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Buying in the next 30 mins- quick question..

J

jshort

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 8, 2009
127
15
I ordered a new 15" MBP with the 2.53 processor online and upgraded the hard drive to the 7200rpm speed. This is taking days to ship and Im impatient.. I'm about to pass by an apple store were they have they stock i7 processor configuration for basically the same price as my current order minus the faster hard drive.

Would you wait or get the i7 now... Will I really be able to tell the differnce between the 5400 and 7200 hard drive or will the faster i7 make up for it?

Any quick insight is appreciated!
 
You're more likely to notice a difference with a faster drive than a faster processor. A faster processor is still going to frequently be throttled by the bottleneck of a slower drive. It really depends on what you use your computer for, but most users don't tax the processor as much as the hard drive.
 
jshort said:
I ordered a new 15" MBP with the 2.53 processor online and upgraded the hard drive to the 7200rpm speed. This is taking days to ship and Im impatient.. I'm about to pass by an apple store were they have they stock i7 processor configuration for basically the same price as my current order minus the faster hard drive.

Would you wait or get the i7 now... Will I really be able to tell the differnce between the 5400 and 7200 hard drive or will the faster i7 make up for it?

Any quick insight is appreciated!
Click to expand...
So this is a bit of a reversal for around here. Basically what you're asking is: "Should I get the new computer now, or wait and get the old computer later?"

Cancel the 2.53 order if you can, and get the i7. You can always add an SSD later, at which point the 7,200 RPM won't matter at all.
 
jshort said:
I ordered a new 15" MBP with the 2.53 processor online and upgraded the hard drive to the 7200rpm speed. This is taking days to ship and Im impatient.. I'm about to pass by an apple store were they have they stock i7 processor configuration for basically the same price as my current order minus the faster hard drive.

Would you wait or get the i7 now... Will I really be able to tell the differnce between the 5400 and 7200 hard drive or will the faster i7 make up for it?

Any quick insight is appreciated!
Click to expand...

Depends what you plan on doing, but benchmark wise, i5 and i7 are right next to each other, and the i7 only really stands out if you are doing some really, really, serious stuff.

What I would be more interested in, and I'm not sure how big of a deal this is, getting the extra 256 in the GPU, might be worth it
 
That was fast... Thanks guys. Basically yes I'm other going to cancel the or thathamt shipped yet with a slightly quicker hard drive and slightly slower processor or get the opposite of that here in about 20 mins. I don't do anything tooooo labor intensive. Genreral use for
the most part.

rmbrown09 said:
Depends what you plan on doing, but benchmark wise, i5 and i7 are right next to each other, and the i7 only really stands out if you are doing some really, really, serious stuff.

What I would be more interested in, and I'm not sure how big of a deal this is, getting the extra 256 in the GPU, might be worth it
Click to expand...


Good point on the GPU... Sounds like the i7 today may be the way to go.

Also, the only thing they can upgrade at the store is the RAM. Do you think it's worth an extra $400 to go to the 8gb? I'm coming from a 2GHz iMac with 4gb.
 
Adding more memory for $400 at apple in my mind is worth it. You can find deals online for about 340-375. Why hassle when you can get it done on the spot?
 
RAM? Well you can buy it for cheaper elsewhere and sell the ones that come with the laptop. But if you don't save a lot of money doing that as in the past when Apple charged an arm and a leg. 8GB costs around $300-400 depending what brand and where you order from.

That's what I ended up doing, waiting for delivery of the ram now actually. I got mine for $299 and free shipping.
 
jshort said:
Also, the only thing they can upgrade at the store is the RAM. Do you think it's worth an extra $400 to go to the 8gb? I'm coming from a 2GHz iMac with 4gb.
Click to expand...

I just bought my 2x4gb from newegg.com for $335 and sold the existing 2x2GB for 100 bucks. You do the math.
 
jshort said:
That was fast... Thanks guys. Basically yes I'm other going to cancel the or thathamt shipped yet with a slightly quicker hard drive and slightly slower processor or get the opposite of that here in about 20 mins. I don't do anything tooooo labor intensive. Genreral use for
the most part.




Good point on the GPU... Sounds like the i7 today may be the way to go.

Also, the only thing they can upgrade at the store is the RAM. Do you think it's worth an extra $400 to go to the 8gb? I'm coming from a 2GHz iMac with 4gb.
Click to expand...


Get an SSD. Buy the cheap slow HDD and with the money you save pop an Intel Gen2 SSD in there.
 
jshort said:
I ordered a new 15" MBP with the 2.53 processor online and upgraded the hard drive to the 7200rpm speed. This is taking days to ship and Im impatient.. I'm about to pass by an apple store were they have they stock i7 processor configuration for basically the same price as my current order minus the faster hard drive.

Would you wait or get the i7 now... Will I really be able to tell the differnce between the 5400 and 7200 hard drive or will the faster i7 make up for it?

Any quick insight is appreciated!
Click to expand...

The 2.4 performance is not really a noticeable difference from the 2.5. Get the 2.4 and upgrade the HDD and display. It's cheaper.
 
I believe hi res + anti glare is indispensable. Then go to settings too, and make the default fonts larger, cmd J in the finder. I would go for the glossy/glassy displays.

As for the 7200 hd, if you are not too big on storage (you can always get a time capsule at home that will automatically take care of your back ups (i.e. permanent peace of mind) and use it as a file server too for you larger media files, as well as being one of the best n routers around, you can stick your printer there too and print wirelessly from any mac (or pc) )I would go with the stock hd, and wait a few months when intel (amongst others) bring down ssd manufacturing to 24nm (might have this number slightly off), along with the prices. Then you can get a 256gb or more ssd, The performance gain you will see with this will literally blow your mind, far and above anything that any hd can offer. And it will consume less battery too.
 
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