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13.3-inch MBP - 2.26 vs 2.53 for VMware

M

mark-itguy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 22, 2007
106
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In the market for a 13.3-inch MacBook Pro. For work, I will have to have a Vista VM running 45-50 hours a week. Normally, the 2.26 HGz model would probably be all I needed, (this is not my primary machine), but the Vista VM runs much better with 2 vCPUs. I know on my iMac that slows the host OS down.

So... Would a 2.53 GHz really be all that much faster, while running a VM on an external FW800 drive?

I'd rather get the 2.26 GHz, up it to 4 GB of RAM, and if financially possible, get the SSD internal drive...

Thoughts?
 
mark-itguy said:
In the market for a 13.3-inch MacBook Pro. For work, I will have to have a Vista VM running 45-50 hours a week. Normally, the 2.26 HGz model would probably be all I needed, (this is not my primary machine), but the Vista VM runs much better with 2 vCPUs. I know on my iMac that slows the host OS down.

So... Would a 2.53 GHz really be all that much faster, while running a VM on an external FW800 drive?

I'd rather get the 2.26 GHz, up it to 4 GB of RAM, and if financially possible, get the SSD internal drive...

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

For running VM's, the order should without question be:

1. RAM
2. SSD
3. CPU
 
In a month or so the additional 300 bucks of the 2.53 will be able to get you 8gb of ram for your mac. Allowing you to run 2-3 virtual machines with enough ram for them and your host. Along with an SSD it will make loading them and running programs virtualized a breeze
 
Thanks all. Regardless, I will go for 4GB of RAM, not 2GB. That's all I need for the one VM, (and any other work and\or other VMs can be done on my Mac Pro).

I am pleasantly surprised no one thinks the extra, what, 270 MHz, would be a perceivable boost to a VM!

Next question: While I realize, duh, having the VM files located on the SSD would be faster, it that a common or good practice? I'm thinking of how the early USB memory sticks would wear out fast when the same area of memory was subject to intense use...
 
I run VMware Fusion VMs of XP and Vista off of a 320 GB hard drive installed in a 13" MBP 2.26 w/ 4 GB RAM. I am very happy with the performance, and it actually performs better than my old Windows box. I'm sure an SSD would be nice, but I would probably spend the extra money on 8 GB RAM once prices come down a little more, so that I could allocate a little more memory to my Mac and the VMs.
 
vant said:
.27GHz is hardly noticeable if at all.
Click to expand...

Great! Because I could get the 2.26 GHz, up the RAM to 4GB, and BTO or install my own SSD and be only $100 or so over the base 2.53 GHz model! (I know, that model already comes with 4 GB of RAM, but I'm trying to sell myself, too!).
 
I just got Fusion 3, and was using Excel in Windows 7 virtually, and also had a few small Apps loaded in OSX, and I had about 1GB of free ram left out of 4GB. So if you need to have more than 1 VM running 8GB would be a nice boost. Minor CPU speed difference won't be noticeable inside of your virtual OS.
 
mark-itguy said:
Next question: While I realize, duh, having the VM files located on the SSD would be faster, it that a common or good practice? I'm thinking of how the early USB memory sticks would wear out fast when the same area of memory was subject to intense use...
Click to expand...
IIRC, the controllers on the SSDs make sure that's not as much of an issue.
 
RKpro said:
I just got Fusion 3, and was using Excel in Windows 7 virtually, and also had a few small Apps loaded in OSX, and I had about 1GB of free ram left out of 4GB.
Click to expand...

Just curious - are you doing Windows 7 VM only or you're using Fusion 3 with your Boot Camp partition? How well does the new OS/Fusion3 combo run?
 
mark-itguy said:
Thanks all. Regardless, I will go for 4GB of RAM, not 2GB. That's all I need for the one VM, (and any other work and\or other VMs can be done on my Mac Pro).

I am pleasantly surprised no one thinks the extra, what, 270 MHz, would be a perceivable boost to a VM!

Next question: While I realize, duh, having the VM files located on the SSD would be faster, it that a common or good practice? I'm thinking of how the early USB memory sticks would wear out fast when the same area of memory was subject to intense use...
Click to expand...

It's pretty much the same as if you use the SSD as your boot/apps disk...
 
neteng101 said:
Just curious - are you doing Windows 7 VM only or you're using Fusion 3 with your Boot Camp partition? How well does the new OS/Fusion3 combo run?
Click to expand...

I've had the Windows 7 Beta installed via Bootcamp ever since it was released earlier this year, I've tried booting it virtually with Fusion 2, but it kept BSOD'ing during boot. After, I got Fusion 3, everything works seamlessly now. It finds your bootcamp partition right away and adds it to your Virtual Machine Library. When you start the Bootcamp OS in VM it will ask for your OSX password to be able to unmount the partition for VM use. It works very well so far.
 
I would get as fast a CPU as I can for VMWare. RAM can be added after the purchase but hopefully sooner than later.

Running Win 7 in vmware fusion can put up to 100% load on my 2.4ghz penryn for extended periods.

I also run my VM off a FW800 drive and it seems that it is my CPU that is the bottleneck.
 
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