15" or 17" MBP?

[alphaod]

I don't know where you got from, but I have never experienced that before.

From the Reply above....

Good to know, what sort of applications are you using?

I play games on it. Occassionally I use Photoshop, Final Cut, Aperture 2 when need them.

Of course I watch a lot of HD (1080p preferred) movies on it as well and since there is no resizing to do, technically it's faster than having to resize and resample for a lower resolution display (like the one on the 15").

Obviously (I hope), I go online, use Office 2008, maybe some chatting.

All in all, it doesn't lag at all--definitely no video issues. Like I said for high resolution 1920x1080 HD movies, since my screen is 1920x1200, there is no resizing of the videos being played, and in turn the GPU/CPU doesn't have to resize anything and playback is more fluid than say on a 15" where it would have to downsample and resize the video to fit the lower resolution.

 

[Screwball]

Look jjahshik32, no offense, but after saying things like " The Mac Pro is faster than the MBP because "everything's bigger " " and " bigger=faster is true because the logic board is bigger so it has more heat for it to dissipate better which the cpu can clock higher " i cannot take you seriously anymore, sorry!

Do you actually believe, that a CPU will clock higher because it's sitting on a bigger circuit board with better heat dissipation???? What the hell does heat dissipation have to do with clock frequency at normal temperatures? I tell you right now, it has nothing to do with it!! Load determines the multiplier, therefore the frequency! A 2.6 C2D processor under OSX will sit at around 1.3 ghz ( depending on the multiplier) if you throw normal, everyday stuff at it..it will sit at around 1.3 ghz, whether it be a 15" or a 17". Once you start playing one or two HD 1080 clips for example, they'll go up to 2.6 ghz - once again - whether it be a 15" or a 17", period. Unless throttling down kicks in ( which is unlikely to happen below ca. 90 Celsius degree anyways ) , this holds ture! Clear now?

 

[jjahshik32]

Look jjahshik32, no offense, but after saying things like " The Mac Pro is faster than the MBP because "everything's bigger " " and " bigger=faster is true because the logic board is bigger so it has more heat for it to dissipate better which the cpu can clock higher " i cannot take you seriously anymore, sorry!

Do you actually believe, that a CPU will clock higher because it's sitting on a bigger circuit board with better heat dissipation???? What the hell does heat dissipation have to do with clock frequency at normal temperatures? I tell you right now, it has nothing to do with it!! Load determines the multiplier, therefore the frequency! A 2.6 C2D processor under OSX will sit at around 1.3 ghz ( depending on the multiplier) if you throw normal, everyday stuff at it..it will sit at around 1.3 ghz, whether it be a 15" or a 17". Once you start playing one or two HD 1080 clips for example, they'll go up to 2.6 ghz - once again - whether it be a 15" or a 17", period. Unless throttling down kicks in ( which is unlikely to happen below ca. 90 Celsius degree anyways ) , this holds ture! Clear now?

Of course its common sense bigger=more power. If your thinking about the 1980's with bigger computer vs. the computers now deal its completely different.

Bigger logic board well apple calls it logic boards instead of motherboards, anyways if it has more room and on top of it a much bigger and more efficient heat sink, the logic board will be able to clock up higher meaning it will have and put out more power/energy output while the 15" mbp will limit it from getting to a certain level.

Also because of the bigger heatsink/logic board the average output/power of a 17" mbp will be much higher than that of the 15" mbp. Kind of like a ratio deal.

I dont know why your arguing me to the death about this but in real life its so apparent. I've used the 15" for a good 3 months and once I upgraded to the 17" whether its hooked up to my 23" ACD or not I noticed the overall speed improvement right away.

Also the logic board from an 15" and 17" are not identical and if it were they would have just stuck the 15" mbp's logic board on the 17" with just a bigger case/screen.

There is a reason why its a bit more expensive for the 17" and its just not the screen/speakers/extra usb port.

Either way you can believe what you want and I'll believe what I want and I'm done posting on this thread.

 

[johnsy]

as far as tests go, here you can compare:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/Macbook_Memory_Benchmarks


It seems for some reasons 15" is faster in most of the tests... Also, this is my personal opinion, but I have to add it- 17" can be too big for you. I discovered that 24" imac is too big screen for me most of the times. Problem is that it has to big resolution for typing, internet browsing and some other things. I usually downsize my internet browser or put 2 windows, because it is hard to read on full screen. However bigger screen is excellent for watching DVD's, working with Photoshop and other graphic stuff.

 

[team 79 krunch]

I am in the market for a MBP as well for CAD use, And personally the 1 pound difference is nothing compared to the 1.6"s of HiRes screen space

 

[nyzballa12]

15" seems to be fine. I've seen the 17" in person and it seems way too big and looks like a pain to carry around.

 

[SchneiderMan]

from my time tests, the 17" mbp is alot SLOWER then the 15" mbp!

But, the hi-res 17" screen is really bright and awesome, just like the imacs
speakers are alot better on the 17" too

 

[Screwball]

See...

 

[Ropedartman]

Thanks

Thanks for all the input, I've heard of issues with the 15's, hopefully the update will resolve that. When they come out, I'll probably just play with each, stuff 'em in my bag (security to the front....) and see which one I like!

 

[Ropedartman]

Well, a hands-on test tells me that the 17" is huge! Duh, right? Too big for my taste, unless the revisions cut a lot of weight. Otherwise a 15" should do me fine, thanks for the help everyone!

 

[markrivers]

I've been through 12x 15" 2.4ghz mbp from last years model "merom" and 8x 15" 2.4, 2.5, 2.6ghz model of the "penryn" this year and all of them had the left speaker sizzling noise issue when the magsafe is connected with after a sound has played, magsafe green light not coming on sometimes, 1 had vertical led light issue, all of them had some sort of yellowish/beige tint at the bottom, and the 15" mbp generally felt more clunkier in performance and not as fast as the 17" mbp (maybe because the 17" mbp has a much bigger and more efficient heatsink), and finally the headphone jack via external speakers or headphones made hissing noises.

I've been through 2 17" mbp earlier this year just when the hi res led 17" mbp was released I bought the 2.5ghz model and compared to all the 15" mbp it ran overall much faster and I know what to compare it to as I had the mac pro desktop that ran as buttery smooth.

I ended up selling the 2.5ghz model 17" hi res mbp because I wanted a mba (since I already had a mac pro desktop) and once I got the mba, it was just too slow for the $$ so this is where my quest for the perfect 15" mbp and since then I returned up to 8 and finally ended up buying the 2.6ghz 17" mbp and sold the mac pro and do not regret it at all.

Anyway especially connected to my 23" and 30" acd the 17" mbp felt and was much closer to the buttery smooth osx that I was used to on my mac pro. The 15" felt like it hiccuped using expose and multitasking where this wasnt a problem with the 17" (felt more like a desktop speed).

Everything loads much faster and I've never had any image load slow on the 17", actually it loads alot faster. Also I had all the same specs on all of the 15" mbp that I had, I have a hitachi travelstar 7k200 that I installed on each of them with the 4gb of ram as well.

One interesting thing is that after 3 months and using my 17" hi res mbp, it feels like a 15" mbp again. I completely forgot the footprint of the 15" mbp and whenever I look at the 17" or pick it up, it feels small and I keep thinking its a 15" mbp with a higher resolution and bigger, clearer, louder speakers.

no offense. but this is a case of one unhappy/impulsive MAC user
peace!