17" Macbook Pro, or Quad Mac Pro? Help me decide.

[Ahheck01]

The mobility of the MBP would be nice, but I need to make sure my needs are met in the office before the luxury of mobility.

I will be doing a lot of testing and reviewing of productivity applications on multiple platforms, so I'd like to run Linux and Windows within OSX most of the time. I would have two, eventually 3 monitors for the Mac Pro, but the MBP is limited to 1 external monitor.

I would have 8GB ram in either. What I'm wondering is how big of a difference a 2.9ghz quad core makes vs. 2.8ghz dual core in the MBP? Other than the extra USB and FW ports, that's all I see an advantage in. The apps I'll be testing aren't by themselves labor intensive, but I may be doing a lot of web dev and graphics work in photoshop and whatnot in OSX while having the other OS's running - that will be the peak of my workload.

So, thoughts on dual core vs. quad - worth losing mobility for 2 more cores?

[EMKarelia]

Currently I use a MacBook Pro 17". I would recommend you buying one because it could be both, a desk top with a 24" monitor or have the most mobile laptop created.

[noiceT]

Even for web or 2D graphics type work, the flexibility of multiple internal hd slots of the macpro are its greatest asset when compared to notebook, etc.

Comparing the cpu speed and cores, may not change performance much if not using video apps, however having dedicated boot drive, scratch, data, etc. is one thing that will help a lot in your performance.

The fact that notebooks cannot do this, is where the performance drops imo.

Also, if portability is a major issue, rather than the 17", I would think the 15" would be a better option. I have a 17" powerbook aluminum, and the new 17" body has gotten lighter no doubt, it's still very hefty and cumbersome to luge around.

With that in mind, if you're not really carrying it around that much, I think a macpro is a much better choice.

[nanofrog]

The mobility of the MBP would be nice, but I need to make sure my needs are met in the office before the luxury of mobility.

I will be doing a lot of testing and reviewing of productivity applications on multiple platforms, so I'd like to run Linux and Windows within OSX most of the time. I would have two, eventually 3 monitors for the Mac Pro, but the MBP is limited to 1 external monitor.

I would have 8GB ram in either. What I'm wondering is how big of a difference a 2.9ghz quad core makes vs. 2.8ghz dual core in the MBP? Other than the extra USB and FW ports, that's all I see an advantage in. The apps I'll be testing aren't by themselves labor intensive, but I may be doing a lot of web dev and graphics work in photoshop and whatnot in OSX while having the other OS's running - that will be the peak of my workload.

So, thoughts on dual core vs. quad - worth losing mobility for 2 more cores?
Given the use range you describe (somewhat lacking in specifics in regards to time/% used or extent of graphics work), I'd think sacrificing portability for power would be the way to go.

You can run additional VM's (portable perhaps only one at a time), and on the graphics end, the MBP is stuck with a fixed chip on its logic board vs. upgradable card.

Hope this helps. :)

[Ahheck01]

Yup, we're going for the Quad Core Mac Pro, 8gb ram, dual superdrives, 2x graphics cards for up to 4 30" ACD's (though I'll just have on 24" HP for starters).