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MB Pro 13" early 2011

D

Dr. McKay

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 20, 2010
822
112
Belgium, Europe
I currently have an early 2008 iMac (24", 2.8Ghz C2D, 4Gb of RAM, ATI Radeon 2600 pro).
I've been wanting to replace it with a MB Pro, 13 or 15 inch. Now, I've come across a rather good deal for a used 13 inch MB Pro (early 2011 model) :
http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...-13-early-2011-unibody-thunderbolt-specs.html

Don't want to buy a new one, because I want to be able to run SL on it as well.

It comes with 4Gb of RAM but I would max it out to 8Gb.

I use my mac for everyday stuff : browsing the web, iPhoto, some iMovie, iTunes and some other basic stuff.
I also play some games, however. All Valve games, some Indie games and World of Warcraft. Would like to play SC2 as well, but doesn't run well at all at native res on my iMac.
Would the HD3000 in the Macbook be sufficient for these games, taking into account that I would be playing them at native res of 1280x800 (as opposed to 1920x1200 on the iMac) ?
I would even hope the HD3000 is a little bit better then the Radeon in my iMac, or am I dreaming ?

I would keep my iMac and use it as a tinkering machine (would mainly use it with Ubuntu, keeping a small SL partition for when I ever need it). The MB Pro would be used as my main machine, running ML.

Second question : is it at all possible to use my 24" iMac
http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...24-inch-aluminum-early-2008-penryn-specs.html
as an external monitor for the MB Pro ? I don't think it's 'officially' supported, but maybe someone knows of a workaround ?
 
I would guess that it'll run SC2 at least as well as your iMac, but you're not going to get great frame rates. You'd be better off with cMBP-15. I bought both a base 2011 13" and 15" and upgraded RAM and HDD on both. I play SC2 on the 15" all the time and it drives the ATD native res decently enough, though at lowish frame rates.

And BTW the 2011's max out at 16GB RAM, though its not really necessary unless you run VMs. I would, however, consider an upgrade from 4GB absolutely necessary.
 
All 2013 MacBooks can take up to 16GB 1600MHz DDR3.

8GB to 16GB isnt that much more money. If you do go 8GB, get 1 x 8GB DIMM vs 2 x 4GB DIMMs in case in the future you want to go to 16GB.
 
Well, 8Gb would be more than enough for me.
Only thing I'd like to change is the HD, only 320Gb, and replace it with a 1Tb version. Don't know whether that's easy to do on a 13" MB Pro...
 
Dr. McKay said:
Well, 8Gb would be more than enough for me.
Only thing I'd like to change is the HD, only 320Gb, and replace it with a 1Tb version. Don't know whether that's easy to do on a 13" MB Pro...
Click to expand...

Very easy to do.
 
Got the same MacBook and I'm bumping it up to 16GB over the Christmas period (i.e when I get time). That and adding a 256GB SSD in place of the 320GB hard drive. Space is not an issue for me, don't store anything excessive on the laptop itself, and have a large NAS that I dump everything on.

The RAM & the SSD should future proof it for an extra year or two, but even with 4GB of RAM and the standard hard drive, it hasn't creaked that many times.

Great little machine :)
 
Dr. McKay said:
Well, 8Gb would be more than enough for me.
Only thing I'd like to change is the HD, only 320Gb, and replace it with a 1Tb version. Don't know whether that's easy to do on a 13" MB Pro...
Click to expand...

Though you may not need it, for the record I'm pretty sure that the early 2011 cMBP-13 can take 16GB; it is Sandy Bridge just like it's bigger brethren.

As for the drive, you may wish to replace it with something faster, it makes a big difference in your computing experience. If you don't need a lot of space look for a 128GB to 256GB SSD that can replace your HDD. If you do need space consider putting that SSD in your optibay (likely at SATA II speeds) and creading a DIY Fusion drive. Or, if you need the Superdrive, put a Seagate Momentus XT in there. It'll be slightly smaller than the 1TB drive and about 30% more expensive, but it'll be a lot faster given the 7200rpm speed and 8GB of NAND flash cache. I put one in my wife's early 2011 cMBP-13 along with 8GB RAM and it's a pretty fast machine now.
 
NewishMacGuy said:
If you don't need a lot of space look for a 128GB to 256GB SSD that can replace your HDD.
Click to expand...

Thx for your suggestions, but I DO need lots of space. Don't like to mess about with external HD, although I have a 1,5Tb one for TM backup purposes. I'd like to keep everything on the internal drive (music, photos, etc.) so it's available whenever or wherever I go. So SSD is too small in size and still too expensive for my taste, even if it is blindingly fast.
Still in doubt whether 13" would be too small for my needs, though. It's either 13" and keep the iMac, or sell the iMac and look for a 15". Will have to see, in any case, won't be before January 2013...
 
Dr. McKay said:
Still in doubt whether 13" would be too small for my needs, though. It's either 13" and keep the iMac, or sell the iMac and look for a 15". Will have to see, in any case, won't be before January 2013...
Click to expand...

I had a 13" for years, switched to 15" recently and not going back. I'm too old for a 13" screen anymore. 15" and ATD is just so much nicer than the old desktops these days.
 
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