I had struggling with what macbook pro to buy. I needed a decent potable at work, as I work in IT in a University that does medical research and we have about 1000 PCs and about 500 macs. So I definitely wanted a macbook pro, as I can run OSX with Windows running in Fusion 3. I don't play many games, but I do love World of Warcraft. Many say that it doesnt push a machine very hard, but in the Northrend areas in Lich King, there are settings that do push the video card a bit.
I was all set to buy the 15" i7 hd ag when the new iMacs were released with radeon 5750 on the 27" i5 quad core. It was at this point that my 24" display went dead at home, and I started pondering my options. I could buy the 15" and a new 24" and spend around 2600 plus tax. Or, I could buy a 13" 2.4 and a 27" i5 quad core and be around 3000 plus tax. The only trick is that I didn't know how well the 13" would handle VMs or WOW. But I took the plunge anyway.
First off, the 27" imac is just killer. Im in love. But the real diamond in the rough is the 13" MBP. This machine is far more capable then I would have ever believed. I enabled spaces, and I run Fusion 3 (XP SP3) full screen in one space, Mail and End Note in the second space (syncing IT tickets to endnote on my iphone), Safari with 4-5 tabs open in the third space, and chat windows/ical in the fourth space. Stock machine, 4 gigs of ram, 5400rpm drive. And it doesn't break a sweat. System never crashes, and the Windows VM feels native. Wow perfomance wasn't going to set any records, but in Outland I was getting 30-50fps which was obviously fine on the go. At home the friggin' iMac with the 5750 is turning 100-130fps on Ultra at 2560x1600.
So for users that think the 13" won't cut it, rethink that decision unless you use this as a primary gaming machine. In addition, for users that are setting up VMs and find the performance sluggish, make sure that you assign 2 Cores, 2 gigs of ram and PRESET THE HARD DISK SPACE. If you allow the disk to span as it needs more space, the VM will run like mud. The minute you preset the drive space its MUCH better. Learned this from our environment, most of our macs run Fusion 3 with XP SP3 running(just because its the Universities VM std platform and we haven't gotten win 7 working on certain Genome devices).
The 13" is a real barn burner. I ordered the X Gear Shadow case, an 8 gig upgrade (my use leaves only about 300 megs left of free ram) and Im going to give the 128 gig OWC SSD a try. These parts arrive Tuesday and I'll post the speed increases felt.
Can't Wait.
I was all set to buy the 15" i7 hd ag when the new iMacs were released with radeon 5750 on the 27" i5 quad core. It was at this point that my 24" display went dead at home, and I started pondering my options. I could buy the 15" and a new 24" and spend around 2600 plus tax. Or, I could buy a 13" 2.4 and a 27" i5 quad core and be around 3000 plus tax. The only trick is that I didn't know how well the 13" would handle VMs or WOW. But I took the plunge anyway.
First off, the 27" imac is just killer. Im in love. But the real diamond in the rough is the 13" MBP. This machine is far more capable then I would have ever believed. I enabled spaces, and I run Fusion 3 (XP SP3) full screen in one space, Mail and End Note in the second space (syncing IT tickets to endnote on my iphone), Safari with 4-5 tabs open in the third space, and chat windows/ical in the fourth space. Stock machine, 4 gigs of ram, 5400rpm drive. And it doesn't break a sweat. System never crashes, and the Windows VM feels native. Wow perfomance wasn't going to set any records, but in Outland I was getting 30-50fps which was obviously fine on the go. At home the friggin' iMac with the 5750 is turning 100-130fps on Ultra at 2560x1600.
So for users that think the 13" won't cut it, rethink that decision unless you use this as a primary gaming machine. In addition, for users that are setting up VMs and find the performance sluggish, make sure that you assign 2 Cores, 2 gigs of ram and PRESET THE HARD DISK SPACE. If you allow the disk to span as it needs more space, the VM will run like mud. The minute you preset the drive space its MUCH better. Learned this from our environment, most of our macs run Fusion 3 with XP SP3 running(just because its the Universities VM std platform and we haven't gotten win 7 working on certain Genome devices).
The 13" is a real barn burner. I ordered the X Gear Shadow case, an 8 gig upgrade (my use leaves only about 300 megs left of free ram) and Im going to give the 128 gig OWC SSD a try. These parts arrive Tuesday and I'll post the speed increases felt.
Can't Wait.