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13" MBP 2.4GHz or 2.66GHz

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xSGCrash

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 4, 2010
9
0
Hey!

Buying a 13" MBP in the next week or so, mainly going to be used for university on a programming course. main uses would be for internet, programming, using adobe creative suite (dreamweaver / photoshop) as a hobby and potentially editing photos / videos - onlylight editing though. Also going to be connecting to a 24" LED external monitor when I'm at home.

Just wondering on your thoughts between the standard 13" 2.4GHz 250GB MBP and the 13" 2.66GHz 320GB MBP, Obviously as I'm a student I will be getting the HE discount, just wondering if you think paying £200+ for an extra 70GB space and a faster processor would be worth it or a waste of money?

Cheers!
 
Nope, spend the money on an SSD, or put it in your bank account until you can get a 13" MBP with the i5 processor.
 
xSGCrash said:
Hey!

Buying a 13" MBP in the next week or so, mainly going to be used for university on a programming course. main uses would be for internet, programming, using adobe creative suite (dreamweaver / photoshop) as a hobby and potentially editing photos / videos - onlylight editing though. Also going to be connecting to a 24" LED external monitor when I'm at home.

Just wondering on your thoughts between the standard 13" 2.4GHz 250GB MBP and the 13" 2.66GHz 320GB MBP, Obviously as I'm a student I will be getting the HE discount, just wondering if you think paying £200+ for an extra 70GB space and a faster processor would be worth it or a waste of money?

Cheers!
Click to expand...

No. The base should fit your needs fine!
 
I have both. Take the money you save from buying the base model, buy an aftermarket SSD and an additional 4GB of RAM (giving you 6GB total).
Use the stock HDD that came with the computer and use it as an external drive for storage.
Total cost for this upgrade will be about what you would have spent for the 2.66 MBP and the 320GB HDD and your computer will be much, much faster and handle any programs you need. Just my opinion.
 
Covart said:
I have both. Take the money you save from buying the base model, buy an aftermarket SSD and an additional 4GB of RAM (giving you 6GB total).
Use the stock HDD that came with the computer and use it as an external drive for storage.
Total cost for this upgrade will be about what you would have spent for the 2.66 MBP and the 320GB HDD and your computer will be much, much faster and handle any programs you need. Just my opinion.
Click to expand...

i agree, do this.
 
Covart said:
I have both. Take the money you save from buying the base model, buy an aftermarket SSD and an additional 4GB of RAM (giving you 6GB total).
Use the stock HDD that came with the computer and use it as an external drive for storage.
Total cost for this upgrade will be about what you would have spent for the 2.66 MBP and the 320GB HDD and your computer will be much, much faster and handle any programs you need. Just my opinion.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Extra Ram or Better Hard Drive (SSD Or 7200 Rpm) would give you a bigger performance boost than the extra .26 Ghz (of which the performance difference would be almost unnoticable)
 
You can buy a 320 GB drive for $69-$79. So you are spending $220 for a CPU with a 266 MHz/0.26 GHz faster clock speed. Surprisingly, because Apple buys the CPUs in bulks, the P8600 (2.4 GHz) and P8800 (2.66 GHz) actually cost Apple the same ($241). Now if you put the higher end MBP next to the lower end MBP, and ran benchmarks, the higher end would be faster...but not by much. Only several seconds or milliseconds. If you started with the high end MBP (2.66 GHz) and someone took it away and gave you the slower model, you wouldn't even notice, as the speed decrease is so small.
Put the money saved towards an SSD, and you will see your (base) MBP be faster...way faster than the high end model with a regular Hard drive.

Or put the money saved towards Apple Care
 
Thanks for your replies, what place would you recommend buying an SSD from? I'm assuming from Apple themselves would be expensive compared to someone else? any links would be appreciated, in any currency as I can just find a local shop offering the same item!
 
Buy the base model and install any SandForce 1200 based SSD in it and live happy!
 
SSD Source

xSGCrash said:
Thanks for your replies, what place would you recommend buying an SSD from? I'm assuming from Apple themselves would be expensive compared to someone else? any links would be appreciated, in any currency as I can just find a local shop offering the same item!
Click to expand...

I highly recommend OWC (macsales.com). Their SSD, like the OCZ Vertex 2, has a Sandforce controller, which is important, particularly since OSX does not support TRIM (yet).

More on Sandforce: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2899/1

I put the OWC 240 GB SSD in my 13" 2.4GHz MBP and it is like night and day. It boots and loads OSX and launches apps nearly instantly. The 240 is quite pricey, but the 120 GB is more manageable. Plus, you can get a rebate by sending in the original HD.

My 2 cents! :)
 
bigrob66 said:
I highly recommend OWC (macsales.com). Their SSD, like the OCZ Vertex 2, has a Sandforce controller, which is important, particularly since OSX does not support TRIM (yet).

More on Sandforce: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2899/1

I put the OWC 240 GB SSD in my 13" 2.4GHz MBP and it is like night and day. It boots and loads OSX and launches apps nearly instantly. The 240 is quite pricey, but the 120 GB is more manageable. Plus, you can get a rebate by sending in the original HD.

My 2 cents! :)
Click to expand...

I had a look at that website, those youtube videos they have for comparison look too good to be true i.e loading all CS5 apps etc, can you vouch for them?

Silly question time - how easy was it to back up your old data and move it onto your SSD and does it invalidate your warrenty?

Cheers!
 
xSGCrash said:
I had a look at that website, those youtube videos they have for comparison look too good to be true i.e loading all CS5 apps etc, can you vouch for them?

Silly question time - how easy was it to back up your old data and move it onto your SSD and does it invalidate your warrenty?

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Yep, it really is like in the video. The base drives Apple puts in the MBP are pretty slow - I guess Apple is shooting for battery life and cost over performance. Check out macworld's review of the enterprise class version of the drive: http://www.macworld.com/reviews/product/585970/overview/mercury_extreme_pro_re_200gb_ssd.html

Changing the drives is easy. You can find guides online, but two options are: use your TimeMachine back up or stick the old drive in an external case (I used the USB kit from OWC, connect it to your MBP and use the OSX migration utility), then boot from the new drive. If you do the latter, be sure to go to System Preferences and select the new drive as the start up drive, otherwise the system will waste time looking for the old drive before finding the new one. At least that was my experience.

I'm so glad I used the extra money for the SSD rather than the 2.66 GHz model.

Good luck!
 
xSGCrash said:
Thanks for your replies, what place would you recommend buying an SSD from? I'm assuming from Apple themselves would be expensive compared to someone else? any links would be appreciated, in any currency as I can just find a local shop offering the same item!
Click to expand...

Don't go with the the APPLE drive. You'll regret that move. You want to look at the WD Scoprio Black drives and G-Skill for RAM.
 
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