Couple of questions...

ChrisD. · 20 Jul 2011 at 20:57

Regarding MBP with the following spec:

2.2GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB GDDR5
128GB Solid State Drive
8x Double-Layer SuperDrive
MBP 15" HR Glossy WS Display
Mini DisplayPort-DVI Adapter

Can I still play games like MW2 on the Mac via Bootcamp? If so, how easy is this to do and how well will it play? How would it cope with BF3 if games are possible?

How easy would it be to remove the SSD and replace it with something with more storage and transfer all my data/Mac OS across? How would this affect my warranty?

And which SSD would it come with if the MBP was ordered now?

How would the performance be with a larger mechanical drive compared to SSD?

If I set up a share on my Win 7 homegroup, how easy would it be to transfer files from this share to the MBP?

Can it drive my 2407WFP with the adaptor at its native res?

How much would I be looking at to upgrade the RAM to 8GB and can this be upgraded without affecting warranty?

I think that is it for now, sorry if they are noobish questions but I am clueless.

8t10 · 20 Jul 2011 at 21:45

Bootcamp is Windows. Runs natively on it's own dedicated partition. So if that spec can play MW2 on a Windows machine, yes it will play on the MBP.

Changing the harddrive is a piece of cake. Takes 10 minutes. Doesn't affect warranty. You can restore from a Time Machine backup or a Superduper backup or similar. Time Machine is the Apple software which works perfectly with it. I've had a bad experience with it but most people will say it is fab. Just need an external hard drive to get started.

Do not know which SSD. But not a Vortex, probably a cheap/mid range Kingston or something I guess.

SSD will be stupidly faster than the mechanical drive.

Do not know. Mac and Windows can read but not write to each other without third party drivers/software. Google NTFS on Mac. Should give you something. But there will probably be another problem knowing MS and Apple on a homeshare, unless it was booted in Windows.

MBP can support a screen much larger than 1920*1200. 2560*something-big. With no loss in performance.

4gb to 8gb will be about £50 right now. Also doesn't affect warranty.

We were all clueless once.

Disco Boy · 20 Jul 2011 at 21:57

Personally I'd do the SSD upgrade myself; it'll be cheaper and better.

ChrisD. · 20 Jul 2011 at 22:44

How big is a Lion partition? I'm assuming I can't have a HDD with just Win 7 so I'd have to have a Lion install and then boot into Win 7 like that? It would be nice to have a Lion only HDD and a Win 7 HDD (if that's possible, awesome).

Will TimeMachine work on any external HDD via USB?

Thanks for the input so far.

8t10 · 20 Jul 2011 at 23:17

Yes and yes.

Lion is Snow Leopard + Lion. I'd guess at around 7 or 8gb. I'm yet to install but it will overwrite large bits of Snow Leopard too.

I have a 500gb drive in my MBP with Windows and Snow Leopard both running on it. Even that 128gb SSD, split it down the middle? I would give the Mac partition more, say 70:30 because you will use it and you already have a Windows machine.

My Time Machine is running on an external Western Digital MyBook, any external (or internal) drive will work.

Edit: You can have a windows only hard drive in the mac. The mac is the hardware, it lets you either be OS X or Windows. Or if you take out the super drive, have two internal hard drives in there.