Looking to purchase my first macbook, please help!!

[soquickwitit]

Hey all. I'm looking to make the jump to mac!! I'm basically wondering which model to buy. Macbook or macbook pro??

Heres my interests

I want to basically use if for video encoding. HI def and bluray files to mp4. and i want top speed!! Does the graphics card accelerate this? or ram? please help

apple is telling me to get the macbook pro. i'm not sure, so i thought i'd ask you guys.

please reply. thx

[McGiord]

To get the fastest one you better go with the MBP.

Also the Turbo H264 from El Gato may help you do that mp4 video conversion on a faster rate.
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GSX-R600

[marykay9507]

i concur-- for what you want to do, the MBP is the way to go.

[Techguy172]

The Macbook will do this fine the software doesn't even use the GPU so if you want to you can save a few bucks.

[soquickwitit]

Originally Posted by Techguy172

The Macbook will do this fine the software doesn't even use the GPU so if you want to you can save a few bucks.

Well these bluray files are huge, and can take awhile.

Does the graphics card make a difference in conversion speed? does ram? does processor? please help. thx

[Matek]

Graphics card doesn't have anything to do with it (better ones have hardware decoding support, but rarely encoding).

Ram does play a certain role, but isn't that important really. Besides, you can get 4 gigabytes for 70 usd and IMHO it would be dumb not to get it while it's still cheap, regardless of what laptop you buy. They both use the same ram so it's a tie.

It all comes down to the CPU. Fastest Macbook is 2.2 GHz, fastest MBP is 2.6 GHz. The price difference is huge, the cheapest MBP with a 2.6 CPU costs more than twice as much as the cheapest MB with a 2.2 CPU. An 18% faster CPU isn't worth it IMHO.

Of course the MBP is much better in many other aspects, but if you judge strictly by encoding power, the numbers simply don't add up.

[soquickwitit]

Originally Posted by Matek

Graphics card doesn't have anything to do with it (better ones have hardware decoding support, but rarely encoding).

Ram does play a certain role, but isn't that important really. Besides, you can get 4 gigabytes for 70 usd and IMHO it would be dumb not to get it while it's still cheap, regardless of what laptop you buy. They use the same ram so it's a tie.

It all comes down to the CPU. Fastest Macbook is 2.2 GHz, fastest MBP is 2.6 GHz. The price difference is huge, the cheapest MBP with a 2.6 CPU costs more than twice as much as the cheapest MB with a 2.2 CPU. An 18% faster CPU isn't worth it IMHO.

Of course the MBP is much better in many other aspects, but if you judge strictly by encoding power, the numbers simply don't add up.

so should i go to macbook?

[Techguy172]

Originally Posted by soquickwitit

so should i go to macbook?

Go with the Macbook and upgrade the Ram to max 4GB and you should be just fine not only do you save some money you get better portability. Since Blu-Ray isn't reliant on GPU for ripping you should be just fine with the Macbooks integrated GPU.

[MacDann]

And as someone mentioned earlier, if you're doing a lot of encoding, consider a hardware approach like Elgato's Turbo H264. For what it costs it would be worth it, considering the performance boost you would get from it.

MacDann

[soquickwitit]

Originally Posted by Matek

Graphics card doesn't have anything to do with it (better ones have hardware decoding support, but rarely encoding).

Ram does play a certain role, but isn't that important really. Besides, you can get 4 gigabytes for 70 usd and IMHO it would be dumb not to get it while it's still cheap, regardless of what laptop you buy. They both use the same ram so it's a tie.

It all comes down to the CPU. Fastest Macbook is 2.2 GHz, fastest MBP is 2.6 GHz. The price difference is huge, the cheapest MBP with a 2.6 CPU costs more than twice as much as the cheapest MB with a 2.2 CPU. An 18% faster CPU isn't worth it IMHO.

Of course the MBP is much better in many other aspects, but if you judge strictly by encoding power, the numbers simply don't add up.

Where do you get the Ram memory for that cheap? thx

[Techguy172]

Originally Posted by soquickwitit

Where do you get the Ram memory for that cheap? thx

Crucial, Newegg, TigerDirect OWC there's a few you can shop around to find the best deal.