Advice as of 1.8.10 when buying new MBP

[cuse7284]

Trying to build a new macbook pro and think this is what I want:

15 inch macbook pro
# 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
# 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
# SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
# MacBook Pro 15-inch Antiglare Widescreen Display
# Backlit Keyboard (English) / User's Guide

Few questions for you more experienced apple users out there.
-Is it worth upgrading to 8gb of memory from 4gb?
-What about upgrading to 3.06GHz from 2.8GHz?
-I know there is a new annoucement on the 27th of January. Its all but clear this will be for the new apple Tablet. Is there any chance they annoucne upgrades to the MBP's as well?

Thanks for the help ahead of time

 

[miles01110]

-Is it worth upgrading to 8gb of memory from 4gb?
-What about upgrading to 3.06GHz from 2.8GHz?

Maybe. Without any information on what you use your machine for, it's hard to make a judgement. My guess is probably not.

-I know there is a new annoucement on the 27th of January. Its all but clear this will be for the new apple Tablet. Is there any chance they annoucne upgrades to the MBP's as well?

There is a chance.

 

[cuse7284]

Sorry that missing info could be helpful

Maybe. Without any information on what you use your machine for, it's hard to make a judgement. My guess is probably not.


I am a graphic designer who uses Illustrator, Photoshop very frequently. My computer is my career. Hope this helps

 

[ae3265]

Trying to build a new macbook pro and think this is what I want:

15 inch macbook pro
# 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
# 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
# SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
# MacBook Pro 15-inch Antiglare Widescreen Display
# Backlit Keyboard (English) / User's Guide

Few questions for you more experienced apple users out there.
-Is it worth upgrading to 8gb of memory from 4gb?
-What about upgrading to 3.06GHz from 2.8GHz?
-I know there is a new annoucement on the 27th of January. Its all but clear this will be for the new apple Tablet. Is there any chance they annoucne upgrades to the MBP's as well?

Thanks for the help ahead of time

Buy your RAM from OWC, do not spend the premium on Apple RAM.

I would only go for 4 if you know you need it. I.E., heavy virtual machine use, programming, large video encodes, stuff that uses and benefits from a lot of RAM.

I doubt you'll notice too much on the CPU speed. But the CPU with the larger L2 cache will perform better for most things...even then, I'm not sure how much is truly noticeable.

I have a 3.06 (good price on the refurb!) and I recently got a 13" white macbook for my cousin at X-mas. Discounting the SSD and the extra 4 gb of RAM I have in mine, the "slower" computer performs just fine and there is little real difference on day-today web browsing, word processing, etc.

Obviously the difference comes when I am running multiple VM's and have a bunch of applications open...but much of that extra capacity is RAM/SSD, not CPU.

For general purposes, these are my priorities for performance upgrades:

1. 4gb RAM
2. 7200 RPM HDD
3. SSD
4. 8gb RAM

3 and 4 switch places for heavy RAM usage scenarios.