Hi All,
Im about ready to get into my final year of school (yea! a full decade of post-secondary), I'm doing my final year of my masters degree in architecture. Last semester I found I was maxing out my 17" mbp (early 2009 2.66ghz, 4gb ram, 500gb hd) maxing out the ram and processors while doing heavy graphics work (200+mb files), osx was bad, windows was marginally better, but only if I cranked up the fans.
I am now faced with thinking I may have to see what I can do to speed it up or sell and go for a new one.... last resort I'd think. I use CS4/5 (ps, id, ai), rhino (mac and windows), iwork, office, maxwell render, vectorworks, C4D, and on windows requirements are to use autocad, maya, 3d studio max, revit.
So what are my best options to squeeze a little more life out of it, I don't want to go ssd if I can help it (big bucks and I need storage space). would getting 8gb ram be appreciable? do the ssd expresscards actually work (thinking load the os on this and use internal for storage)
or do I sell this machine for something south of 2k and get a new 2.66 i7 17"... (or see if they put out the rumored 2.8ghz i7 upgrade late september)
or do I keep trying to kill it by pushing it to the limits and using my mp for all my heavy heavy lifting
what would you do?
Im about ready to get into my final year of school (yea! a full decade of post-secondary), I'm doing my final year of my masters degree in architecture. Last semester I found I was maxing out my 17" mbp (early 2009 2.66ghz, 4gb ram, 500gb hd) maxing out the ram and processors while doing heavy graphics work (200+mb files), osx was bad, windows was marginally better, but only if I cranked up the fans.
I am now faced with thinking I may have to see what I can do to speed it up or sell and go for a new one.... last resort I'd think. I use CS4/5 (ps, id, ai), rhino (mac and windows), iwork, office, maxwell render, vectorworks, C4D, and on windows requirements are to use autocad, maya, 3d studio max, revit.
So what are my best options to squeeze a little more life out of it, I don't want to go ssd if I can help it (big bucks and I need storage space). would getting 8gb ram be appreciable? do the ssd expresscards actually work (thinking load the os on this and use internal for storage)
or do I sell this machine for something south of 2k and get a new 2.66 i7 17"... (or see if they put out the rumored 2.8ghz i7 upgrade late september)
or do I keep trying to kill it by pushing it to the limits and using my mp for all my heavy heavy lifting
what would you do?