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15" Early 2011 Macbook Pro

J

jharvey71884

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 3, 2011
300
27
So I went to Simply Mac today. New store in the mall and I thought I would check it out.

They offered me a $1050 for my 15" Macbook Pro i7 w/ 2.0 GHz quad-core, 8GB of ram, and 500GB HD. I then started to talk to them about upgrading it.

They said for $475 parts and labor, they could bump up the ram to 16GB and put a SSD 240 GB drive in it. That would also include an external case for my current 500gb HDD.

Just wondering, if I jump to 16gb and the SSD, how big of a difference will that make in performance and is it worth it?

I'm a reporter and do a lot of little two three minute videos in final cut and just recently got into photography, so am using lightroom a lot. If I upgraded I would probably need to keep it a couple more years, and it would suck not having a Retina Display.
 
You could do that yourself for $290 from Crucial.com and I'm sure if you shop around, you may find even better deals. The SSD would definitely help most users. The RAM may or may not help, depending on your usual workload.
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GGJstudios said:
You could do that yourself for $290 from Crucial.com and I'm sure if you shop around, you may find even better deals. The SSD would definitely help most users. The RAM may or may not help, depending on your usual workload.
Click to expand...

Put in ram before, although I did manage to figure out a way to get it stuck the first time I ever did it :mad: (I'm an idiot), but might have to go watch a video on the SSD. Would probably make me pretty nervous.
 
jharvey71884 said:
Put in ram before, although I did manage to figure out a way to get it stuck the first time I ever did it :mad: (I'm an idiot), but might have to go watch a video on the SSD. Would probably make me pretty nervous.
Click to expand...
There are plenty of videos and "how to" instructions on the web. It's really not tough at all.
 
Check out ifixit.com. If you are uncomfortable with it get a techy friend to help. Hopefully he has all the mini screw drivers and a USB enclosure too.
 
jharvey71884 said:
So I went to Simply Mac today. New store in the mall and I thought I would check it out.

They offered me a $1050 for my 15" Macbook Pro i7 w/ 2.0 GHz quad-core, 8GB of ram, and 500GB HD. I then started to talk to them about upgrading it.

They said for $475 parts and labor, they could bump up the ram to 16GB and put a SSD 240 GB drive in it. That would also include an external case for my current 500gb HDD.

Just wondering, if I jump to 16gb and the SSD, how big of a difference will that make in performance and is it worth it?

I'm a reporter and do a lot of little two three minute videos in final cut and just recently got into photography, so am using lightroom a lot. If I upgraded I would probably need to keep it a couple more years, and it would suck not having a Retina Display.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't bother with a 2011 MBP, because all the 2011 15" /17" MBPs, both early and late 2011, have a manufacturing flaw with the GPU that causes it to fail.
 
jharvey71884 said:
Put in ram before, although I did manage to figure out a way to get it stuck the first time I ever did it :mad: (I'm an idiot), but might have to go watch a video on the SSD. Would probably make me pretty nervous.
Click to expand...

Really, you just have to take the plunge and do it. It's really simple and it would be pretty hard to accidentally break something. As long as you follow a decent guide, you should be able to do it yourself. No way I would pay a tech $200 to do such a simple task.
 
yjchua95 said:
I wouldn't bother with a 2011 MBP, because all the 2011 15" /17" MBPs, both early and late 2011, have a manufacturing flaw with the GPU that causes it to fail.
Click to expand...


Just wondering at this point, if mine is not going to fail and isn't suffering from it. Figured it would have happened by now.
 
jharvey71884 said:
Are most just doing a flat repair through Apple?

With the price they offered me, almost wondering if I should I try to trade it in.
Click to expand...

Most do a flat repair, but then it breaks down again within 2 weeks. Apple will always use refurb logic boards for repairs, and all the Sandy Bridge with Radeon boards have the manufacturing flaw.

There is no guaranteed repair for it, other than reballing (re-soldering) a new GPU into the board with leaded solder, as well as reapplying the thermal paste.

I didn't bother doing that to mine because the 67x0M series is already pretty outdated. Even the GT650M in the 2012 MBPs outperform the 67x0M series by one hell of a lot.

I got two rMBPs to replace it instead.
 
Well i can't live without a Macbook Pro with my travel. And I would hate to do it, but I'm wondering if I should get rid of the Macbook Pro (trade $1000) and my mid 2011 iMac with an i5 and 8 GB of ram (trade $800) for a newer Macbook Pro. I might even be able to have them give me another 10% since I'm trading in two.
 
jharvey71884 said:
Well i can't live without a Macbook Pro with my travel. And I would hate to do it, but I'm wondering if I should get rid of the Macbook Pro (trade $1000) and my mid 2011 iMac with an i5 and 8 GB of ram (trade $800) for a newer Macbook Pro. I might even be able to have them give me another 10% since I'm trading in two.
Click to expand...

Have you considered purchasing refurb models? They're as good as new (even better than new sometimes, because testing has been done to iron out the flaws) and are very good.

More often than not, refurb models are returned by the customers back to Apple, completely unopened.
 
yjchua95 said:
Have you considered purchasing refurb models? They're as good as new (even better than new sometimes, because testing has been done to iron out the flaws) and are very good.

More often than not, refurb models are returned by the customers back to Apple, completely unopened.
Click to expand...

I have, but then the problem is I'm going to have to try to unload my Macbook Pro and iMac by myself. Such a pain when I'm getting decent trade in value compared to sales on Ebay.
 
If you decide to upgrade, you should do it yourself. They are overcharging for it, and you have less control over the quality of the SSD they are putting in.

The $1050 seems a nice offer for a trade in... of course then you have to think what to buy instead (and whether to go for the high end model). You will also get a machine that is lighter, less noisy, a little bit faster, with a better screen, longer battery life, and so on...

Radeongate is annoying. I have suffered in the past from the infamous 8600M GT, which failed after 38 months. Fortunately repair was free back then, and the machine probably still works these days (sold it at 5 years age). I also have a 2011 15'' with 6750M, late 2011. No problems so far, will see what happens.
 
thundersteele said:
Radeongate is annoying. I have suffered in the past from the infamous 8600M GT, which failed after 38 months. Fortunately repair was free back then, and the machine probably still works these days (sold it at 5 years age). I also have a 2011 15'' with 6750M, late 2011. No problems so far, will see what happens.
Click to expand...

The repair was free back then because it was on NVIDIA's dime. The 8600GT failures also affected the same chips found in Windows systems.

The Radeongate fiasco was due to a manufacturing flaw not on the card itself, but the soldering of the card (using unleaded solder) and the poor application of thermal paste. So Apple should own up to this blowup.
 
So what do people think of this, am I giving up to much? Not looking to spend too much money.

Trading in the mid 2011 iMac 21.5 w/ i5 and 12 fb ram

and

Trading in early 2011 MacBook Pro 15" w/ i7 500gb HDD 8gb ram + little cash


For 2013 MacBook Pro 15 inch retina base and 27 inch monitor for home.

I hate not having a dedicated graphics card in it.
 
Last edited:
My other option is decking my iMac mid 2011 21.5 i5 w/ 12gb of ram into a machine that's got 24 gb of ram and then just trading my Macbook Pro + a little cash in for a new retina 13. They do look pretty nice when it comes to photos. Probably could cut small interviews 2 minutes or less on it and all projects on iMac.
 
jharvey71884 said:
So I went to Simply Mac today. New store in the mall and I thought I would check it out.



They offered me a $1050 for my 15" Macbook Pro i7 w/ 2.0 GHz quad-core, 8GB of ram, and 500GB HD. I then started to talk to them about upgrading it.



They said for $475 parts and labor, they could bump up the ram to 16GB and put a SSD 240 GB drive in it. That would also include an external case for my current 500gb HDD.



Just wondering, if I jump to 16gb and the SSD, how big of a difference will that make in performance and is it worth it?



I'm a reporter and do a lot of little two three minute videos in final cut and just recently got into photography, so am using lightroom a lot. If I upgraded I would probably need to keep it a couple more years, and it would suck not having a Retina Display.
Click to expand...


I would say that you should see a significant improvement with the upgraded RAM and an SSD. The SSD alone will garner you a much faster drive.
 
chrissy4605 said:
I would say that you should see a significant improvement with the upgraded RAM and an SSD. The SSD alone will garner you a much faster drive.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure I'm going to unload it with all the failed GPUs out there and get a new 13' Macbook Retina with 8GB and 256 SSD
 
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