Difference from 2006 MBP to 2009 MBP

[MacMandy]

Hi, I wondered if anyone could give me an idea of what to expect when my base 13" MBP arrives soon. I currently have a late 2006 15" 2.16 C2D with 3GB RAM. Things have been going a bit dodgy for a while, battery, trackpad button, screen is not so good, so I needed something new, and more portable. My usual tasks include surfing, emailing, iTunes, iPhoto, watching avi's etc in VLC and rendering some of them for ipod use.
What sort of day-to-day difference can I expect?

 

[stridemat]

Well for one it will actually be working and not being a bit 'dodgy'!

Doing the things you mentioned you should not see a large difference, however you should be able to do more of them at the same time. Encoding videos for use on your iPod will be slightly faster too.

 

[MacMandy]

Well for one it will actually be working and not being a bit 'dodgy'!

Doing the things you mentioned you should not see a large difference, however you should be able to do more of them at the same time. Encoding videos for use on your iPod will be slightly faster too.

Thanks. I am looking forward to the better screen, trackpad and battery life, but I seem to get quite a bit of beach-balling especially when using Safari. I run Snow Leopard now, so there won't be any change there. I only play games occasionally. My current mac has a 128Mb discreet card, but I think the integrated 9400M will be fine

 

[stridemat]

The integrated card can play older games reasonably well,but it will struggle with newer games. What games do you play?

 

[janastas]

Hi, I wondered if anyone could give me an idea of what to expect when my base 13" MBP arrives soon. I currently have a late 2006 15" 2.16 C2D with 3GB RAM. Things have been going a bit dodgy for a while, battery, trackpad button, screen is not so good, so I needed something new, and more portable. My usual tasks include surfing, emailing, iTunes, iPhoto, watching avi's etc in VLC and rendering some of them for ipod use.
What sort of day-to-day difference can I expect?

You could always compare benchmarks using mactracker.

I was looking at this app when I was considering moving from my 06 mbp 2.33. It gives you a estimated percentage gain when you look at your current model and the model you are looking at purchasing or purchased.

Just to give you an idea I think I would see a 20% performance gain if i compared my 06 mbp 2.33 against an 09 mbp 2.53.

 

[MacMandy]

The integrated card can play older games reasonably well,but it will struggle with newer games. What games do you play?

Pretty 'mild' games. Monkey Island, Solitaire, Zuma, World of Warcraft occasionally (which runs ok), and I can't see me playing anything more demanding. I have a PS3 for that.

 

[atari1356]

My current mac has a 128Mb discreet card, but I think the integrated 9400M will be fine

I have the same 2006 MacBook Pro... from when I looked before, the x1600 graphics card in it is comparable in speed to the integrated NVidia 9400m graphics in the newer MacBook Pros.

So, I'd expect the gaming experience (frame rates) to be about the same in your new 13".

 

[MacMandy]

You could always compare benchmarks using mactracker.

I was looking at this app when I was considering moving from my 06 mbp 2.33. It gives you a estimated percentage gain when you look at your current model and the model you are looking at purchasing or purchased.

Just to give you an idea I think I would see a 20% performance gain if i compared my 06 mbp 2.33 against an 09 mbp 2.53.

I had a look at mactracker. Really useful, thanks. If the MBP is updated within the 14 days, then I can return it for the upgrade with no re-stocking fee here in the UK.

 

[revs]

Ah the geekbench results make me want to wait for the Mobile i7's! about 75% increase from my 2.33 MBP!

 

[6-0 Prolene]

Honestly if you're coming from a 2006 MBP the Unibody design and display alone are reasons to upgrade, but the speed boost would be substantial even on the current models.

 

[revs]

My personal opinion/plan is to save money on a slower CPU maybe and spend that on a SSD and more RAM.

An SSD will make a much bigger difference than a CPU.

Love SSD

 

[MacMandy]

My personal opinion/plan is to save money on a slower CPU maybe and spend that on a SSD and more RAM.

An SSD will make a much bigger difference than a CPU.

Love SSD

I have heard that a few times. I also hear that the SSDs that Apple uses are not so clever. It's definitely something to consider

 

[Freyqq]

I have the same 2006 MacBook Pro... from when I looked before, the x1600 graphics card in it is comparable in speed to the integrated NVidia 9400m graphics in the newer MacBook Pros.

So, I'd expect the gaming experience (frame rates) to be about the same in your new 13".

actually, the x1600 is slightly faster than the 9400gt according to this site: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

both are pretty bad for gaming, though. The 9400 is a much wider supported card that supports hardware acceleration for h264 files and such..so that's kinda cool. I wouldn't game seriously on either computer for modern games. The 9600GT in the higher models is a decent gaming card for a laptop, though.

Honestly, I'd wait for the new models..which have got to be coming soon based on past release cycles. The 9400gt has been in apple comps for way too long...they've got to be thinking about upgrading it by now.

 

[redrabbit]

Kinda related question...How well will Valve's Source games play on the 13" unibody MBP? I have a Windows PC right now for gaming, but I realized it's kind of overkill since all I really play is L4D2 and TF2 so I was wondering how well those will run?