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2.33 2.1 MBP Upgrade or no?

loteq

loteq

macrumors member
Original poster
May 12, 2008
48
29
Hey ya'll,

Have a 1.5 yr old MBP 2.33 with 3 GB RAM and a new 320 GB HDD. Is there any sufficient reason to upgrade to a new penryn based machine performance wise?

I do some amateur photography and video so the power Im sure will help, but everything Ive read show that overall performance of the machine is about 1.4x over mine, except in floating point math, which is way faster. Thats better for encoding, filters etc, but not much else so it doesnt bother me that much.

So question is, buy a new imac for home and keep the laptop for kicking around and work, or just buy a new MBP and sell the old one. (probably could get 1000 bucks for it still?)

Cheers
 
You could get at least $1200 if its in good shape.

The new ones have a very improved video card, which will help with video apps. They have slightly better battery, the LED screen (better evenness, battery, brightness), faster clockspeed, more allowed ram.

Lots of reasons to, but if you're happy, then you could stick with your current one.
 
I bumped up from 2.33 to a 2.4 SR and i love it. LED screen is much better than the old CCFLs. I upgraded just because of that (as well as the increased RAM capacity)

I sold my 2.33 with maxed out RAM for 1,500 w/ applecare. My computer was in pristine condition though.

the 8600GT absolutely blows the 2.33's x1600 out of the water too, i might add.
 
Me personally, I think the LED backlight was one of the top reasons, also the newer SR board which allowed me to use 4GB full. The higher clockspeed? Meh. I'm a spec geek, but 2.33 - 2.40GHz... hmmm... 0.07, that's a minor 3% increase. However, there was the upgraded FSB of 667MHz to 800MHz.
 
I upgraded from 2.33 to 2.5 Penryn. The improvements are: battery life, screen, temperature, 4GB Ram, performance (including gaming). Really glad I went with the upgrade.
 
I sometimes envy you guys. With my never-ending compulsion to constantly upgrade to the latest and greatest, I only ever feel a small boost in performance.
 
raymondu999 said:
I sometimes envy you guys. With my never-ending compulsion to constantly upgrade to the latest and greatest, I only ever feel a small boost in performance.
Click to expand...

yea, if what you have serves your ultimate goal, i see no reason to upgrade.

im trying to keep from buying once a year myself, sometimes its hard. I just bought the 2.4 MBP penny, and i hope it lasts 2yrs at least.
 
New problem..

A friend of mine just had me help him setup a Macbook Air today. Uh oh. :eek:
 
meh you'd be severely limiting yourself if you go from a 2.33 to an Air.

I guess its cause i've worked on them...i personally think they're overrated. Installing software is a hassle w/o the $100 Macbook Air specific superdrive.
 
Ya but thinking if Im rolling a new 24 imac then the air isnt so bad as a email machine... I was actually surprised at how snappy it was... You can definitely see where the drive slowdown is, but page renders in the browser and apps were pretty spicy...
 
i have the exact same machine as you down to the ram and hd upgrade, and i say no especially since they are expecting a refresh in june. Wait for the next one, as I am.
 
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