17"......2.8GHz and 3.06GHz

[palmerc2]

About to purchase MBP in the coming days. I have my sights set on the 3.06, but want to know what the performance difference is between the two. I just want to know if it is worth the extra $300 for a faster processor. Is it worth it for performance? future proofing? etc etc.

I'd like to think the MBP follows the trends of the iMac, with the entry level 3.06 and upgradable to 3.33 iMac, I hope we will see the same for the MBP.

hoping for an update soooooooon

 

[Frosties]

Save the money. With quadcore, usb3 etc around the corner you will not future proof it by going up to 3.06. You will just get a processor that is a little bit faster. Nothing else.

 

[Spudracer]

^ What he said.

I just bought a MacBook Pro 17" about 5 weeks ago. The 2.8GHz and 3.06GHz processors are basically identical except for a roughly 9% difference in clock speed. Same die, same 6MB L2 cache. Everything I read indicated maybe a 3-4% difference in performance. That's not worth $300 to me.

I did opt for the $50 anti-glare display and the $50 upgrade to a 7,200 RPM hard drive.

If you want to spend several hundred dollars on an upgrade, an SSD is probably a lot more bang for the buck than a processor upgrade.

 

[Jiten]

I agree. The 3.06 is a waste of money. If you really need the notebook NOW then just get the 2.8 Ghz because the difference between both processors is almost nothing (the 3.06 is probably 1 or 3 seconds faster in CPU related tasks).

If you can wait until the next year, the Macbook Pro may be updated with a new much faster generation of CPUs.

 

[vant]

.26GHz is not future proofing.

 

[palmerc2]

^ What he said.

I just bought a MacBook Pro 17" about 5 weeks ago. The 2.8GHz and 3.06GHz processors are basically identical except for a roughly 9% difference in clock speed. Same die, same 6MB L2 cache. Everything I read indicated maybe a 3-4% difference in performance. That's not worth $300 to me.

I did opt for the $50 anti-glare display and the $50 upgrade to a 7,200 RPM hard drive.

If you want to spend several hundred dollars on an upgrade, an SSD is probably a lot more bang for the buck than a processor upgrade.

thanks for the info

already going for the 7,200RPM HDD,
and, against popular demand, I like glossy

 

[Spudracer]

thanks for the info

already going for the 7,200RPM HDD,
and, against popular demand, I like glossy

Hey, nothing wrong with glossy. It does produce a beautiful picture under the right circumstances. You pays yer money and you makes yer choice. I went back & forth for a month trying to decide between glossy and anti-glare. If it was a no-brainer I wouldn't have struggled with the decision.

 

[palmerc2]

Hey, nothing wrong with glossy. It does produce a beautiful picture under the right circumstances. You pays yer money and you makes yer choice. I went back & forth for a month trying to decide between glossy and anti-glare. If it was a no-brainer I wouldn't have struggled with the decision.

I'm on pins and needles here, about to lose my mind....
what did you end up getting? matte or glossy?

 

[dudeitsjay]

http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=39312,35563

For the spec comparison. The 3.06 isn't worth it at all judging by the reviews. I had the 2.8/500gig 5400rpm for a while and I'd have to say that I chose the 5400rpm because I was worried about the extra energy usage and noise the 7200 could produce, seeing as I'm generally in a library with little outlets. Didn't really look up the differences, so I wouldn't know.

I would highly encourage the matte. I couldn't stress enough how much annoyance I would get from the glare coming even from the library lights, let alone outside on a sunny day in the shade. I've switched to the 15'' for the size and am missing that 1920x1200 screen haha..

 

[Spudracer]

I'm on pins and needles here, about to lose my mind....
what did you end up getting? matte or glossy?

Ha, you sound like you're exactly where I was several weeks ago. I have an Apple store right across the street from my office and I was in there a couple of times a week for the entire month of Sept. I would take the glossy and anti-glare MBP 17's and put them next to each other then run through iphoto, imovie, final cut, aperture, etc for an hour. The Apple associates just learned to leave me alone after a while.

I admit it was a tough decision. The glossy screen can look "wow" with heavily saturated colors and deep blacks. And in many cases, the glare can be eliminated for the most part by moving the screen 1/4 inch to bounce the reflections away from your eyes. The glass layer shows finger prints more easily but it's also easier to clean and provides some protection to the LCD panel. I also think the edge to edge look of the glossy panel is the better looking of the two. The anti-glare screen with its aluminum bezel looks more industrial / utilitarian. The glossy screen looks like a slick consumer product.

In the end though I went with the anti-glare screen and I'm really happy with it. The anti-glare coating is about the best I've ever used. What really sold me was the lack of reflections plus the more natural rendering of colors. When you put the two side by side, the glossy can impress until you realize that the colors don't look natural. They look over saturated next to the anti-glare screen. I use the MBP 90% of the time for editing still photos and video footage so accurate colors are important for me. And with the gloosy screen sometimes when I adjusted the screen angle to eliminate a light source, the screen would then pick up a mirror like reflection of the light colored aluminum deck on the computer. It was a no win situation. Also, even when the display area had a bright image displayed and glare wasn't an issue, the all black bezel area surrounding the screen would pick up and reflect my hand movements and even the shirt I was wearing. The peripheral reflected movements were really distracting when you're trying to concentrate. If you're just watching a movie it wouldn't be a problem.

Good luck.

 

[Spudracer]

http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=39312,35563

For the spec comparison. The 3.06 isn't worth it at all judging by the reviews. I had the 2.8/500gig 5400rpm for a while and I'd have to say that I chose the 5400rpm because I was worried about the extra energy usage and noise the 7200 could produce, seeing as I'm generally in a library with little outlets. Didn't really look up the differences, so I wouldn't know.

I would highly encourage the matte. I couldn't stress enough how much annoyance I would get from the glare coming even from the library lights, let alone outside on a sunny day in the shade. I've switched to the 15'' for the size and am missing that 1920x1200 screen haha..

I wasn't worried about battery life as the 17" MBP has about the best battery life of any desktop replacement notebook on the market at the moment. My 7,200 RPM hard drive is just about silent. In fact I never hear the hard drive or the fans. About the only noise my MBP makes comes from the slot load DVD drive. Now that thing makes some noise.

A bigger concern was the bleeping and blooping noise some early buyers were experiencing with the 500GB 7,200 RPM drive back in June / July just after release. Apparently Apple's firmware was fighting with the hard drive's firmware. But as I suspected, by the time I ordered my MBP in early Oct the factory had the fix in production. I've had exactly zero problems.

The faster drive was important for me as storage systems are generally the single biggest choke point in system performance when dealing with big image and video files. The faster drive can make a much bigger difference in performance than a processor upgrade. I would have gone for a SSD now if they weren't so damned expensive at the moment. I'll wait a year or two then give the machine a big boost in performance with a 500GB SSD for a couple hundred bucks.

 

[skye12]

Concur with saving the money and definitely going for 7200 HD.

To go a step further, I'd wait until Jan at this point.

 

[Jason Beck]

Concur with saving the money and definitely going for 7200 HD.

To go a step further, I'd wait until Jan at this point.

True that!

 

[palmerc2]

Ha, you sound like you're exactly where I was several weeks ago. I have an Apple store right across the street from my office and I was in there a couple of times a week for the entire month of Sept. I would take the glossy and anti-glare MBP 17's and put them next to each other then run through iphoto, imovie, final cut, aperture, etc for an hour. The Apple associates just learned to leave me alone after a while.

I admit it was a tough decision. The glossy screen can look "wow" with heavily saturated colors and deep blacks. And in many cases, the glare can be eliminated for the most part by moving the screen 1/4 inch to bounce the reflections away from your eyes. The glass layer shows finger prints more easily but it's also easier to clean and provides some protection to the LCD panel. I also think the edge to edge look of the glossy panel is the better looking of the two. The anti-glare screen with its aluminum bezel looks more industrial / utilitarian. The glossy screen looks like a slick consumer product.

In the end though I went with the anti-glare screen and I'm really happy with it. The anti-glare coating is about the best I've ever used. What really sold me was the lack of reflections plus the more natural rendering of colors. When you put the two side by side, the glossy can impress until you realize that the colors don't look natural. They look over saturated next to the anti-glare screen. I use the MBP 90% of the time for editing still photos and video footage so accurate colors are important for me. And with the gloosy screen sometimes when I adjusted the screen angle to eliminate a light source, the screen would then pick up a mirror like reflection of the light colored aluminum deck on the computer. It was a no win situation. Also, even when the display area had a bright image displayed and glare wasn't an issue, the all black bezel area surrounding the screen would pick up and reflect my hand movements and even the shirt I was wearing. The peripheral reflected movements were really distracting when you're trying to concentrate. If you're just watching a movie it wouldn't be a problem.

Good luck.

wow, that is.....interesting. I am definitely second guessing my decision on glossy. don't know what to do, guess i'll need to go into the store for a third time to do a side-by-side comparison

the employees are alright with you putting two MBPs side by side? one glossy, and one anti-glare? Cuz at the apple store I went to, they were back to back, so had to continually strafe back and forth...and by the time I got to the other one, another person would ponder at the option of actually getting a laptop - but would never pull the trigger.

 

[maflynn]

Save the money. With quadcore, usb3 etc around the corner you will not future proof it by going up to 3.06. You will just get a processor that is a little bit faster. Nothing else.

USB3 is not around the corner and in fact intel has stated that they'll not have usb3 motherboards until 2011. Quadcore based MBPs may appear sometime in the first half of 2010.

For the OP, if you need one now, get one now, if you can hold off then hold off.

 

[Spudracer]

wow, that is.....interesting. I am definitely second guessing my decision on glossy. don't know what to do, guess i'll need to go into the store for a third time to do a side-by-side comparison

the employees are alright with you putting two MBPs side by side? one glossy, and one anti-glare? Cuz at the apple store I went to, they were back to back, so had to continually strafe back and forth...and by the time I got to the other one, another person would ponder at the option of actually getting a laptop - but would never pull the trigger.

Ya mon. The Apple store near my office was set up the same way. Glossy on one side of the table anti-glare on the other. The 17's were both at one end of the table so I just spun em both around and voila, side by side comparison. Once I had em lined up people were reluctant to butt in. Hey, let em get their own side by side.