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Core 2 Duos still decent?

J

JamerTheProgram

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 6, 2011
63
0
One Infinite Lo- I've said too much...
Hey!
I was just wondering, I am thinking if getting a Macbook Pro 15 inch 09.
The thing is, the 09 MBP is a Core 2 Duo. How much longer do C2Ds have OS wise?
I will try and get a Macbook Pro 15 inch 2010 that has an i5, but I dont know how possible that will be with my 750 spending cap.
I am an iPhone developer and a Minecraft player.
Do you think the MBP 09 15 inch will do?
Thanks!
 
OS wise there is nothing to worry about they are 64bit and x86. No OSX version will require something else in the foreseeable future.

C2D never got any less decent. There is just faster stuff around. Faster is always better yet not always necessary. It should work fine but I would stick with Snow Leopard and stay away from Lion. Lion offers next to nothing but needs more ressources and while battery life on 2011's stayed the same on the older ones it usually takes quite a hit with Lion.
 
dusk007 said:
OS wise there is nothing to worry about they are 64bit and x86. No OSX version will require something else in the foreseeable future.

C2D never got any less decent. There is just faster stuff around. Faster is always better yet not always necessary. It should work fine but I would stick with Snow Leopard and stay away from Lion. Lion offers next to nothing but needs more ressources and while battery life on 2011's stayed the same on the older ones it usually takes quite a hit with Lion.
Click to expand...

FWIW, My 2011 MBP battery life took a serious hit with Lion. If you can swing a few extra bucks for a core i processor, I'd do it. If you just don't have the cash, c2d still gets the job done.
 
My 08 MB is still going strong, but I wouldn't recommend Lion. I rolled back to SL and it is much better.
 
My 2010 model MBP is handling LightRoom and Photoshop. Its performing nicely under Lion as well :)
 
Great!
It will be a 2.66 model likely.
Unless the Macbook Pro 15 2011s drop to 700-760 I dont think Il be able to afford one, but I am not sure though, maybe they will.I have seen a few go for it.
But I'm thinking worse case scenario so I wont get my hopes up too much.
Maybe I might be able to afford the Macbook Pro 15 2011 i5, but I doubt it.
 
I have a 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo white MacBook - the model immediately prior to the white unibody model.

It only has 2GB of RAM but is running a clean install of Lion and is totally responsive, stable and very very reliable. It's a great home computer, just sits in my room chugging away at my videos.

For most people in the world it's more computer than they'll ever need.
 
JamerTheProgram said:
Great!
It will be a 2.66 model likely.
Unless the Macbook Pro 15 2011s drop to 700-760 I dont think Il be able to afford one, but I am not sure though, maybe they will.I have seen a few go for it.
But I'm thinking worse case scenario so I wont get my hopes up too much.
Maybe I might be able to afford the Macbook Pro 15 2011 i5, but I doubt it.
Click to expand...

If you can get the 2.4 for less, go for it. The performance increase of 260Mhz is very negligible and not worth the original price of upgrade back in 2010.
 
Will Snow Leopard extend the battery life (vs Lion) on a 2011 quad core i7..?
 
Chundles said:
I have a 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo white MacBook - the model immediately prior to the white unibody model.

It only has 2GB of RAM but is running a clean install of Lion and is totally responsive, stable and very very reliable. It's a great home computer, just sits in my room chugging away at my videos.

For most people in the world it's more computer than they'll ever need.
Click to expand...

Lucky, I have the 2.2 with 2 GB of RAM and it sucks a fat one. CPU usage shoots up all the time. It works for the most part, but then I use a better computer and I forget that word documents should only take 3 seconds to open, not minutes.
 
If you're doing nothing too processor intensive, it'll be fast enough. Maybe SL is a better choice than Lion tho.
 
I just sold my MBP C2D from 2007 (Santa rosa). I took really good care of that machine, and it performs just as well today as it did when I bought it. I do a lot of Adobe CS, CAD & rendering, so I definitely put the machine through a lot. If you can swing 8GB of RAM and an SSD, you'll probably forget what year your laptop was made.
 
I upgraded my Rev 1.1 2006 MBP in late Dec and while the HDD was running a little long in the tooth is was running like a champ. As others have said, faster machines exist, but it's not like the older ones are unusable.
 
My 2009 MBP chugs along. I have replaced the HDD with a SSD and upgraded the ram and replaced the battery (had something like 1400 cycles), though, so it's not exactly the same guy I purchased three years ago.

Runs Lion like a champ and did so before I upgraded everything.
 
I still use my 2.66ghz C2D macbook pro, and it works great. Also my C2D MacBook Air 2010 is running great. As long as you have an SSD, then the machine will be plenty fast.
And yes, I agree with the others here, stay away from Lion, and keep on using Snow Leopard.
 
I have the late 2008 MacBook Pro. It's the 4th Apple Laptop I have owned and the best one to date. Super machine, currently running Lion.
 
13" mid 2009 2.26Ghz model here, still working great on Lion. I do have a 7200RPM drive and 8GB ram, so that may help a little.
 
i use MBP mid 2009 C2D

when on OSX SL : i try to edit movie on iMovie. Decent performance.

when on OSX Lion : much worse.
 
I have an original Core 2 Duo (2006) and it runs Lion fine. I maxed the RAM and swapped in a 7200 HDD. 64bit is good to go for a while. Mountain Lion only requires a Core 2 Duo. Honestly, it's like the increased speeds of the new chips are all that necessary for 95% of people out there anyway who are using their 8 GB RAM/SSD to check their mail and look at perez.
 
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