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Questions about the switch from PC to MAC.

S

scrace89

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 2, 2010
46
0
So my girlfriend currently bought a MBP 13 and I love it, the build quality is outstanding, and getting used to the MAC OS has been easy....now comes the hard part.

I currently bought an HP ENVY 17 had many flaws, I opened it up and the screen was coming apart from the shell of the laptop and the audio ports where not secured properly, then I received the replacement after I returned the broken one, and after running the computer for 5 minutes I noticed a screeching sound coming from the keyboard (which was not happening in my first ENVY) so I returned it. I am fed up with poorly built machines. Which leads to me towards buying a mac. My specs on the ENVY 17 where: 17 840qm, 8gb ddr3 ram, 160 ssd, ATI 5850 1g. With student discount led me to just under 2.2k with tax.

How much of a performance difference is there going to be with apple's MBP 17 i5, and 8gb ddr3 ram? I plan on using the computer for programming and some gaming (mostly starcraft 2). Is the performance going to suffer if I run sc2 in windows because the graphics card does not switch to the high performance one while in windows? Also can I change the partition size at any time once I install win7?

Is it worth it to wait until the next update comes out? Which is looking like feb?

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
1. Note that you'll be coming from a quad-core mobile i7. Apple only uses the dual-core versions. If you're not doing anything heavily multithreaded (1-2 cores active), the 2.53GHz i7 (610E) has roughly the same performance in turbo mode as the 840QM.

2. In Windows, the MBP will always default to the discrete GPU (330M), not the other way around. In Mac OS, it dynamically switches between the two, depending on the application.

3. Once you create a Windows partition with Boot Camp, it won't let you adjust the size of the partition in the future. You would have to wipe the Windows partition and make a new one.
 
CaptainChunk said:
1. Note that you'll be coming from a quad-core mobile i7. Apple only uses the dual-core versions. If you're not doing anything heavily multithreaded (1-2 cores active), the 2.53GHz i7 (610E) has roughly the same performance in turbo mode as the 840QM.

2. In Windows, the MBP will always default to the discrete GPU (330M), not the other way around. In Mac OS, it dynamically switches between the two, depending on the application.

3. Once you create a Windows partition with Boot Camp, it won't let you adjust the size of the partition in the future. You would have to wipe the Windows partition and make a new one.
Click to expand...

when you say discrete as the 330M is the high performance card?

Thanks for the quick reply.
 
CaptainChunk said:
3. Once you create a Windows partition with Boot Camp, it won't let you adjust the size of the partition in the future. You would have to wipe the Windows partition and make a new one.
Click to expand...

there are utilities for that, and you can do it from a linux machine, or boot disk.
 
I have a very comparable machine to your HP Envy, and gi en the fact mine has fewer cores, I am certain that it would be fast enough for you. This thing is lightning fast. You won't be disappointed. The cost with the student discount was around $2400.

And yeah the 330m is the desecrete processor
 
scrace89 said:
My specs on the ENVY 17 where: 17 840qm, 8gb ddr3 ram, 160 ssd, ATI 5850 1g. With student discount led me to just under 2.2k with tax.
Click to expand...

Don't forget, the mbps come with a stock 5400 rpm hdd whereas your Envy 17 had an ssd. If funds allow I'd pick up an ssd which should give a big performance boost with startups/shutdowns and general app lauching. People on here seem to recommend the OWC ones over mostly everything else (including the Apple ssds).
 
El Zanto said:
Don't forget, the mbps come with a stock 5400 rpm hdd whereas your Envy 17 had an ssd. If funds allow I'd pick up an ssd which should give a big performance boost with startups/shutdowns and general app lauching. People on here seem to recommend the OWC ones over mostly everything else (including the Apple ssds).
Click to expand...

that was my other concern with apple, the single harddrive slot and if you do anything to the computer but remove/add ram you void the warranty, i plan on getting the 128 because the 256 for twice the price is unrealistic, when my warranty is put ill be pulling the superdrive and adding a second harddrive spot.

thanks.
 
Interesting thread. I have 17" MacBook Pro and I was considering buying an HP Envy 17 as a Windows machine. It doesn't sound like the Envy lives up to its luxury price tag, whereas I think my MacBook Pro has been worth everything I paid and more.

As others have said, the SSD will make a world of difference. I can't imagine you'll enjoy going back to an old moving parts drive after using a system with SSD. It doesn't matter which OS you use, all of them will feel slow as hell without the SSD.
 
aurichie said:
Interesting thread. I have 17" MacBook Pro and I was considering buying an HP Envy 17 as a Windows machine. It doesn't sound like the Envy lives up to its luxury price tag, whereas I think my MacBook Pro has been worth everything I paid and more.

As others have said, the SSD will make a world of difference. I can't imagine you'll enjoy going back to an old moving parts drive after using a system with SSD. It doesn't matter which OS you use, all of them will feel slow as hell without the SSD.
Click to expand...

I'm going to be very happy with the MBP, the envy would be an amazing machine if HP would make sure it passed tests before leaving the builder in china, 2/2 envy's were not working 100% within 30 minutes of unboxing, with different problems. Hopefully I can survive without a number pad on a 17in laptop.
 
Hey the 17" macbook pro has a few different things over the 15", they have 3 usb 2.0 ports vs 2, and they do no have a SD card slot they have a express card slot, so you can install a second hard drive SSD or a esata port. I have just gotten my 15" MBP fully loaded with the 512 MB gt 330m graphics card, i had turn turn down some of the stuff for online play because it is intense when you get 600 units attacking each other. But for campaign it automatically set everything at high and it runs very smooth!!! and the processor is amazingly fast!!!
 
TopHatPlus said:
Hey the 17" macbook pro has a few different things over the 15", they have 3 usb 2.0 ports vs 2, and they do no have a SD card slot they have a express card slot, so you can install a second hard drive SSD or a esata port. I have just gotten my 15" MBP fully loaded with the 512 MB gt 330m graphics card, i had turn turn down some of the stuff for online play because it is intense when you get 600 units attacking each other. But for campaign it automatically set everything at high and it runs very smooth!!! and the processor is amazingly fast!!!
Click to expand...

Does the MBP 17 i5 come with the 512 graphics card for the 256?
 
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