Advice on what Macbook Pro to get.

[James812]

I have ADC Student pricing and its great but I am still watching what a spend, so I am hoping i can get some advice what macbook pro I should get.
I have thought of 3 options.

Macbook Pro 15-inch: 2.53GHz with a 320GB Serial ATA @ 7200
or
Macbook Pro 15-inch: 2.8GHz (upgraded from 2.53) with a 320GB Serial ATA @ 7200
Or a Macbook Pro 17-Inch 2.66GHz with a 320GB Serial ATA @ 7200

I will be using it for gaming so I first wondered if it was even worth upgrading the cpu on the 15-inch macbook pro. Also if the Macbook Pro 17-inch has a better clock speed for the GPU (9600M)?

Which of these three options should I pick?

 

[iTzChasE]

What exactly are you doing? Just Gaming? Or other things?

I would go with the Macbook Pro 15": 2.8GHz. I would never buy a 17" laptop, but that is just me.

The 2.53GHz would do gaming fine also. Just a preference, I would rather buy the 2.8GHz

 

[Aboo]

If you can wait a few days till the MBP 17" unibody reviews come in, then you would probably have a better idea of whether to pick the 17" or the 15". Like the previous poster mentioned, it might be a good idea to elaborate a bit more on your needs so that we can better advise you.

 

[James812]

I will be using it for mostly web browsing and other basic tasks (IM, web programming) but will be using it for gaming a lot also when I can.

 

[mbcollins93]

I will be using it for mostly web browsing and other basic tasks (IM, web programming) but will be using it for gaming a lot also when I can.

well in that case u could just get a macbook. Listen these computers are fast. I
have the bottom of the line macbook pro and hardly ever use the other video card. I play games like spore and halo:ce on the lower video card (that comes in the macbook) so i can get better battery life, and they play perfectly. Now if you are playing a game like crysis in bootcamp, or something like that. then you would switch to the higher video card. So basically, the bottom of the line macbook pro would be more than fast enough to run crysis. that is all you really need to know. crysis is a game that will completely bog down your system if it is not fast enough.
i hope this helps.

 

[m85476585]

I would get the base (2.4GHz) MBP, then upgrade it to 4GB of RAM and a 320Gb 7200 RPM drive yourself. You will save a lot of money that way, and it will be almost as fast. The 2.53 is only 5.4% faster than the 2.4, and the 2.8 is only 16.7% faster. 16.7% might sound significant, but nothing you said you will be using it for will be CPU-bound. You also get an extra 3mb of L2 cache on the 2.53 or the 2.8, but again, that won't make any difference unless you are doing a lot of CPU-intensive stuff. The speed of basic stuff will be mostly limited by the speed of the disk (so a 320gb 7200rpm drive is a good choice), and games will be limited by the GPU. If you think the extra 256mb of video memory will be worth it for gaming, then go with the 2.53. I know with the 8600M GT the extra memory made very little difference in terms of performance. I'm not sure about the 9600 though.