General Mac hardware discussions: New Macbooks
New Macbooks
by chorscroft - 10/18/08 4:49 AMI'm thinking about buying one of the new macbooks.
I currently have a 2.2ghz (Santa Rosa I think) 15" macbook pro with 2gb of ram and a 128mb 8600gt.
If I buy one of the new macbooks will it appear to be slower or faster?
How does the 9400 compare to the 8600 128?
How much faster is the 2.4 model over the 2.0?
Is it worth upgrading the ram to 4gb? (not through apple)
Thanks
Conor
1. Go get benchmarks.
by R. Proffitt
- 10/18/08 5:03 AM
In reply to: New Macbooks by chorscroft
2. It's much zippier. I will not be writing why.
3. Ram is something that depends on the user's needs. How could one give the right answer with this much in the post?
Bob
benchmarks
by chorscroft - 10/18/08 5:10 AM In reply to: 1. Go get benchmarks. by R. Proffitt
Where would I go to find benchmarks?
I mainly use the computer for internet browsing, listening to music, on IM programs and typing word documents (simultaneously) but I also play games occasionaly such as WoW and use apps like photoshop, final cut express, dreamweaver etc. - in which apps will i notice a performance gain with more ram?
Also will I notice a performance gain using a 7200 rpm hardrive and how much will it impact on battery life?
Also any views on 2.0 or 2.4?
Thanks
Conor
Benchmarks will show up in a few weeks.
by R. Proffitt - 10/18/08 5:32 AM
In reply to: benchmarks by chorscroft
Today I only found one article on that.
As to RAM, games love ram. Go to the max for those. It's that simple.
"Also will I notice a performance gain using a 7200 rpm hardrive and how much will it impact on battery life?"
Verse what drive? You didn't tell. As to battery life, the number of cycles will remain unchanged. Life is life, running time or battery time is always affected by changes. Let's be sure not to confuse battery life with battery time.
"Also any views on 2.0 or 2.4?"
For this you can be very simple on the effect. Let's say the 2.0 machine did something in 0.1 seconds. The 2.4 machine might get it done in 0.0834 seconds. Is that worth it to you? I know gamers will pay thousands for such a thing.
Bob
7200rpm
by chorscroft - 10/18/08 5:35 AM In reply to: Benchmarks will show up in a few weeks. by R. Proffitt
I think maybe it would be worth upgrading the ram to 4gb, but probably not worth the jump to 2.4ghz.
I was comparing the standard 5400rpm hardrive in the notebook to midrange 7200rpm aftermarket hardrive and I was talking about under the same usage scenarios, would one full charge last less time with a 7200rpm drive.
Thanks
Conor
You won't find EXACT numbers of
by R. Proffitt - 10/18/08 5:42 AM
In reply to: 7200rpm by chorscroft
How many minutes of penalty you pay for the 5400 to 7200 RPM drive but I can write it will cost you a few minutes per full charge. But let's note that I can gain back those few minutes by dropping the screen brightness one level. Hope the reason why is known to you.
"would one full charge last less time with a 7200rpm drive." verses the 5400?
Yup. Given we don't do anything like enable acoustic settings or offset the loss with dropping the screen brightness one notch. Also it's going to be some single digit number of minutes that depends all too much on WHAT ARE YOU DOING. This is why no one should give you much more of an answer. Hopefully this will fill in a few holes.
Most WOW players (gamers) kill for any edge.
Bob
MacBooks
by BeatleMegaFan - 10/18/08 10:11 AM In reply to: New Macbooks by chorscroft1) I would expect to see a slight performance gain if you went with a 2.4Ghz or faster model. The 2.1Ghz MacBook (the older model) can't compare to your MBP, and the newer 2.0Ghz machine may only best yours in graphics. However, your Mac is a Santa Rosa machine, while all of the current models are Penryn-based. You could go look up some benchmarks comparing these chips if you want. These chips have been around for awhile now, I believe.
2) Apple and NVIDIA have said that the 9400M is more powerful, or outperforms, the 8600GT, even though the 8600 is a graphics card, not an integrated chip. According to the tech specs, the 9400 shares 256MB of main memory with the system. I guess you could expect to see a somewhat significant difference.
3) 2.4 vs 2.0 depends on the tasks at hand.
4) Apple has lowered their RAM prices, so it wouldn't be too bad to go through them. Their $149 price isn't that much more expensive than the 4GB set I bought online for my MBP. Honestly, the RAM upgrade isn't that noticeable unless you are multitasking a lot. For basic things, it won't matter, and 2GB is plenty for most people anyway. But if you want 4GB, go ahead. More RAM always helps.
Good luck and hope this helps.
-BMF
My impressions on the new 2.4GHz MB
by dj_erik - 10/24/08 8:41 PM In reply to: New Macbooks by chorscroftHonestly, I don't know if you'll see much of a difference between the two.
MacWorld has a few charts doing comparisons of new MBs and MBPs to older models of the same series.
Good news is that they use the same applications to test them:
http://www.macworld.com/article/136236-2/2008/10/aluminummacbook.html
http://www.macworld.com/article/136279/2008/10/macbookpro_benchmarks.html?t=204
It seems there is some improvement between the two, but I wouldn't call it highly significant. My advice would be to go for broke on a new MacBook Pro, if you can afford it. It sounds to me like you're looking for a good performance enhancement for gaming/graphics and the new 9600M should definitely help you out.
Benchmarks though are relative to what you plan on doing with the laptop. For my programming, and an occasional game or two the new MacBook 2.4GHz suits me well. I like the size, and don't need the high end graphics as much. I would definitely upgrade the memory to 4GB, as it's rather inexpensive, about $150 USD on most sites that I've looked at. I purchased mine from crucial direct.
I hope this helps you out.
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