I am currently a long time Windows user. I have been researching and "tinkering" with Macs lately, and have decided I really want to invest in a Mac. I plan to buy a 2.4GHz 13" Aluminum MacBook with 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SSRAM and a 320GB SATA HDD @ 5400rpm. As rumor has it, Snow Leopard will more than likely be released in 2009. Would I be able to upgrade Leopard to Snow Leopard in the future with the given configuration and not experience any performance loss? Any other suggestions for configurations would be appreciated. However, I'm not interested in the MacBook Pro, as it is larger (15" vs. 13")than what I desire. Thanks.
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About to buy a new MacBook. Will I be ready for Snow Leopard?
- Thread starter mrj205
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If anything once Snow Leopard drops you'll notice performance gains. A new MB today will be in a perfectly, 100%, absolutely excellent position for the upgrade to 10.6.
You should be fine. While we don't have exact specs, any Mac since 2006 running an Intel Chip should run Snow Leopard, you just will need a DVD drive to load it (or remote Disc). The rule-of-thumb, is that if you purchase a new computer between OS versions, the new version will likely run faster on your machine than the old version.
TEG
TEG
Is this because SL is supposed to drop support for the PPC architecture? I have heard the performance gains claim before, but I was never certain why this was supposed to happen.
Its speculation not a fact. Based particularly on the use of the GPU with OpenCL and Grand Central. But I'm not saying it will start raining gold when 10.6 drops, I'm simply providing confidence that the OP has nothing to worry about with buying an MB now.
It's speculation as such that leads to hardware doubts. I'm not going to try to sell today's hardware on tomorrow's software speculation and even more so since you can't upgrade the processor or GPU on a laptop.
Snow Leopard will run fine even on my ancient Santa Rosa laptop.
You know if I was saying that the next iPhone would have a teleporter and light speed that might be one thing for over speculation. But what I stated is vaguely possible, and thus why I stated it so. I really hate getting sucked into these things with you, so take it with a grain a salt.
We can only hope for the show at WWDC where 'X' developer's Snow Leopard optimized application gets shown on stage schooling the Leopard version. Lets not forget bar graphs of performance gains either. Right?
Sweeeet! Can't wait! Oh, was that out of context?
OP - you'll love your new mac and there's lots of help at this forum despite our occasional arguments over semantics.
Here's one of the many articles in this forum:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/588206/
It's also known that dropping PPC support will also improve performance, even on a 1.5 Core Solo and Intel Macs with only 512 Megs RAM, and will also have a much smaller hard drive footprint.
It's like stepping into a Time Machine.
What does the RAM have to do with the reduction in filesize due to the lack of PowerPC binaries and libraries?
I feel very sorry for anyone with 512 MB of RAM on a Mac in this day and age.
It's like stepping into a Time Machine.
What does the RAM have to do with the reduction in filesize due to the lack of PowerPC binaries and libraries?
I feel very sorry for anyone with 512 MB of RAM on a Mac in this day and age.
The only thing PPC code drop will accomplish is giving the end user more HDD space. That might not even be true if Snow Leapord just has more code. I doubt it'll be more than it is now though.
The buyer cycle information made me speculate at first, but I don't think we will see a completely rehauled MacBook to complement the release of Snow Leopard. Maybe different processor speeds...can someone back me up on this? Ha...another speculation...
I'm expecting a 133/266 MHz clock speed bump and an increase in hard drive size before the back to school promotion begins. There's not much more you can do otherwise you'll cut too much into the MacBook Pro arena and Apple hates that. One hope is FireWire will show up back on the Macbook.
There is one instance I must report. I know a few friends of mine that bought MacBooks on Leopard's launch only to have the Santa Rosa Macbook come out less than two weeks later. If you can wait until Snow Leopard aim for that and tack on a week or two. If you need the computer now go get it and enjoy it.
I really don't expect a new MacBook revision after Snow Leopard this time either. Core 2 Duo is running out of options. There's a slim chance that the nVidia 110M G might sneak in but it's doubtful.
I had a 18 month old PC that was made obsolete by the introduction of Vista. Apple may not be perfect, but they would never allow that.
You think the firewire 400 thing got people worked up, imagine Snow Leopard making any Intel Mac unusable...............
You think the firewire 400 thing got people worked up, imagine Snow Leopard making any Intel Mac unusable...............
I would hope they would make intel 64 bit mandatory.
And I have 2 32 bit intel macs. (mini and macbook).
Unfortunatly I think they will sacrifice the better option to keep a few people happy even though 10.5 (or even 10.4) is not going to stop working.
You're right. They wouldn't. Ah....the benefits of having your hardware and OS made by the same company.
And my Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz MacBook with Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics from mid-2007 is ready for Snow Leopard.
They're trying to cut some code out (all PPC stuff) so that it takes up less HDD space, making it more efficient overall, etc. It should speed up my system as well (not that it needed to be sped up).
If you don't need it right this moment, wait for the next revision. You'd probably get SL for free and a slightly faster processor. So why not wait? If yo are a student, the educational promotion allows you to score a free iPod.
Supposedly Snow Leopard is supposed to be better and stronger while some how being more streamlined and therefore faster at the same time. I'm eager to see what Apple will come out with this time.The reason I first converted to Mac was because of their educational discount, I got a $200 discount, a $110 wifi HP printer for 10 bucks and an Ipod Touch for free that I then sold online to off set the price of my computer.