Buying a 15" MBP: 2.53 GHz? or 2.66GHz with NV 9600GT?

[MIS.Andri]

Hi, I've made up my mind to buy a 15" MBP next week (This will be my first Mac). I'm still not sure which of these two 15" MBP's i will buy. Need some advice.

I will use it for school works- a bit of photo editing, word processing, Flash stuff (via boot camp), a bit of video editing and video converting. I will also use it for gaming- COD4, NFS:Shift (low res and very low details is ok), and some old games with high details and full res.

I also heard tons of rumors about an MBP refresh. Should I wait or buy it? Opinions needed. It'll be great if it's specific.

Thanks.

 

[stridemat]

If you need a mac now then obviously buy one now as you can wait forever for an update. If you can afford to wait then wait as hopefully an update will 'appear' soon.

 

[Badger^2]

If you can wait, wait.

 

[Vantage Point]

Strickly speaking the new MBP refreshs are overdue - based on the historical 8 month product cycle and we are now into month 9.

Hopefully, we will see new MBP's very soon and annucements are often on Tuesdays. After that you may opt for the new and improved models, or a clearance sale for the models you mention above.

One of the anticpated features of nee models is Optimus technology with automatically switchs the dedicated graphics card On and Off to optimize for power vs battery life. The currect 2.66 has a dedicated graphics card which requires you to log Off to swich it On or Off for more power or battery life. A small hastle which may or many not be an issue for you.

 

[ninerblitz]

I'll give you my feedback.

HelloL

I want to share with you my feedback.

I was the owner of the top of the line MBP 17" running 3.06. My reasoning at the time was to purchase the Macbook with the 8 hour battery. When they first came out, I bought the 2.66 ghz (upgraded the processor and the screen). When the next one came out, I sold it and upgraded to the 2.8 (upgraded the processor to 3.06 and screen). Once the 15 inch MBP came out with new battery, I decided that when a refresh happens I'll sell my 17" and get 15" , so when I heard the new ones were coming out. I sold mine a month ago and borrowed my 4 year old nephew's Core Duo (not core 2 duo) 2.0ghz 4 year old MacBook.

Note Core 2 duo is rated 35 percent faster than core duo technology.

I synced my old hard drive via Time Machine and I've been using it the last month.

I am missing many things, but speed isn't one of them. I was using Photoshop CS4 the other day and I didn't notice a big speed difference using the software to edit photos. I wasn't in the least bit disappointed. So I tried out my girlfriend's MacBook Pro unibody 2.26 and compared the two. Again, the speed difference was significant enough for me to justify speeding $2000 more top of the line 17". I will say that you can push hard by using snow leopard and A/V editing software. But most of the time I'm using the net, managing projects, running fusion etc.

The obvious cons when comparing the old Macbook to a new MacBook Pro were:

-Screen was inferior to LED tech in new models
-Ram maxes out at (3GB not the 2GB as advertised)
-Hard Drive size is only 80Gig
-lack of Unibody construction
-Non-lit keys (apple should just make it standard)

Conclusion:

It is hard to buy a slow computer these days especially an Apple. The OS is so fine tuned the hardware you should be pleased with the performance of any of their machines. But we have no idea what Apple has in store with the new technology. I will buy an entry level 13" or 15" the next time I buy. It fits my needs and my budget and are a ton cheaper.

You may miss out on new features in the next generation (something like hdmi, blu-ray,better battery-life, touch-screen). But ask yourself do you need the new features. Will it change the way you do computing? Are you Apps noticeably faster? Is it worth more than your spending? If the laptop your looking at now meets your needs, I say buy and save money!
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I am a MultiMedia Designer. I own (3) mac-mini's, (1) G5 quad, (1) 8-core Mac Pro and (1) Open PC.
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[MIS.Andri]

Thanks for all of your advice and opinions..

The currect 2.66 has a dedicated graphics card which requires you to log Off to swich it On or Off for more power or battery life. A small hastle which may or many not be an issue for you.

Logging off for switching graphics isn't a big issue for me. Anyways, is the dedicated graphic card gonna make any difference with gaming performance in the 9400m? or..?

You may miss out on new features in the next generation (something like hdmi, blu-ray,better battery-life, touch-screen). But ask yourself do you need the new features. Will it change the way you do computing? Are you Apps noticeably faster? Is it worth more than your spending? If the laptop your looking at now meets your needs, I say buy and save money!

Missing out features in the next-gen isn't an issue for me either, since i'm not gonna be using those stuff like hdmi or blu-ray. But buying a mac will definitely change the way I compute and use my apps (i own a (slow) 5 year old HP notebook. yes, it's PC. a mac'll be a huge difference in my usual computing.). So, i guess it's worth the money.

 

[Nano2k]

The problem is that today you can buy a new Windows notebook for a lot less than the Macbook Pro and have the new Core i5 technology.

I mean it's fine that you want to make the switch, but I think you are giving up on a lot of things and at a high cost if you get a Macbook Pro now. The new generation of chips are better and Apple is going to have them soon.
Once they do the Apple marketing machine is going to start and it's going to make older models sound like they never existed or they are a thing from the past...

Bare with what you have for a couple of months till the new Macbooks come out if you really want to make the switch.

 

[JoeG4]

I ended up getting an i7 laptop instead of a MBP, but I almost got a 2.53 myself.

If you have a powerful desktop and don't care, get the 9400. If the MBP will be your only machine for some time to come, get the 9600. If you don't care about money, get the 9600, and if you really don't care about power, get the 9400.

0.1ghz is nothing as far as performance goes, but the GPU is. The 9400 won't be much help even for stuff like Need for Speed. The 9600 is a fairly well respected GPU still used today (230m and 330m)