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Question re: VRAM and 7200 drive in relation to Aperture

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PieMac

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 3, 2002
769
29
I am seriously considering Ebaying my current 2.16 core 2 duo MBP with 3 GB RAM and upgrading to the new MBP...largely because of Aperture.

I know that the improved video card is key to Aperture performance, but I am still unclear as to exactly how important the video ram (256 MB vs 128 MB) and the hard drive speed (5400 or 7200) factor in. I am thinking about ordering the 2.2 Ghz with the 7200 HD vs the stock 2.4 15" MBP which has more video RAM yet a 5400 hard drive.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!
 
C

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,578
1,695
Redondo Beach, California
PieMac said:
I am seriously considering Ebaying my current 2.16 core 2 duo MBP with 3 GB RAM and upgrading to the new MBP...largely because of Aperture.
Click to expand...

The way Core Image works is that for each function and there are many and even a way for developers not at Apple to add more, the system checks if running on the CPU or on the GPU would be faster. So when you add change out a GPU the software may, or may not make a different decision and the decision is at a very fine grain. So, it depends on exactly what you do and how you use Aperture and so on. For example let's say color space transformations are now 3X faster but you never do that so it does not matter. What this means is that you have to go to an Apple store and test. My guess is that any speed up will be marginal, nothing dramatic. An extra GB of RAM will help but I think you hhave to double RAM to make a huge difference that is noticable

But then you might make some money. Buyers on eBay have been known to pay more than retail for used Apple goods.
 
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