Need help on choice of MBP

[Skinny91]

Hey everyone, I'm a music student and I'm in the market for a Macbook Pro. It's mainly going to be for college, so I'll pretty much just be using Word documents and also Logic Pro, maybe a some image and video editing software as well.

Mainly I want to know what would be a better choice for running Logic on, on my budget I can get either the 15 inch 2.0 quadcore with 8gb ram, and the hard drive upgraded, or the 15 inch 2.2 quadcore with 4gb of ram.

My next question is, am I better having a 500gb @ 7200rpm or a 750gb @5400rpm (I'll be upgrading to one of these on the 2.0 if I get that one). I watched a video showing the difference isn't as much as I expected, but for heavy duty applications like Logic I expect I'll need the speed, and 500gb seems like a lot (My current PC is only 200gb ). I know I'd have better price/performance (pretty much everything, haha) if I got an Mac Desktop, but for this portability is essential for me.

So yeah, any help would be appreciated

 

[DustinT]

Logic Pro likes lots of cores so either of the quads you mentioned will be a good foundation. If you have the budget for it, the 2.2 will offer some improvements but either will perform well.

Regarding the ram upgrade, you should really look aftermarket for that since its about half the cost. You can find the 8 gb upgrade for $75-100 from most online vendors like Newegg or OWC.

The hard drive isn't going to make a lot of difference. If you really want to see great performance spend your money on an SSD. Yes, they are quite expensive but the performance they provide really has to be experienced to be believed. I'll list the 3 major vendors starting with the fastest and ending with the one that provides the least number of hassles. Which one you choose is a product of how much you value speed versus ease of use. OCZ's Vertex 3 is the absolute fastest with OWC's latest not too far behind. The firmware upgrade process on OWC is bit easier. Intel is by far the slower but its also quite painless. Any of these drives are significantly and noticeably faster than even a 7,200 rpm drive.

If it were me I'd buy the base 15" and upgrade to the best SSD I can afford and move the stock HD to the optibay. Then you've got tons of space and the speed your looking for. Wait on the RAM upgrade until you determine if you really need it since thats easily upgraded once you have the laptop. Plus, the prices are only going to drop on those 8g and 16g kits.

 

[palpatine]

For a lot of people, internal memory is irrelevant. A large external hard drive is plenty. If you have the money to spend, an ideal computer for me would have more RAM, SSD, and a better processor in that order.

 

[Skinny91]

What's wrong with the stock Macbook Pro SSD's in comparison to an aftermarket SSD? Looking at the prices for a 120GB Vertex 3 at about £215-£240, which seems expensive compared to the 128GB one Apple offer. I think if I worked it out right I could get the better 15 inch with a SSD for the same amount.

I was watching some videos on putting in a second hd, but doesn't it involve removing the dvd drive? I don't think I could do without one really, I use it quite often for CD's, and I'll probably end up watching films and doing a little bit of gaming on it.

Sorry if I'm being an idiot, I'm not very savvy when it comes down to the tech side of things.

 

[palpatine]

What's wrong with the stock Macbook Pro SSD's in comparison to an aftermarket SSD? Looking at the prices for a 120GB Vertex 3 at about £215-£240, which seems expensive compared to the 128GB one Apple offer. I think if I worked it out right I could get the better 15 inch with a SSD for the same amount.

I was watching some videos on putting in a second hd, but doesn't it involve removing the dvd drive? I don't think I could do without one really, I use it quite often for CD's, and I'll probably end up watching films and doing a little bit of gaming on it.

Sorry if I'm being an idiot, I'm not very savvy when it comes down to the tech side of things.

most of my cds have only been played once--when i copied them into itunes. nowadays i don'teven buy cds. i download music files individually from amazon or apple. if i ever remove the drive and need to use a dvd or cd, i'll just plug in an external dvd player.

 

[Skinny91]

Thats true, and external dvd drives look pretty cheap on a quick glance through.

As I said, I'm not very tech savvy How does the SSD drive and HD work? Does the Macbook just run all the programs of the Solid State then I can save my music/projects on the other drive?