MacBook Pro speed issue

[samcolson4]

I recently upgraded from a late '08 Aluminium MacBook (the lowest spec but upped to 4gb of RAM) to the MBP in my signature.

I was expecting a big speed boost, especially in applications like iPhoto + iMovie but it's almost like I'm running the same Mac just with a bigger screen.

As I spent over £1000 on this new one I was just wondering where you think the problem could lie, or if there's any good diagnostic software to help me.

Thanks!

 

[Detrius]

You still only have 4GB of RAM, and you have a 5400rpm hard drive. 4GB is not a lot of RAM. It's a fair amount of RAM. A faster processor and graphics card won't get you around a slow-ish hard drive and not enough RAM.

 

[disarticulate]

I recently upgraded from a late '08 Aluminium MacBook (the lowest spec but upped to 4gb of RAM) to the MBP in my signature.

I was expecting a big speed boost, especially in applications like iPhoto + iMovie but it's almost like I'm running the same Mac just with a bigger screen.

As I spent over £1000 on this new one I was just wondering where you think the problem could lie, or if there's any good diagnostic software to help me.

Thanks!

Get an SSD. Thanks for sharing.

 

[stevemiller]

as some have pointed out, stuff like a slow hard drive and limited ram can create bottlenecks in an otherwise fast system.

it also depends on the type of work that you're doing. as far as iPhoto and iMovie are concerned, basic video and photo editing tasks were already pretty responsive in the '08 laptops (i upgraded from an '08 pro myself). unless it was lagging before and is still lagging now, you probably just aren't even pushing the hardware yet!

to give you an idea of just how powerful these current pro's are, i am at work rendering a 3d project as we speak. i have a 2009 mac pro and my laptop both rendering frames, and the macbook pro running 8-threads pretty much keeps pace with a top spec'd 16-thread tower from barely 2 years prior.

running my new system side by side with my old laptop (it was the fastest one offered in 2008 - 2.8ghz), there is no contest, its a full 3 times faster.

if you genuinely are experiencing slowdowns that a faster hd/more ram doesn't solve, definitely get it looked at!

 

[yusukeaoki]

I dont know if you got 2.0GHz or 2.2GHz but if you have 2.2GHz or higher, you can get 16GB RAM.

I highly recommend getting a Samsung 470 SSD and 8GB RAM