buying macbook pro today

[yawnobelix]

ok i currently have a 8 year old emac 1 ghz so i feel its time to upgrade

The new macbook pros look amazing and are exactly what i want but i am having trouble deciding on which model is right for me. I feel the 13' are beautiful machines but the nvidea 1400M seems kinda week especialy for the casual gaming i do this also removes the lower end macbook pro 15" I also believe the 17" is too large for my needs.

So i have two models to choose from
The 15" with 2.66 ghz and nvidea 9600M GT with 256MB or the 15" with 2.8 ghz and nvidea 9600M GT with 512MB i would want them both to have a 500 gb hard drive and i am perfectly fine with 4gb of ram.

Which model should i choose?
Is it worth upgrading hard drive to 7200 rpm?
If i start playing more graphicaly intense games would the 512 MB one be way more effective?
Im going off to university next year do i qualify for student discount now?
If i purchase it now will i get SL free or will i have to pay 29$ for it?

 

[buckeye17]

ok i currently have a 8 year old emac 1 ghz so i feel its time to upgrade

The new macbook pros look amazing and are exactly what i want but i am having trouble deciding on which model is right for me. I feel the 13' are beautiful machines but the nvidea 1400M seems kinda week especialy for the casual gaming i do this also removes the lower end macbook pro 15" I also believe the 17" is too large for my needs.

So i have two models to choose from
The 15" with 2.66 ghz and nvidea 9600M GT with 256MB or the 15" with 2.8 ghz and nvidea 9600M GT with 512MB i would want them both to have a 500 gb hard drive and i am perfectly fine with 4gb of ram.

Which model should i choose?
Is it worth upgrading hard drive to 7200 rpm?
If i start playing more graphicaly intense games would the 512 MB one be way more effective?
Im going off to university next year do i qualify for student discount now?
If i purchase it now will i get SL free or will i have to pay 29$ for it?

7200 rpm?
I don't know if it's really worth buying an entirely new hard drive just to get 7,200 rpm. If anything, I'd wait for more 500gb 7,200 rpm drives to come out.

512mb VRAM?
I don't think the 512 would perform much better than the 256. The amount of video memory doesn't really mean as much as you might think--there are a lot of other important characteristics of a video card, which would be the same between the two cards.

Student discount?
I believe you qualify. I was at the Apple Store yesterday and a sales guy asked a girl "are you in college?" and she said "I've been accepted to ____ and will be starting this year," at which point he said "great!" and gave her the discount.

Snow Leopard?
Snow Leopard will cost $10 for shipping if you sign up here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/

 

[Betelgeuse]

Student discount?
I believe you qualify. I was at the Apple Store yesterday and a sales guy asked a girl "are you in college?" and she said "I've been accepted to ____ and will be starting this year," at which point he said "great!" and gave her the discount.

Yeah. Generally, they'll give you the student discount if you look like you could be a student and you say that you are. At most, they may ask for a college acceptance letter or something like that.

 

[Ov3rlord Falc0r]

ok i currently have a 8 year old emac 1 ghz so i feel its time to upgrade

The new macbook pros look amazing and are exactly what i want but i am having trouble deciding on which model is right for me. I feel the 13' are beautiful machines but the nvidea 1400M seems kinda week especialy for the casual gaming i do this also removes the lower end macbook pro 15" I also believe the 17" is too large for my needs.

So i have two models to choose from
The 15" with 2.66 ghz and nvidea 9600M GT with 256MB or the 15" with 2.8 ghz and nvidea 9600M GT with 512MB i would want them both to have a 500 gb hard drive and i am perfectly fine with 4gb of ram.

Which model should i choose?
Is it worth upgrading hard drive to 7200 rpm?
If i start playing more graphicaly intense games would the 512 MB one be way more effective?
Im going off to university next year do i qualify for student discount now?
If i purchase it now will i get SL free or will i have to pay 29$ for it?

I would go with the 2.66 GHZ model. Here is why...

CPU speed - no noticeable difference in speed between 2.66 and 2.8

vRAM - I do not believe there will be much of a difference between 256 -
512 (somebody correct me if I am wrong though.)

HDD - If you are really serious about upgrading to the 7200, I would really recommend upgrading it yourself at home.

If you choose the 2.8 model from Apple then you're paying 300 dollars more than the 2.66 and only getting 256 more vRAM and a hard drive. You can purchase a 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drive from newegg.com right now for 129.00. So In your situation I would choose the 2.66 and upgrade the hard drive myself and save myself a little over 150 dollars.

And yes, if you are going to Univerity next year and have been ACCEPTED then they will give you the student discount. They may ask for a class schedule, acceptance letter, or a school ID. I've been asked for all 3 seeing as I didn't have an acceptance letter or the ID. lol

 

[somuchtosayx]

L2 cache increase

I would go with the 2.66 GHZ model. Here is why...

CPU speed - no noticeable difference in speed between 2.66 and 2.8

vRAM - I do not believe there will be much of a difference between 256 -
512 (somebody correct me if I am wrong though.)

HDD - If you are really serious about upgrading to the 7200, I would really recommend upgrading it yourself at home.

If you choose the 2.8 model from Apple then you're paying 300 dollars more than the 2.66 and only getting 256 more vRAM and a hard drive. You can purchase a 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drive from newegg.com right now for 129.00. So In your situation I would choose the 2.66 and upgrade the hard drive myself and save myself a little over 150 dollars.

And yes, if you are going to Univerity next year and have been ACCEPTED then they will give you the student discount. They may ask for a class schedule, acceptance letter, or a school ID. I've been asked for all 3 seeing as I didn't have an acceptance letter or the ID. lol

Something a lot of people are overlooking between the 2.66 and the 2.8 is the L2 cache on the processor. It doubles from 3MB to 6MB which can make a significant performance boost. So $300 extra for double VRAM, bigger HD, and 2X the L2 cache size, will make an overall performance boost probably proportionate to the increase in price.

 

[mike1123]

Something a lot of people are overlooking between the 2.66 and the 2.8 is the L2 cache on the processor. It doubles from 3MB to 6MB which can make a significant performance boost. So $300 extra for double VRAM, bigger HD, and 2X the L2 cache size, will make an overall performance boost probably proportionate to the increase in price.

Very true, but on the flip side, the 2.8 processor Apple is currently using is a "T" series processor rather than a "P" series, which I believe the 2.66 is. The "T" models use a little more power (35W vs 25W), which may decrease your battery life and heat up your laptop a bit, but I would go for the "T" if I needed the power.

 

[mikethebigo]

I highly recommend against making your mac purchase decision based upon gaming capability. Even the 9600m isn't that great. I'd recommend you play on a desktop PC or an xbox and get a portable laptop for the rest.