Is a Nehalem quad a good upgrade from MBpro?

[gdourado]

Hello,

How are you doing?
I currently have a Macbook Pro 17 unibody.
It has a C2D 2,66, 4gb of ram, and a 120gb SSD.
I use my laptop for general browsing and photography work, like photoshop and lightroom and aperture.

I have the possibility of selling my laptop and buy a Nehalem quad 2.66 stock. (3gb of ram, 640gb hdd and GT120). With an Apple LED cinema display.

I will put around 1000 euros in the trade, but get to keep my SSD and use it on yhe mac pro as a boot drive.

I currently don't need the mobility, has my laptop left my house 2 times in one year.

My question is if this is worth it.
Will I notice much performance increase? I know I will be going fron a C2D to a Quad CPU with Hyperthreading at the same speed, but do you think it is worth it for 1000 Euros?

Look forward to hear your comments!

Cheer!

 

[Hellhammer]

The i7 in MBP is dual core... For 1000€, no way! Keep it

 

[gdourado]

The i7 in MBP is dual core... For 1000€, no way! Keep it

My question is selling my C2D MBP17 and go for a Nehalem Quab Mac Pro + Led Cinema Display 24.
The difference is 1000 Euros and the Mac Pro is Stock.

Cheers!

 

[Hellhammer]

My question is selling my C2D MBP17 and go for a Nehalem Quab Mac Pro + Led Cinema Display 24.
The difference is 1000 Euros and the Mac Pro is Stock.

Cheers!

Ahh, you never said Mac Pro, that's why I got confused! Well, Mac Pro is due an update so I would wait for it to get updated and then pull the trigger.

 

[PenguinMac]

I can't speak to your exact trade, or whether it's worth 1000 Euros, but when I went from a C2D 2.33 notebook to an i7 2.93 desktop, the speed increase was enormous. Video renders of 2-hour MPEG 2 movies went from 4 hours to 40 minutes, as my video editting program used all 8 virtual cores to increase the speed dramatically. Your notebook is faster than mine was, and your desktop is slower than mine is, so your performance improvement won't be as dramatic. Whether it's worth it, especially as a new Mac Pro may soon be announced, is up to you.

 

[nanofrog]

Hello,

How are you doing?
I currently have a Macbook Pro 17 unibody.
It has a C2D 2,66, 4gb of ram, and a 120gb SSD.
I use my laptop for general browsing and photography work, like photoshop and lightroom and aperture.

I have the possibility of selling my laptop and buy a Nehalem quad 2.66 stock. (3gb of ram, 640gb hdd and GT120). With an Apple LED cinema display.

I will put around 1000 euros in the trade, but get to keep my SSD and use it on yhe mac pro as a boot drive.

I currently don't need the mobility, has my laptop left my house 2 times in one year.

My question is if this is worth it.
Will I notice much performance increase? I know I will be going fron a C2D to a Quad CPU with Hyperthreading at the same speed, but do you think it is worth it for 1000 Euros?

Look forward to hear your comments!

Cheer!

The MP would be a nicer system, especially if you can push the clock speed a bit (wait for the 2010 systems to release, as the base is likely to have a 2.8GHz Quad CPU in it for the same funds or so).

Keep the SSD as planned, but I'd ditch the 24" LED ACD, and go for a better monitor. An NEC LCD2490WUXi2 would be a better unit for graphics work IMO, and you may want to opt for a separate colorimeter as well (Xrite's Eye One display 2 offers a good deal on cost/performance).

There's other monitors as well, such as the less expensive HP L2475W (needs calibration out of the box), but it gets good reviews (take a look at TFT Central's site - UK based).

You at least have the option for upgrades as you go (i.e. get into some rendering), particularly HDD's and graphics cards. Whether or not it would actually extend the life of the system, it's hard to say (depends on exact usage, and future software). But it's possible.

 

[Max(IT)]

Hello,

How are you doing?
I currently have a Macbook Pro 17 unibody.
It has a C2D 2,66, 4gb of ram, and a 120gb SSD.
I use my laptop for general browsing and photography work, like photoshop and lightroom and aperture.

I have the possibility of selling my laptop and buy a Nehalem quad 2.66 stock. (3gb of ram, 640gb hdd and GT120). With an Apple LED cinema display.

I will put around 1000 euros in the trade, but get to keep my SSD and use it on yhe mac pro as a boot drive.

I currently don't need the mobility, has my laptop left my house 2 times in one year.

My question is if this is worth it.
Will I notice much performance increase? I know I will be going fron a C2D to a Quad CPU with Hyperthreading at the same speed, but do you think it is worth it for 1000 Euros?

Look forward to hear your comments!

Cheer!

A little bit OT: how can someone use Aperture AND Lightroom ?!?

BTW, the stock Mac Pro is short on memory. You need at least 8 Gb.

 

[surferfromuk]

It's night and day between a Macbook Pro and a Mac Pro. You'll wonder why on earth you thought using a laptop (as great as they are) was an acceptable way of working for so long. The Apple LED display is also fantastic.

You'll be amazed what a true multi-core hyper threading setup lets' you accomplish - you can flat out all the cores and still use the computer as if nothing was running - it's quite remarkable! On the MBP a flat out render basically drags the OS to a halt meaning you have to walk away and leave it.

You will need more RAM. 8Gig minimum.