headphones first, everything else a distant second. Headphone drivers have advanced massively since the DT series. The difference between, say, the DT-880 and T90 is stunning, and the DT-880 is awesome. Even midrange portable closed sets like the K545 sound incredible by the standards of 5 years ago.
 

  I want to get a Uberfrost, but that's money that I need for other things. Like a new DSLR before I study abroad in a few years, and the aforementioned new computer.

 
You're going abroad in a few years?! You're killing me. Definitely get the laptop, and portable closed headphones. Dear god, man.
 

  I'm sort of dreading having friends over in my room and having to explain my "weird' headphones and "strange" electrical devices on my desk to them.

 
Here's the other problem. You're going to college. You're going to have friends in your room. If you have a roommate, they're going to have friends in your room. Alcohol will likely make an appearance. It is unwise to have more expensive electronics than necessary in this environment.
 
You have your entire adult life to enjoy huge, stationary, expensive electronics. The next few years full of travel, limited space, frequent moving, and drunk people are not a good time for that.

 

[flatmap]

Just speaking for myself, the broad availability of good laptops has been liberating.  
I rarely just sit at a desk to work and I have no use for separate keyboards &
monitors.  I work standing up in the kitchen, sitting on my bed, in the coffee shop
and etc.  I move to different locations and positions from hour to hour throughout the day.
 
Obviously whether this works for you will depend on what kind of work you do.
I totally understand the desktop configuration... but in my own life I just no
longer need it.
 
The retina display is a godsend for me -- just enough improvement that my
hours at the computer are less fatiguing. Much less strain.
 
I've gotten very good dependability from Apple laptops -- but also have had good experience with
the higher end Dells and really like the Lenovos.
 
Currently using a dragonfly DAC from my rMBP and have come to favor the "USB Stick" style
DACs in general.  Good sound and soooo portable.

 

[jeremy205100]

   
The current 15" RMBPs already support 4K via Thunderbolt 2 and HDMI. What improvements are you waiting for?
 
I was unaware of that until someone posted a link to the update. Since it has two Thunderbolt 2 ports, I'd easily be able to use one of expansion and one for 4k, so that's fine.
 
The RMBP has a better cooling system than the previous MBPs, and the vent layout is less hostile to clamshell mode. But it's still a hack, it will probably shorten the life of the screen, it's still not really recommended, and it won't let you forget it. It'll still run hotter than normal, the fans will run higher than normal, and you'll have to fight it to keep it in the right sleep/monitors state (lid closed but computer not asleep, internal monitor asleep and disabled).
 
A side-by-side arrangement with the RMBP on a stand acting as a second screen is much better in every possible regard. It's not even that much more desk space, and you'll have enough. My ****ty college-dorm desk easily fit my full tower — not a midtower, a full tower — with a 19" CRT monitor and an entire Pioneer integrated stereo system next to it with room to spare.
 
Damn a CRT monitor? Those things are massive. You definitely went all out...
 
Depends entirely on Intel's chipset plans. HDMI 2.0 might be a bit aggressive for a consumer mobile chipset that's supposed to come out in about 10 months.
 
It doesn't really matter since I can just use Thunderbolt 2, I guess it just seems weird to me that the Thunderbolt can support it but the HDMI can't.
 
But that's the problem: when are you going to college? This fall? The next RMBP update is unlikely to happen until next June. If you can't or won't wait that long, might as well buy now, right after their midcycle minor-spec bump that made the entire lineup a better value.
 
The Broadwell update next year probably won't be a huge deal — it's most likely to be incremental, not revolutionary. Something on the order of 15% faster, 20% better battery life, 50% faster GPU. Is that worth waiting an entire extra year for? (keep in mind that GPUs get about 50% faster every year)
 
I'm leaving in two weeks. As of right now, I just put a brand new had drive into this MacBook Pro and it's 100% fine. I can easily just bring the power brick with me and use it during class. If it breaks suddenly, I can get to an Apple Store and buy the retina. I wouldn't be surprised if the 1TB upgrade comes down in price in June, so that'd save me maybe $100. So I can wait until June if need be. I want the battery life benefits Broadwell will give, and the graphics card is a bonus. But the 20% better battery life would be worth waiting for for me. That means it'll be approaching Chromebook battery life. Plus, by waiting until June, if I can, it means that I won't be out of Apple Care until I graduate. So that's a benefit.
 
That's not a minor upgrade. That said, at T90 price levels, if I had a powerful enough amp already, I'd be looking at the HE-500, which would be a bigger upgrade. And I love the T90. (Or stretch a few hundred more dollars that you aren't setting on fire for a Chromebook and get the HE-560.)
 
College is a long time. There might be an HD 900 by then.
 
I was just stating that I'm more than happy with my DT 990s. I love the bass response on them and they're very durable. I've had them for 4 years now and I just got them modded with a removable cable. 
 
That said, you're unlikely to be able to enjoy open headphones very much until you get your own place. If you want something great for college, I'd stick with great closed sets that isolate well, ideally that can also serve portable roles, like the DT-770, T70p, K545, or HP50.
 
I have several closed sets. I have the Beyer Custom One Pros, and the Beats Studios. But I'm only bringing the COPs and the DT 990s. 
 
It's not.
 
Allocate funds to great headphones first, everything else a distant second. Headphone drivers have advanced massively since the DT series. The difference between, say, the DT-880 and T90 is stunning, and the DT-880 is awesome. Even midrange portable closed sets like the K545 sound incredible by the standards of 5 years ago.
 
I paid $280 new on Amazon for my 600 Ohm DT 990s, the T90s are $600 at the cheapest. From what I've read, they are better, but I feel like the DT 990s still hold their own at that price point. 
 
You're going abroad in a few years?! You're killing me. Definitely get the laptop, and portable closed headphones. Dear god, man.
 
For at least a semester. That's when the open headphones, amp and DAC and Xbox will stay home. And I'll be bringing the bare minimum. Gotta live college to the fullest.
 
Here's the other problem. You're going to college. You're going to have friends in your room. If you have a roommate, they're going to have friends in your room. Alcohol will likely make an appearance. It is unwise to have more expensive electronics than necessary in this environment.
 
Luckily I'm living in a suite, with suitemates, but my own tiny room. So when I go to parties and social events, it'll be at frat houses and other areas. A party surely won't fit in a shoebox. 
 
You have your entire adult life to enjoy huge, stationary, expensive electronics. The next few years full of travel, limited space, frequent moving, and drunk people are not a good time for that.
 
Yeah it's hard to justify the base Mac Pro. It's pretty universally accepted that it's not a great value. Like you posted, everyone seems to agree that the minimum to get is the 6 core with at least D500s, and that's way out of my budget and way excessive for my needs. So I'll wait until they do the Broadwell refresh and pray Intel hurries up. Not getting my hopes up on that... But for the same price I can get a similar processor benchmark wise, slightly worse (wouldn't notice the difference anyway) but more RAM, a bigger SSD, a beautiful screen and portability. 
 
I already have the DT 990s, bought them years ago. They owe me nothing and are in perfect working order. I wouldn't be able to justify letting them sit and rot at home, even if I only use them once per week in my room. The COPs will be getting much more use obviously, but they aren't perfect. And if I'm spending an hour relaxing and listening to music after hours of studying, I'd like the benefits open headphones provide.
 
I'm also only bringing 1 4TB external hard drive, and leaving the rest at home. Those I can't justify. But I do need to backup and store my music, so I need one. The Asgard 2 and DAC I have won't take up much desk space. If I put the 360 vertical I should have enough room to use the MBP as a second display. 

 

[marcoarment]

Friendly reminder: that 4 TB drive is not a backup if it's your only copy of those files.
 
Given that you'll be portable for a while, I highly suggested using a cloud backup service. I personally use and recommend Backblaze over the others. $5/month for unlimited space, and much faster uploads (and better software) than CrashPlan. (Disclaimer: They've sponsored my blog and podcast, but I was their customer for years beforehand.) I have about 3 TB in there and it's great.

 

[jeremy205100]

I have a 1.5 TB to cover the music backup. The 4TB is partitioned into 2 2TB ones. One of those is for Time Machine, the other is for my music. The 1.5TB backs up the music. I also have a 750 GB clone of my stuff in case it bites the dust so I can be up and running immediately. I don't like the idea of cloud backup because it's a recurring cost, as opposed to just buying the storage, I'm trusting them with my data, and I need a ton of bandwidth to restore it, plus backups take forever.

 

[jeremy205100]

To all of those helpful people that were following this thread:
 
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/08/14/intel-new-xeons-mac-pro-upgrade/

I'm still almost certainly going with the retina, but I'm interested in seeing if this affects price. With DDR4 it probably won't go down at all, but considering Mac Pros used to cost way less maybe it will.

 

[marcoarment]

Prices definitely won't come down. They might go up slightly, but they'll most likely stay very similar to where they are now. This is a relatively minor Xeon update (they're going from Ivy Bridge to Haswell cores) and will most likely bring a roughly 10–15% CPU speedup and maybe a few more cores on the highest-end model.
 
This update probably isn't as imminent as MacRumors implies — it isn't actually likely to arrive until December/January at the earliest. Intel never delivers new Xeons in volume promptly.

 

[jeremy205100]

  Prices definitely won't come down. They might go up slightly, but they'll most likely stay very similar to where they are now. This is a relatively minor Xeon update (they're going from Ivy Bridge to Haswell cores) and will most likely bring a roughly 10–15% CPU speedup and maybe a few more cores on the highest-end model.
 
This update probably isn't as imminent as MacRumors implies — it isn't actually likely to arrive until December/January at the earliest. Intel never delivers new Xeons in volume promptly.

I'm hoping the DDR4 trickles down to the rMBP in the next revision. Thoughts on that? Those graphics cards do look like pretty big upgrades, although the processors do seem very minor. If the Ivy Bridge to Haswell jump brought increased battery life for almost all laptops, why is the desktop jump bringing increased power consumption/heat generation? Did they just clock them higher them to compensate for the new efficiency, or is power consumption and heat generation not related?
 
And I know, Apple will be focusing on consumer products in the next few months. I don't know how they'd justify another price increase, even for a pro computer. If they keep tacking on another $100 every revision they'll soon be charging $5000 for the base model...  Plus, Intel never delivers anything promptly.  
 
Lucky for them they have a near monopoly on high end processors...

 

[marcoarment]

  If the Ivy Bridge to Haswell jump brought increased battery life for almost all laptops, why is the desktop jump bringing increased power consumption/heat generation? Did they just clock them higher them to compensate for the new efficiency, or is power consumption and heat generation not related?

 
Modern Intel CPUs with Turbo Boost don't run at their base frequency most of the time — that's the minimum speed that they can sustain under any load and any reasonable thermal conditions. The increase in TDP you're referring to simply gives them more headroom to run at higher turbo speeds, longer, with more cores active. More info here.
 
So they're not always drawing that much power, but they'll permit themselves to if performance demands.

 

[whiterobe]

When talking about the 2013 Mac Pro people seem to focus on whether the user will fully utilize it. Do you blast your buddy for driving a Porsche GT3 in greater London?
It is the most beautiful computer I have ever used. I think it is apparent why, so I won't spend time making a list.
I do "computer stuff" for a living, stuff that doesn't push it to its limits. Arguably the only people who should buy this machine use Final Cut Pro and a 4K display, going by the logic of everyone trying to justify the cost for people they don't know. The people on this forum have lots of money. Buy nice things with it.