Upgrade or not?

tsinc80697

tsinc80697

tsinc80697

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Joined
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Recently been getting irritated by how slow my mac can run sometimes, with the number of applications I have running. So I was wondering would I notice much of a difference selling my MBP and buying a new MB.

Current spec:

C2D 2.33ghz 4MB L2 / 667FSB
2GB RAM
160GB HDD
ATI x1600 GPU

What I would upgrade to :

C2D 2.4ghz 3MB L2 / 800FSB
4GB RAM
160GB HDD


I only bought the MBP over the MB last year as it was my sole computer so I needed something with a half decent GPU for my 3D work and playing any games. But now I have a PC built to last for games and 3D work in the future so I need a mac for application performance(Adobe CS3 mainly).

I dont think I'd notice the drop in GPU power as I don't use anything graphically intensive but would the increase in RAM and CPU power be worth swapping?

I could probably sell my MBP for £800-900 and pick up a brand new MB for £850 with 4GB ram


Thanks for any pickle solving!
 
Is 3GB the RAM limit in that MBP? I don't think I'd go to the trouble of downgrading to a MacBook. The difference in processors/fsb is pretty much zero as well in real world terms, only benchmarks would separate the two.
 
I'm tempted to say add another GB of RAM but if you're saying the Mac is running THAT slowly I'm not sure it will solve the problem. Try an OS reinstall? :confused:

Are you using large files in Photoshop? I think the MBPs have 5400rpm hard drives. If you are constantly reading and writing large files to the hard drive then you might see an improvement if you put a 7200rpm drive in there. That, and an extra GB of RAM, would probably be a better bet than moving down to a MacBook. The difference in processor is nothing. :)
 
WOuldn't you lose some screen real-estate when dropping down to a macbook?

Or would you be getting the 15inch MB?
 
JUMPURS said:
WOuldn't you lose some screen real-estate when dropping down to a macbook?

Or would you be getting the 15inch MB?
Click to expand...
The MacBook comes in 13.3" only.

So yes, he'd lost 2.1" worth of screen-size.

I say keep the MBP.
 
I would upgrade the RAM , taking out one of the 1gb and replacing it with a 2gb stick, to give you a total of 3gb RAM, youd definitely notice a boost when using large files in PS/Illustrator etc. and would only cost you about £30 for the 2gb stick.
 
Yeah I would lose screen size but I mostly use my mac with my dell 24". Only take the laptop around to the girlfriends or uni the odd occasion.

Ill look into a 2GB stick and see if it improves!

Thanks :D
 
EVH said:
The MacBook comes in 13.3" only.

So yes, he'd lost 2.1" worth of screen-size.

I say keep the MBP.
Click to expand...

They used to make a 15 inch macbook didn't they? Think it was just before they switched to intel, might have been G4 chips.
 
EVH said:
The MacBook comes in 13.3" only.

So yes, he'd lost 2.1" worth of screen-size.

I say keep the MBP.
Click to expand...

and the associated pixels. 1280x800 vs 1440x900. I'd buy another MBP just for the higher resolution screen.

Worth checking the drive for file fragmentation? Mine was running horribly slowly a few weeks back becuase I'd filled the drive up and it was heavily fragmented.
 
MagicBoy said:
and the associated pixels. 1280x800 vs 1440x900. I'd buy another MBP just for the higher resolution screen.

Worth checking the drive for file fragmentation? Mine was running horribly slowly a few weeks back becuase I'd filled the drive up and it was heavily fragmented.
Click to expand...

True, make sure you have at least 10gb+ of hard disk space free for mac osx to run smoothly as it uses a lot of temp/swap files.
 
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