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New Mac

T

Tech198

Cancelled
Original poster
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,152
Hi all..

Prparing to buy a new base MacBook Pro 15` this xmas. and deciding on either the extra 4 Gig (8 Gig Total), or would an Airport Express would be more worthwile, and get the memory later?

I'll be running Parallels, Handbrake mostly..
 
Tech198 said:
Hi all..

Prparing to buy a new base MacBook Pro 15` this xmas. and deciding on either the extra 4 Gig (8 Gig Total), or would an Airport Express would be more worthwile, and get the memory later?

I'll be running Parallels, Handbrake mostly..
Click to expand...
Buy your RAM from someone other than Apple, as Apple overcharges for RAM. Then you may be able to get both. Also, you may want to check out Apple's refurbished models for either your MBP or the AirPort Express, or both. That would save some more.
 
Neat..

Sounds good.

I'm guessing the early 2011's come with SL, not Lion, as i can install if necssery ?

Also, looks like the only different between the mid-2011 and the refub one is the graphics.

Both have Intel Graphics HD onboard, but the dicreate on the refub. store is AMD Radeon HD 6490M with 256MB vs 6750M with 512MB on the new one.

While also proccessor was bumped up from 2.0 to 2.2 (probably very little performance increase, particually since its still quad-core anyway)

Thing is, how would the 256MB older graphics handle up to date gamesm or even the oldies.. (eg. planning on getting Skyrim for Bootcamp, and olthers.. (Super street fighter IV Arcade version etc.. )
 
Tech198 said:
Sounds good.

I'm guessing the early 2011's come with SL, not Lion, as i can install if necssery ?

Also, looks like the only different between the mid-2011 and the refub one is the graphics.

Both have Intel Graphics HD onboard, but the dicreate on the refub. store is AMD Radeon HD 6490M with 256MB vs 6750M with 512MB on the new one.

While also proccessor was bumped up from 2.0 to 2.2 (probably very little performance increase, particually since its still quad-core anyway)

Thing is, how would the 256MB older graphics handle up to date gamesm or even the oldies.. (eg. planning on getting Skyrim for Bootcamp, and olthers.. (Super street fighter IV Arcade version etc.. )
Click to expand...

IIRC if it is a refurb then it either comes with Snow Leopard with a free Lion upgrade or Lion is pre-installed on it. Like anything laptopish (including iMac) I'd go for gold when it comes to getting the highest GPU you can - everything else you can pretty much upgrade (hard disk, memory etc) but a bad GPU decision now you'll be regretting in a couple of years time (I'm planning to keep my setup for 4 years minimum). The specifications for what I have are down below in the sig (both iMac and MacBook Pro recently upgraded to 8GB each).

Regarding the memory vs. Airport Extreme - I'd put money down for the Airport Extreme especially with the new firmware which works beautifully in a neighbourhood with wall to wall wifi routers setup. If you're tempted to get a Time Capsule then don't - you're better off getting a NAS device like a DroboFS or a QNAP where you're at least able to replace drives/increase space without having to buy a whole new device, the DroboFS I have supports Time Machine backups.
 
You can get the 8gb memory for about $25 after rebate. It's a great time to get memory. It's so cheap.
 
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