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i7 Macbook Pro as a desktop replacement?

Obsidian6

Obsidian6

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 29, 2006
683
3
Laguna Niguel, CA
I am looking into getting a new computer this year. My current Macbook and Mac Pro are starting to show their age. I was considering consolidating to a new Macbook Pro (debating between the 15 and 17"). I was also considering an iPad for ultra-mobile usage and travel computing.

My primary usage is photography (Photoshop and Lightroom) I'm also now getting into video production so Final Cut Studio is in my regular lineup as well.

To my understanding the new i7 MBPs should be more than capable of what I need to do. My only concern would be external storage. On my mac pro I have 4 internal drives and I use a lot of data.

I was thinking that if I got the 17" MBP I could get an eSata card and use an external raid cabinet for storage and backup.

Do you guys think I would be foolish to do this?

My Mac Pro is the original model 2.66, it's starting to "turn grey" if you will.
 
Obsidian6 said:
I am looking into getting a new computer this year. My current Macbook and Mac Pro are starting to show their age. I was considering consolidating to a new Macbook Pro (debating between the 15 and 17"). I was also considering an iPad for ultra-mobile usage and travel computing.

My primary usage is photography (Photoshop and Lightroom) I'm also now getting into video production so Final Cut Studio is in my regular lineup as well.

To my understanding the new i7 MBPs should be more than capable of what I need to do. My only concern would be external storage. On my mac pro I have 4 internal drives and I use a lot of data.

I was thinking that if I got the 17" MBP I could get an eSata card and use an external raid cabinet for storage and backup.

Do you guys think I would be foolish to do this?

My Mac Pro is the original model 2.66, it's starting to "turn grey" if you will.
Click to expand...

How much memory do you currently have? I use a C2D MBP as a desktop replacement, but, running Final Cut/Compressor, and Photoshop, I can tell you that 4 MB is not really enough. You can order the new MBP with Core i7 and 8 MB. Pretty impressive for a laptop, but, over $3K already.
 
If you wish to consolidate, then the i7 will be a great choice. There are a several ExpressCard eSATA adapters that support port-multiplier and work well in Snow Leopard. If you are keeping your old Mac Pro, you could turn that into a file server for you storage needs and share everything over Ethernet; may not be as fast as SATA, but will fast nonetheless.

I don't think the i7 MacBook Pro will be faster than your Mac Pro… will probably be a slower.

jnpy!$4g3cwk said:
How much memory do you currently have? I use a C2D MBP as a desktop replacement, but, running Final Cut/Compressor, and Photoshop, I can tell you that 4 MB is not really enough. You can order the new MBP with Core i7 and 8 MB. Pretty impressive for a laptop, but, over $3K already.
Click to expand...

4MB is definitely not enough. :D
 
jnpy!$4g3cwk said:
How much memory do you currently have? I use a C2D MBP as a desktop replacement, but, running Final Cut/Compressor, and Photoshop, I can tell you that 4 MB is not really enough. You can order the new MBP with Core i7 and 8 MB. Pretty impressive for a laptop, but, over $3K already.
Click to expand...

Currently my Mac Pro has 9GB of Ram.

alphaod said:
If you wish to consolidate, then the i7 will be a great choice. There are a several ExpressCard eSATA adapters that support port-multiplier and work well in Snow Leopard. If you are keeping your old Mac Pro, you could turn that into a file server for you storage needs and share everything over Ethernet; may not be as fast as SATA, but will fast nonetheless.

I don't think the i7 MacBook Pro will be faster than your Mac Pro… will probably be a slower.
Click to expand...

I don't think i would be able to keep the Mac Pro as I would need the funds from selling both computers to buy the new Macbook Pro.

So you don't think the Macbook Pro would be any quicker with the apps I run? Despite being several generations newer? I don't know what else I could upgrade on my Mac Pro to make it any faster. I suppose I could try a different graphics card?
 
barefeats said:
An iMac core i7 is more bang for the buck than the new MBP.
Click to expand...

I keep noticing that. Twice the cores, four times the disk, 8 GB, all for the same as the MBP. Spec/$$-wise, the iMac looks awfully good.

Maybe some new iMac owners could weigh in. I thought there were some issues at first. Have these been resolved?
 
I picked up a 17" i7 and for me it is easily a desktop replacement. I'm mainly working in Aperture and Traktor DJ Studio. This Mac has got some serious power under the hood.
 
jnpy!$4g3cwk said:
I keep noticing that. Twice the cores, four times the disk, 8 GB, all for the same as the MBP. Spec/$$-wise, the iMac looks awfully good.

Maybe some new iMac owners could weigh in. I thought there were some issues at first. Have these been resolved?
Click to expand...

If you aren't planning on taking your work with you an iMac is a great alternative.
 
tekmoe said:
If you aren't planning on taking your work with you an iMac is a great alternative.
Click to expand...

Not possible unfortunately. I'm a traveling photographer. I'm on the road a lot which is why I was thinking of consolidating to 1 computer. I love having a mac pro, but when I'm on the road all my editing is done on my Macbook. I don't know if you've ever tried running Final Cut on a Macbook, but it's painful lol!

I know the i7 iMac is awesome, I bought one for my dad recently and he just loves it. I definitely considered that as well.
 
I've used my 17" MBP as a desktop replacement for the last 3 years. Works great. The only downside is limited storage but it's not such a big deal.

I don't recommend it for someone in a college campus like environment where they are constantly moving from one class to another throughout the day. But taking it to work or on a trip. 17" is great!
 
My very first mac was a 17" Powerbook, which was my sole computer (through college, Photo school no less haha!) for 3 years until I bought a G5 Tower (Dual 2.7ghz). I've had lots of different macs since then, I really enjoyed the 15" Macbook Pro I had, but now that the express/34 slot is only on the 17" I feel like its my only option if I consolidate.

I presently also have 2 24" monitors, so I could use 1 with the MBP at home and sell the other with the mac pro. (Or get an apple LED display hehe)
 
I, too, am a traveling photographer. I've been using a MacBook Pro as my primary desktop computer for more than the last three years. While it may be have been underpowered, in comparison to a desktop computer, it was adequate. (Note, however, that I was not using Final Cut, though I was using Photoshop, a lot.) I have a new i7 17" MacBook Pro on order, and I expect it will be quite a bit better than my old one was, and entirely sufficient for Lightroom and PS – even if not a speed demon in comparison to a desktop machine. (I will be putting in 8 GB of RAM.)
 
I don't think you can go wrong with one of the new i5/i7 MacBook Pros. These machines are blazing fast.
 
I think you would be fine, with a 17" or even the 15" high res, you could also look into replacing the superdrive with a harddrive and just carry around a external burner.
 
tekmoe said:
I don't think you can go wrong with one of the new i5/i7 MacBook Pros. These machines are blazing fast.
Click to expand...

I really want to know how fast because I have a Intel Core 2 Duo 2Ghz and I want to see a difference. At the moment I use Aperture 3 which is slowing my machine down to no end, everything grinds to a halt.
 
I can guarantee it will be much faster, I went from a 2.0C2D to a 2.8C2D, and noticed a huge difference, but even then, Aperture taxes the CPU a lot. But now things have gotten better with the most recent update.
 
Aperture has always been a power hungry application, it's part of the reason I keep switching back to Lightroom.

I've been using both since early beta days and Lightroom has always been the faster of the two (but Aperture has a preferable interface)

There's a huge list of pros / cons between the both of them, I haven't played with Aperture 3 much, but I'm pretty happy with the Lightroom 3 beta.

It runs ok on my Macbook, mostly fine with my 1DmkIII raw files, but it starts to choke on my 5DmkII raw files.

if the i7 can handle those files w/o slowing down too much I'll be content.
 
I am a traveling photographer, and with the latest release of Macbook Pros, they are now in play as competition to the desktops. I have put in an order for the 15" i7, and am having it reconfigured at OWC: replacing the optical bay with a 100GB SSD for boot/application, and a 1TB HDD for data, and with 8GB of RAM. That should be serious computing power (for Photoshop anyway). One can then add a large monitor and a RAID external storage unit as backup. All this works out much cheaper than a Mac Pro of comparable power. And you get portability. (I realize that others may have different requirements etc)

By the way, I got the OWC idea here -

http://macperformanceguide.com/bto-mbp.html
 
CrackedButter said:
I really want to know how fast because I have a Intel Core 2 Duo 2Ghz and I want to see a difference. At the moment I use Aperture 3 which is slowing my machine down to no end, everything grinds to a halt.
Click to expand...

I would assume that Aperture 3 and Photoshop are similar in this. You probably need more memory. With the last gen C2D, you can go to 8 GB, but, mine is stuck at 4 GB, sigh. If your old machine is limited to 4 GB, the 8 GB memory option is one reason to go with the new MBPs.
 
Here's the one big issue I'm concerned with.

Storage.

I have A LOT of stuff, it wouldn't all fit internally in the MBP, not by a longshot, so I would have to essentially manage 2 photo libraries, a main one at home and portable one.

At present my Lightroom libary on my Mac Pro is sitting at: 544GB
My ever-growing footage library is now at: 97GB
Even my iTunes library is huge at: 174GB

That's not even everything, just the main storage hogs. What would I do about storing all this stuff?
 
My situation regarding external storage is quite similar. I have this in mind -

http://eshop.macsales.com/Customized_Pages/Framework.cfm?page=mepal_splash_raid.html


Obsidian6 said:
Here's the one big issue I'm concerned with.

Storage.

I have A LOT of stuff, it wouldn't all fit internally in the MBP, not by a longshot, so I would have to essentially manage 2 photo libraries, a main one at home and portable one.

At present my Lightroom libary on my Mac Pro is sitting at: 544GB
My ever-growing footage library is now at: 97GB
Even my iTunes library is huge at: 174GB

That's not even everything, just the main storage hogs. What would I do about storing all this stuff?
Click to expand...
 
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