Is the extra 400 bucks for .26 difference in Ghz really worth it? Is the speed difference noticeable?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
2.4ghz or 2.6ghz 13inch?
- Thread starter DannyNguyener
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It's not just a difference of 260 megahertz, it's also 70 gigs more storage. Nevertheless I would say, emphatically, no!
Agreed.
Thats a 10.8% difference in maximum CPU performance. Which you'll only see if you're hammering the CPU at 100% -- something few people do very much outside of large simulations, video editing, or other tasks that are primarily CPU dependent and not limited by other factors. Even then, 10% isn't a whole lot. Something that takes an hour of 100% CPU usage would finish in 56 minutes; saving you 4 minutes. If your usage is that CPU heavy you'd likely be better moving to a 15" MBP anyway.
In day to day typically "office" or web usage you'll never see the difference.
There are much better ways to spend that $400 price difference, such as doing your own HDD upgrade, perhaps to an SSD.
Thats a 10.8% difference in maximum CPU performance. Which you'll only see if you're hammering the CPU at 100% -- something few people do very much outside of large simulations, video editing, or other tasks that are primarily CPU dependent and not limited by other factors. Even then, 10% isn't a whole lot. Something that takes an hour of 100% CPU usage would finish in 56 minutes; saving you 4 minutes. If your usage is that CPU heavy you'd likely be better moving to a 15" MBP anyway.
In day to day typically "office" or web usage you'll never see the difference.
There are much better ways to spend that $400 price difference, such as doing your own HDD upgrade, perhaps to an SSD.
Not worth it at all. You can do your own hard drive upgrade for a hundred bucks along with free cloning software like SuperDuper. The CPU bump is insignificant for most people. The price increase between those two models is silly in my opinion.
Buy 3rd party ram to get get 8GB and update the hard drive to a faster one is a much better way to spend $400 (or less) instead of a 105 bump in the CPU which you would only see in the most demanding tasks.
I went for the 2.66GHz 13-inch model. My reasons were:
Hope that helps with your decision
- I knew that I would be running multiple virtual machines at once, often with each one doing a fair amount of processing. My local Apple store was kind enough to let me try this on a 2.4GHz machine and a 2.66GHz machine. The difference is noticeable.
- I knew I'd use the extra storage space. An SSD would be no good for me at current prices.
- I'd like the computer to last as long as possible. You can upgrade RAM and HDD later. You can't upgrade the CPU.
- I'd be carrying the laptop around for most of the day, 5 days a week, for most of the year. That put me off the 15-inch model.
Hope that helps with your decision
Personally, I feel the difference whenever I try out my cousins MBP or the models at the Apple Store (which are a 2.66ghz Core2Duo 13" inch)
I would pay for the difference though. I'd rather buy an iPad or something
I would pay for the difference though. I'd rather buy an iPad or something
+1 If you are considering the $400 difference, this is the most cost effective performance improvement today. If you can get away with less than 240 GB, you could even consider a 120 GB SSD for $200, 8 GB of RAM for $100 and still be ahead $100.
Same thought
I just bought the 13" 2.66GHz after thinking I was going to buy the 2.4 to save money.
My thinking was this...
1) 15" too big and I don't want the decrease in battery (as compared to the 13")
2) I will do a little video editing
3) After academic discounts the and upgrading to a 500GB the $ difference was $270.
4) Like the other poster... I plan on having this laptop for several years and I know the one thing you can't upgrade is processor speed.
5) Half of the cost was an early Xmas present...
I just bought the 13" 2.66GHz after thinking I was going to buy the 2.4 to save money.
My thinking was this...
1) 15" too big and I don't want the decrease in battery (as compared to the 13")
2) I will do a little video editing
3) After academic discounts the and upgrading to a 500GB the $ difference was $270.
4) Like the other poster... I plan on having this laptop for several years and I know the one thing you can't upgrade is processor speed.
5) Half of the cost was an early Xmas present...
not worth it, I was thinking of doing a spec bump on my laptop from the 2.4 ghz to the 2.53 ghz ci5, but I didn't do it because I thought the money would be better spent on ripping out the Optical drive and dropping in a SSD.
Trust, if you're debating on this, use the money for a SSD instead, it'll blow your expectations out of the water
Trust, if you're debating on this, use the money for a SSD instead, it'll blow your expectations out of the water
not worth it. don't get it. that's targeted toward a different demographic. 1% of this demographic are power users who actually put it to use and the other 99% are fools who part with their money because they don't know jack sht