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MBP just died, need new Mac

2contagious

2contagious

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 29, 2008
755
0
UK
Hi,

My Macbook pro just died and I need a replacement Mac as soon as possible, as I am a graphic design student. I was thinking of getting a desktop mac this time. I am a bit put off thinking of getting a mac pro, since they weren't updated in a while, so I was considering an iMac i5. I can't really get an i7 (which would be my first choice) since the shipment time says 3 weeks (Uk store) and that is just too long. What am I supposed to do? Is the i5 good enough for video editing, after effects, photoshop cs4 etc?

hope you can help me.
I wish they would release new mac pros next week or so :/

see you,
chris.
 
If your 1.83GHz MBP was good enough for video editing, after effects and photoshop cs4 work, ANY of the new iMacs is going to be more than capable. The i5 is an incredibly powerful machine.
 
Scarlet Fever said:
If your 1.83GHz MBP was good enough for video editing, after effects and photoshop cs4 work, ANY of the new iMacs is going to be more than capable. The i5 is an incredibly powerful machine.
Click to expand...

What he said.

Even a base model 21/27" iMac is 1200 mhz faster Core 2 Duo, that should be indication enough right there.
 
I wouldn't buy an 27" iMac until they definitively fix the screen issue. Also the i5 is slower than the current low-end MP. It's more than capable for video editing though. Problem w/ the iMac is that it has limited RAM slots and you can't upgrade the video card. Do some research on the 27" iMac screens though and make sure you are ready to play the lottery.

Apple should be updating MPs sometime between now and March. If you can wait I would otherwise there is nothing wrong w/ the current MPs.
 
2contagious said:
Hi,

My Macbook pro just died and I need a replacement Mac as soon as possible, as I am a graphic design student. I was thinking of getting a desktop mac this time. I am a bit put off thinking of getting a mac pro, since they weren't updated in a while, so I was considering an iMac i5. I can't really get an i7 (which would be my first choice) since the shipment time says 3 weeks (Uk store) and that is just too long. What am I supposed to do? Is the i5 good enough for video editing, after effects, photoshop cs4 etc?

hope you can help me.
I wish they would release new mac pros next week or so :/

see you,
chris.
Click to expand...

Doesn't sound like you need the MacPro. I recommend the iMac or a MBP (you can always use a external display when you're home).

Habitus :apple:
 
2contagious said:
Hi,

.... need a replacement Mac as soon as possible,...the shipment time says 3 weeks (Uk store) ..,
chris.
Click to expand...

Hi Chris, I am a very happy user of the Apple UK Store "Refurb section", if you buy "last year's model" apple anything , then the delivery time is usually 2 days!

the link is currently http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac?mco=OTY2ODY3Nw,
the stock changes from day-to-day, at present there are unibody Macbooks for £714 and 3GHz 22" 4GB/500GB iMac for £819. (I'd personally stay away from the non-LED backlit 24" iMacs, but that's just me) don't think too long as things GO!


I have bought MANY products this way, my 2006 'UK refurb' white 2GHz macbook had a split keyboard top cover (materials defect) and a failed battery (bought 11 months ago) so I took it to the newly opend Apple store in Milan carugate last week, they asked "why did you buy this MB 4 years ago, in the UK, and refurb" I explained that I find 'last years product' usually more reliable than 'this years product' and the Genius Bar repaired immediately my non warranty covered MB, free!
 
How does the best MBP in store compare to the best iMac in store (which is the i5, I believe)?

note: I will be doing quite a lot of 1080p full HD video editing.

also, are there still issues with the iMac 27" i5? I thought they fixed them?

ps. I don't really want to get a refurb, as they usually cost the same as the new models with my student discount.
 
best performance

2contagious said:
note: I will be doing quite a lot of 1080p full HD video editing.

also, are there still issues with the iMac 27" i5? I thought they fixed them?
Click to expand...

I think I personally would go for a dual GPU MBP with extra cost fast 7200 HDD, because you can drive a cheap 40" Samsung LED HDTV with it, or a big & good dell display.

as for performance, it depends on quite a few things. Nominally the CPU frequency/cache and the system memory bandwidth/clock speed.
However there's the additional complication of the new upcoming GPGPU processing - devolving many encoding tasks to the graphics card/s instead of just the CPU. check out OCL & Grand Central Dispatch - fortunately that's in SL, but unfortunately not many programs use them yet.

The interweb says this "to take advantage of OpenCL you must have one of the following graphics cards in your computer.

NVIDIA Geforce 8600M GT, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS, Geforce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130, ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870.

On top of that, the new QuickTime X in Snow Leopard only supports H.264 Video Acceleration (encoding and decoding) with NVIDIA 9400m GPUs, which limits choice to the unibody line of MacBooks or the cheap iMac???

Both OpenCL and the QuickTime X H.264 Video Acceleration are part of Snow Leopard however none of the current video apps (including QuickTime 7) will take advantage of the speed boost until they are rewritten to take advantage of OpenCL, QuickTime X and Grand Central. "

This means that I'm choosing unibody Macbook pros with the two video cards for scientific computing at work

it's possible Apple's Final Cut Pro will be soon one of the first OpenCL & GCD optimised programs. Check out which video editing prog you have, and which hardware most people use! (I started video editing on an iMac DV 400MHz with 128MB ram, the big problem then was fast external storage and needed big firewire HDD's.) I suspect you'll have the same today, need for many big external HDD's!!! FW800 better than USB2. RAID better than 1
 
I would get the fastest Macbook Pro that I could afford, with the smallest and most portable screen (so 15”) and a nice big external display.

You can run with an external keyboard and mouse, and it will be much like a Mac Pro. Leave the lid open and you’ll have two screens at once to hold more windows.

Speed AND huge screen AND portability.
 
but portability aside, the iMac i5 is faster than the MacBook pro 2.8ghz, no?
how about those issues on the iMac anyone got news? are there still any issues left?
 
2contagious said:
but portability aside, the iMac i5 is faster than the MacBook pro 2.8ghz, no?
how about those issues on the iMac anyone got news? are there still any issues left?
Click to expand...

Wait until later today?

Yes, the i5 iMac is faster for processor intensive stuff.

What are you using for your HD video now?
 
Scrumper said:
Unfortunately the screen issues have not been solved and more are still being reported. The thread on Apple's own discussions forum has reached an incredible 249 pages now, with over 3,700 posts! Take a look here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2212682&tstart=0&messageID=10971596#10971596
Click to expand...

Does that qualify as incredible?? 3700 posts, many from repeat posters and that's on Apple's own forums.

This thread right here on MacRumors for those awaiting shipment of their quad-core iMacs has 236 pages with 5,882 posts (and 325,023 views).

By the way, I recommend the i5 for the OP. I have had zero issues with my week 47 i7. No yellow, no flickering, no noisy HD and I think the i5 is more than powerful enough for your needs.
 
Dead MBP for Parts

Would you like to sell the dead MBP? I need it for parts. Send me an email hcrana@yahoo.com

2contagious said:
Hi,

My Macbook pro just died and I need a replacement Mac as soon as possible, as I am a graphic design student. I was thinking of getting a desktop mac this time. I am a bit put off thinking of getting a mac pro, since they weren't updated in a while, so I was considering an iMac i5. I can't really get an i7 (which would be my first choice) since the shipment time says 3 weeks (Uk store) and that is just too long. What am I supposed to do? Is the i5 good enough for video editing, after effects, photoshop cs4 etc?

hope you can help me.
I wish they would release new mac pros next week or so :/

see you,
chris.
Click to expand...
 
What do you mean by died? Did the HD go? Did the logic board fail? Is the battery dead?


In my experience computers dont just die and become useless, usually a part fails that can be replaced instead of buying a new machine.

I am curious why yours no longer works and if it can be fixed? I am all for replacing old machines just curious about what made yours stop working.
 
the logic board is dead, the genius said it would cost 640 british pounds to get it replaced and that's simply a ridiculous amount of money for repairing a 4 year old laptop, so a new mac it is!

I guess I will wait until the keynote to see what the islate/ipad is going to be like (to cover my portability needs, which are mainly viewing my work and Internet access) and if it's good, I guess I'll go for the iMac i5 (and will have to hope that it's free of any problems).
 
2contagious said:
I guess I will wait until the keynote to see what the islate/ipad is going to be like (to cover my portability needs, which are mainly viewing my work and Internet access) and if it's good, I guess I'll go for the iMac i5 (and will have to hope that it's free of any problems).
Click to expand...

The ipad would basically be able to do what I need a portable device to do, so I guess I will finally go for the i5 iMac. (btw. is the i7 shipment date in the UK really 3 weeks?)

Only problem with the iPad is that it doesn't appear to have flash, just like the iPhone.. is there any chance adobe will give in ?
 
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