Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Macbook Pro: Is it worth it?

N

Neotyguy40

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 15, 2009
152
0
About 2-3 months ago, I bought the mid-end Macbook (before it was renamed to pro).

Sadly, it was less then 3 weeks when... Surprise! New Macbook Pros!

I am upset that I have gotten this so close to the upgrade, but I was wondering if I should upgrade.

If I do upgrade, it will be the mid-end 15 inch with a 128 GB SSD for a total of $2,299.

I want to know whether or not I should upgrade. The only real difference would be the GPU, CPU, and an SSD instead of HDD. Also 2GB of more memory.

It will be mostly for high graphics processing. I am a game designer, and I want to be able to run my game prototypes at high FPS.

I could sell my current laptop for $1,400 at most, maybe $1,500 if someone gives me a good offer, and I have an extra $1,000 in my personal account. What should I do? Wait for the next generations in a year? Or buy this one right now...
 
A Macbook Pro is definitely worth it becase of the 7 hour battery life, ability to have up to 8GB of RAM, etc. If you need one now then get one.
 
Do you really need to upgrade?

It seems to me that if you need the better performance of the MBP for graphics related work, you would have bought the one in the first place. Did you compare before your original purchase like you're doing now?
 
Why the heck are you asking us? :confused: Only you will know whether your software development activities require faster hardware or not.
 
A game developer asking about CPU upgrades and how it affects FPS. CPU DOES NOT AFFECT FPS. The graphic card does. And since the graphic card is still the same and can't share more than 256MB VRAM, a minor CPU upgrade and official support for 8GB memory won't squeeze more FPS. This is fail.
 
Just wait.. Now that a new gen has arrived, your 3 month old mac won't lose much more value until the new ones come out. Plus, do you really need a new one if your's is only 3 months old? It's not as if it's outdated and falling apart..
 
Pretty much every reason you gave for getting the 15" applied at the time you bought your macbook. The upgrade has not made that much difference. If you were finding that your macbook wasn't enough before the upgrade, I'd say get a new one. Otherwise stick with what you've got.
 
ditzy said:
Pretty much every reason you gave for getting the 15" applied at the time you bought your macbook. The upgrade has not made that much difference. If you were finding that your macbook wasn't enough before the upgrade, I'd say get a new one. Otherwise stick with what you've got.
Click to expand...

+1. Or you could upgrade the ram up to 6 gigs, install your own ssd and buy a second battery for a heck of a lot less money.
 
ditzy said:
Pretty much every reason you gave for getting the 15" applied at the time you bought your macbook. The upgrade has not made that much difference. If you were finding that your macbook wasn't enough before the upgrade, I'd say get a new one. Otherwise stick with what you've got.
Click to expand...

Agreed. If your machine did what you wanted to before the upgrade, then keep it.
 
MacMini2009 said:
A Macbook Pro is definitely worth it becase of the 7 hour battery life, ability to have up to 8GB of RAM, etc. If you need one now then get one.
Click to expand...

Sometimes this gets overlooked. Coming from a 13.3" MacBook that you have to a 13.3" MacBook Pro, I can say that the greater battery life above everything is the best part. I used to get on average 3 1/2 hours of heavy Internet browsing, iTunes, and usually watching an .mp4 in the background; now I get at least 5 hours. 6 if I'm just surfing. The color gamut is also WAY better. You will notice it first time you boot. There are sure to be more comparison pictures on this site.
 
Neotyguy40 said:
About 2-3 months ago, I bought the mid-end Macbook (before it was renamed to pro).

Sadly, it was less then 3 weeks when... Surprise! New Macbook Pros!

I am upset that I have gotten this so close to the upgrade, but I was wondering if I should upgrade.

If I do upgrade, it will be the mid-end 15 inch with a 128 GB SSD for a total of $2,299.

I want to know whether or not I should upgrade. The only real difference would be the GPU, CPU, and an SSD instead of HDD. Also 2GB of more memory.

It will be mostly for high graphics processing. I am a game designer, and I want to be able to run my game prototypes at high FPS.

I could sell my current laptop for $1,400 at most, maybe $1,500 if someone gives me a good offer, and I have an extra $1,000 in my personal account. What should I do? Wait for the next generations in a year? Or buy this one right now...
Click to expand...

You must be just starting out then. You will want the 15" Pro with 9600 discrete graphics if you want any sort of improvement. Both the 13" and 15" base models have the same 9400M shared graphics.

SnowLeopard2008 said:
A game developer asking about CPU upgrades and how it affects FPS. CPU DOES NOT AFFECT FPS. The graphic card does. And since the graphic card is still the same and can't share more than 256MB VRAM, a minor CPU upgrade and official support for 8GB memory won't squeeze more FPS. This is fail.
Click to expand...

Not 100% true. 3d matrices are calculated on the graphics card, yes, and that is where most of the work is. How ever, the CPU often does the physics calculations (I know thats changing) and other misc math which can impact game performance. Not to mention, memory and data I/O is controlled through the CPU which has a direct impact on everything.
 
Only you know the answer.

Honestly, as a game designer, you should know the technical ups and downs on the matter, too. If you're looking for justification from a bunch of forum members that mostly say GET IT!, specially since it's not their money, and that makes you feel better about it, then go for it. But you could have made the choice before you bought the macbook. Not much performance changed between the older unibody macbooks and the newer 13" macbook "Pro"s anyway. It also depends what kind of games you're developing, and I still wonder why you didn't consider this before. The macbooks are capable of quiet a lot since the went nvidia, too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back