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C2D lifespan???

N

nashville man

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 1, 2012
28
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Wondering....how long can a new non-power user (general word, Excel, ppt, web, etc.) Air buyer remain happy with older Core2Duo processor vs newer faster sandy bridge i5?

MacMall's blowout deals on the older 2010 core2duo 11"(4/128) and 13"(4/256) airs pretty strong....
 
Several years. I still use my "obsolete" C2D machines for the basic stuff and more hardcore stuff, and they still work like a charm, though the hardcore stuff is often a bit slower.
 
nashville man said:
Wondering....how long can a new non-power user (general word, Excel, ppt, web, etc.) Air buyer remain happy with older Core2Duo processor vs newer faster sandy bridge i5?

MacMall's blowout deals on the older 2010 core2duo 11"(4/128) and 13"(4/256) airs pretty strong....
Click to expand...

If you just need the computer for those tasks - the computer will most likely give up the ghost before you need to replace. Long time - if the hardware doesn't fail.
 
I have a MacBook C2D from 2007 which still does all sorts of stuff perfectly. Not super fast, but certainly usable.
 
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My main is a 2007 iMac. Still does all I need, even HD editing.
 
C2D is not the bottleneck on a Mac Air unless you're doing video transcoding or numerical processing. Plenty fast for normal duty, and it runs cooler with longer battery life.
 
C2D is actually a very good processor. Despite the usual marketing claims of much greater speed via Sandy Bridge, it's not likely to be as dramatic as they'd have you believe.

After 15 years as a professional user who upgrades to a new MBP with each CPU change, first hand experience proves modest speed increases are the norm. Even with max ram & now SSD's.

The model you're looking at is a steal. An excellent model. I'd buy one before they sell out. :)
 
ixodes said:
C2D is actually a very good processor. Despite the usual marketing claims of much greater speed via Sandy Bridge, it's not likely to be as dramatic as they'd have you believe.

After 15 years as a professional user who upgrades to a new MBP with each CPU change, first hand experience proves modest speed increases are the norm. Even with max ram & now SSD's.

The model you're looking at is a steal. An excellent model. I'd buy one before they sell out. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks all...ixodes, which one from MacMall would you suggest? The Oct. 2010 C2D 11" 4/128 for $829 or 13" 4/256 for about $1100?
 
My C2D MBP 13" is still really fast, faster now on Lion and feel no need to upgrade. I upgraded to 8GB of ram and it's so smooth, thinking of maybe going SSD and bam new computer, kinda. Although when/if they release an Air that will have 8GB of ram and the new ac wifi I'll upgrade, but I'm not spending money for 4GB of ram and not able to upgrade.
 
Rideherhard said:
My C2D MBP 13" is still really fast, faster now on Lion and feel no need to upgrade. I upgraded to 8GB of ram and it's so smooth, thinking of maybe going SSD and bam new computer, kinda. Although when/if they release an Air that will have 8GB of ram and the new ac wifi I'll upgrade, but I'm not spending money for 4GB of ram and not able to upgrade.
Click to expand...

Maybe the better buy is to go with a 13" MBP with I5 and 320 HDD (can always be upgraded) When Apple Store has them refurbished, they run $929
 
nashville man said:
Maybe the better buy is to go with a 13" MBP with I5 and 320 HDD (can always be upgraded) When Apple Store has them refurbished, they run $929
Click to expand...

My MBP is solid, still fast, only reason I'll upgrade it would be for the new wifi ac for faster media sharing over the network and to get lighter, MBA. Performance wise my late 09 MBP is still so solid but the Air is really growing on me and I like the idea of the laptop being lighter so I will wait it out till the Air hits 8 GB of ram as I'm sure the refresh will have that and ac wifi :D
 
I have a 1.8GHz C2D Macbook (late 2006.. that's 5.5 years!) and it still does everything quite well. I never play games so that was never an issue for me.

I can still run a VM of the latest Ubuntu and Windows XP quite well too. Running too many apps, despite my 2.5 GB RAM, will slow down the machine due to the caching being not as good as current models, which is why i finally decided to upgrade and get a MBA that's on its way right now.

:D

basically, for everyday "internetting," a core2duo is still perfectly adequate.
 
IMHO the 'lifespan' of any system is as long as it does what you need it to do. And if its doing those things well now, it will continue to do so in the future :)
 
What a computer can do today it will be able to do in several years.
So if a C2D can do one task today- It will always be able to do that task.
 
My 2010 C2D Air for the most part seems snappier than the i5 iMac they gave me at work. Even though that may seem odd. I often see the spinning beach ball on the iMac. Both with 4GB of RAM. The SSD makes a huge difference. Neglecting the screen size, I would not trade the i5 w/hard disk for the C2D w/SSD.
 
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