MBP 17" (2009) - How does it run?

[crazylegsmurphy]

Hey All,

So I have been seeing a lot of threads and youtube videos about the unboxing of the 17" MBP, but almost none of them are actually talking about the most important aspect of this notebook, which is how it actually runs.

With mine on order, I am really curious to hear some real world feedback on how it's running some of the following programs:

OSX
Vista
Company of Heroes
Photoshop CS4 (other adobe producs)

Putting all the fancy design aside, how does it hold up as a notebook? How many programs can you get running before it bogs down? If you open a huge photoshop file, how does the Nvidia's handle it?

Any feedback you guys have would be much appreciated.

 

[ayeying]

Hey All,

So I have been seeing a lot of threads and youtube videos about the unboxing of the 17" MBP, but almost none of them are actually talking about the most important aspect of this notebook, which is how it actually runs.

With mine on order, I am really curious to hear some real world feedback on how it's running some of the following programs:

OSX
Vista
Company of Heroes
Photoshop CS4 (other adobe producs)

Putting all the fancy design aside, how does it hold up as a notebook? How many programs can you get running before it bogs down? If you open a huge photoshop file, how does the Nvidia's handle it?

Any feedback you guys have would be much appreciated.

After using it for ~6 Days, I can say this is probably the best notebook system I've had in ages. My last "best" notebook system was a PC, Dell Inspiron 8600.

My specs are:

2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9800
4GB DDR3-1066MHz Ram
320GB 7200RPM Hard Disk Drive
512MB nVidia GeForce 9600GT (Been using this card 24/7 for the past 2 days)

The only "odd" part I noticed is that the hard drive seems to lock itself down randomly. I'm not sure if its directly related to me booting up Vista (Boot Camp) via VMWare Fusion or not. It seems like thats the only place where it'll happen but I haven't run more tests to see what's going on yet.

Opening a huge Photoshop file, my biggest was 19.4 MB so anything bigger then that, i'm not sure. This was done on the 256MB nVidia GeForce 9400M card btw. No major slow downs. It took a little bit to open the file but once it's opened, I can edit/do whatever without any lag.

I normally run ~3GB+ worth of programs at once. Just like my MacBook (when I had 4GB there), as long as I have ~700-~900MB of free (Inactive + Free) ram available, the system runs beautifully.

The 4 items you listed:

OSX - Runs very well, as expected. I do not see any problems what so ever, but that doesn't mean its 100% perfect, nothing is.
Vista - Runs very well. I have installed 14 games on the system. As long as I keep the system defragged (Vista Partition), it runs very well. Battery life is not bad either. Non gaming w/ 75% brightness @ High Performance gives me ~3-4 Hours. I figure if I just take notes and such, I can last closer to 5 Hours in Vista.
Company of Heroes - Don't have that game, can't say. However, I can say games such as L4D, CS:S, DoD:S, Burnout Paradise, CoD4, these I can play at native resolution without any problems. Settings are above Medium at least.
Photoshop CS4 - Runs great. No slow downs as long as enough Ram/CPU speed (In which both Base and Custom model [2.66GHz or 2.93GHz]) is sufficient for your task.

Hope this helps.

Its time for lunch.