I bought my sister a late 2008 MacBook for christmas to do some light photoshop work. I put a 128GB SATA SSD in it along with 6GB RAM and it has a 2.0GHz Core2Duo in it. Do you think it will suffice for photoshop work? Nothing tremendously heavy, just touching up photos.
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2008 MacBook questions
- Thread starter abtekk
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Yeah, it'll run Photoshop absolutely fine. Just be aware that on the 2008 Unibody models, you might get an issue with the SATA interface being bottlenecked at 1.5Gb/s rather than the 3Gb/s it should be running at – you can verify this through System Information. It doesn't make a huge impact as you've got an SSD in there, but I thought it worth mentioning anyway.
50/50 really, it's not consistent so you'll have to check within the OS – but if you have the problem, you can't solve it. Issues with Nvidia chipset firmware or something weird like that. Best thing to do is click the Apple Menu at the top-left, and hold the 'Alt' key. You'll see that 'About this Mac' will change to 'System Information'.
Then click SATA/SATA Express on the left-hand side, and click the chipset above your SSD. If you look at the Link Speed, then Negotiated Link Speed. The problem on the 2008s were that the Link Speed is 3Gb/s, but the negotiated speed is 1.5Gb/s. If you've got 3Gb/s on both, you're absolutely fine.
Again, not the end of the world when you've got an SSD in, but due to the bottleneck I find that the white unibody plastic 2009 MacBooks are a little quicker with an SSD because they don't have that problem.
It's mainly just to let you know in case you wonder why it's running slower than you'd expect with an SSD. Hope I didn't worry you, it's still very capable and will run absolutely fine, even at 1.5Gb/s.
50/50 really, it's not consistent so you'll have to check within the OS – but if you have the problem, you can't solve it. Issues with Nvidia chipset firmware or something weird like that. Best thing to do is click the Apple Menu at the top-left, and hold the 'Alt' key. You'll see that 'About this Mac' will change to 'System Information'.
Then click SATA/SATA Express on the left-hand side, and click the chipset above your SSD. If you look at the Link Speed, then Negotiated Link Speed. The problem on the 2008s were that the Link Speed is 3Gb/s, but the negotiated speed is 1.5Gb/s. If you've got 3Gb/s on both, you're absolutely fine.
Again, not the end of the world when you've got an SSD in, but due to the bottleneck I find that the white unibody plastic 2009 MacBooks are a little quicker with an SSD because they don't have that problem.
It's mainly just to let you know in case you wonder why it's running slower than you'd expect with an SSD. Hope I didn't worry you, it's still very capable and will run absolutely fine, even at 1.5Gb/s.
Looks like I'm running at 3Gb/s both negotiated and link speed. Lucky me. My main worry was more the processor, but if it can handle photoshop, I think she'll be happy with it. Thank you for your replies.
50/50 really, it's not consistent so you'll have to check within the OS – but if you have the problem, you can't solve it. Issues with Nvidia chipset firmware or something weird like that. Best thing to do is click the Apple Menu at the top-left, and hold the 'Alt' key. You'll see that 'About this Mac' will change to 'System Information'.
Then click SATA/SATA Express on the left-hand side, and click the chipset above your SSD. If you look at the Link Speed, then Negotiated Link Speed. The problem on the 2008s were that the Link Speed is 3Gb/s, but the negotiated speed is 1.5Gb/s. If you've got 3Gb/s on both, you're absolutely fine.
Again, not the end of the world when you've got an SSD in, but due to the bottleneck I find that the white unibody plastic 2009 MacBooks are a little quicker with an SSD because they don't have that problem.
It's mainly just to let you know in case you wonder why it's running slower than you'd expect with an SSD. Hope I didn't worry you, it's still very capable and will run absolutely fine, even at 1.5Gb/s.
Further to your information, research has shown me that it's more drives that have sandforce controllers that don't play well with Nvidia chipsets, maybe this is why nvidia don't make them anymore, because they suck. Nonetheless, my SSD has a marvell controller and seems to work well.
Jackpot! Yeah she'll love the machine bro, it was a very nice idea and with the SSD she'll be really really happy with its performance. Very thoughtful present.
Have a great evening!
1. Go to the upper left and click on the Apple logo.
2. Select About This Mac.
3. In the window that pops open, click System Profiler or System Report.
4. In the window that pops open, click on SATA/SATA Express on the left of the window.
5. In the top, right portion of the window, select the interface your hard drive is connected to and click it.
6. Look in the lower, right portion of the window and look for Link Speed.
2. Select About This Mac.
3. In the window that pops open, click System Profiler or System Report.
4. In the window that pops open, click on SATA/SATA Express on the left of the window.
5. In the top, right portion of the window, select the interface your hard drive is connected to and click it.
6. Look in the lower, right portion of the window and look for Link Speed.
Great - I didn't know that was a "live" way to check. Thought that would always reflect how the system was designed but didn't show current speed. Thanks!
