Hi all,
So I am a PhD student working in Physics so I do a lot of coding (mostly in archaic programming languages like Fortran but also IDL and Mathematica). I currently have sitting on my desk my 13" 2009 macbook pro 2.53ghz Core 2 duo and my supervisors old 23" cinema display (circa 2005). The display is on it's last legs as sometimes it just doesn't turn on which can be quite frustrating but it eventually comes back to life.
So I have a few upgrade options that I am looking into, firstly I will hope to sell my 13" macbook pro for about £500-600 (reasonable?) as it still has 1 years warranty left. Then I can either get the base i7 15" macbook pro and install the ssd I bought for my old macbook pro and keep the monitor until it dies completely and buy a similar sized monitor. Or sell the ssd (256gb crucial c300), and get the 27" i5 iMac and upgrade it to 1tb +256gb ssd (or even not if the i5 is fast enough).
I guess my question boils down to the difference between a lower clocked i7 mbp with ssd vs the higher clocked i5 without ssd for what I do. I don't game so graphics is not an issue, my main priority I guess is running code and applications like mathematica etc.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have been thinking about this for a while.
So I am a PhD student working in Physics so I do a lot of coding (mostly in archaic programming languages like Fortran but also IDL and Mathematica). I currently have sitting on my desk my 13" 2009 macbook pro 2.53ghz Core 2 duo and my supervisors old 23" cinema display (circa 2005). The display is on it's last legs as sometimes it just doesn't turn on which can be quite frustrating but it eventually comes back to life.
So I have a few upgrade options that I am looking into, firstly I will hope to sell my 13" macbook pro for about £500-600 (reasonable?) as it still has 1 years warranty left. Then I can either get the base i7 15" macbook pro and install the ssd I bought for my old macbook pro and keep the monitor until it dies completely and buy a similar sized monitor. Or sell the ssd (256gb crucial c300), and get the 27" i5 iMac and upgrade it to 1tb +256gb ssd (or even not if the i5 is fast enough).
I guess my question boils down to the difference between a lower clocked i7 mbp with ssd vs the higher clocked i5 without ssd for what I do. I don't game so graphics is not an issue, my main priority I guess is running code and applications like mathematica etc.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have been thinking about this for a while.