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So would you also advise to avoid the Late 2008/Early 2009 unibody MBP5,1? Reports of GPU failures don't seem nearly as common with these and one could always fall back to the 9400M. (I'm looking at a 15in with an ExpressCard slot so newer models are out.)

I managed ten years or so with my MBP 3,1 by never letting temps get too hot. The one time I turned my back an errant service went doolally and fried the chip. It only took a couple of minutes, too. If you can watch over your notebook, you could get away with it but I would rather not have the niggling worry, even though, as others have said, the 2008/9 MBPs were a little more robust than their predecessors.

I think you can get Mojave working with a 9400M, so it might be worth the extra if you want an earlier MBP to look at those.
 
Mojave works with a 9400M. It runs decent on my late 2008 uMB with a 9400M.
 
I think you can get Mojave working with a 9400M, so it might be worth the extra if you want an earlier MBP to look at those.

I'd be using an eGPU most of the time anyway, so neither the 9400M nor the 9600M would be doing a lot of work.
 
I'd be using an eGPU most of the time anyway, so neither the 9400M nor the 9600M would be doing a lot of work.
An eGPU on a machine with USB 2.0? How practical is that? Never heard of anyone doing that with USB 2 before
 
USB-what?

I mean business: a real graphics card attached using an ExpressCard to PCI Express adapter: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/a-beastly-macbook-4-1.2175397/ (this can connect to either the ExpressCard or MiniPCIe slot) - the GPU behaves just like in a Mac Pro and gives me 4K@60Hz, insanely high HiDPI resolutions, the works!

:D
Oh sorry, I am a little tired right now... I was thinking in terms of newer MacBook Pros that did not have ExpressCard.

If you are using an eGPU and only use the 9400M when not using the eGPU, graphics failure will be a non-issue.
 
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For the record I have a late-2008 Unibody MacBook Pro 5,1, and it still works just fine. Technically it's my most modern Apple computer (not counting tablets). I've swapped the hard drive for an SSD and moved the hard drive into the DVD bay. The SSD has MacOS Mavericks and the hard drive has Snow Leopard, because Logic Express 9 doesn't work with Mavericks.

You have to use DosDude's popular patch tool to get Mavericks working. Off the top of my head the contemporary unibody MacBook - the non-pro version, just the standard MacBook, albeit that it had the same body - doesn't work with Mavericks as well because the wifi card is different. I could be wrong. Of note the ExpressCard slot in my MacBook works under Snow Leopard, but if I try using a card with Mavericks the machine locks up.

The late-2008 model is relatively easy to work on because the hard drive and battery are under a lift-off flap, and the battery is a separate unit. It has two GPUs. The discrete GPU is faster but I never use it because from the perspective of 2019 it's still not fast enough for games and it just makes the machine hotter.

From a used point of view I suspect that the Nehalem models - e.g. the i5, i7 models that replaced the Core 2 Duo - that came out from 2010 onwards are a better, more future-proofed choice.

As for screens it's hard to judge because the newest PowerBook is fourteen years old, but the screen on my high-res 17" PowerBook G4 is matte (which is good) but noticeably yellowy-er and less contrasty than the screen on my MacBook Pro. It's usable, and perhaps it has faded over time, but it's not as good. The MacBook Pro's screen is still good by modern standards although I hate the fact that it's reflective.
 
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For the record I have a late-2008 Unibody MacBook Pro 5,1, and it still works just fine. Technically it's my most modern Apple computer (not counting tablets). I've swapped the hard drive for an SSD and moved the hard drive into the DVD bay. The SSD has MacOS Mavericks and the hard drive has Snow Leopard, because Logic Express 9 doesn't work with Mavericks.

You have to use DosDude's popular patch tool to get Mavericks working. Off the top of my head the contemporary unibody MacBook - the non-pro version, just the standard MacBook, albeit that it had the same body - doesn't work with Mavericks as well because the wifi card is different. I could be wrong.

The late-2008 model is relatively easy to work on because the hard drive and battery are under a lift-off flap, and the battery is a separate unit. It has two GPUs. The discrete GPU is faster but I never use it because from the perspective of 2019 it's still not fast enough for games and it just makes the machine hotter.

From a used point of view I suspect that the Nehalem models - e.g. the i5, i7 models that replaced the Core 2 Duo - that came out from 2010 onwards are a better, more future-proofed choice.

As for screens it's hard to judge because the newest PowerBook is fourteen years old, but the screen on my high-res 17" PowerBook G4 is matte (which is good) but noticeably yellowy-er and less contrasty than the screen on my MacBook Pro. It's usable, and perhaps it has faded over time, but it's not as good. The MacBook Pro's screen is still good by modern standards although I hate the fact that it's reflective.

My early-2008 and late-2008 15" c2duo MacBookPro allowed installation of ElCapitan without any patch. Is there anything special with Mavericks on the late-2008 that needs a patch and/or did I miss anything installing ElCapitan without a patch?
With DosDude1's patches (and an upgrade to the Airport-card) an upgrade to Sierra/HighSierra is possible for some of the early-/late-2008 MBP (great job! but currently I rather like to stick with ElCapitan).

The pre-unibody c2duo 15" MacBookPros in common do have problems with a faulty (on-board) GPU - the unibody c2duo 15" MacBookPro seem to have no problems on this side ... (stupid me: after re-reading this thread I finally became aware, that the 15" unibody c2duo MBPs do also have got a discrete GPU - hu, so those ones are really not prone to fail?)

The 2010/2011 15" i5/i7 MacBookPro suffer from failure of the (discrete) GPU - it's better to stay of those models. The mid-2012 i7 15" MocBookPro is a sturdy (and latest pre-Retina) machine.
 
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As above, the 5,1 unibody supports up to el Cap natively with no patching, as does the pre unibody 4,1 and even the 2007 SR 3,1
 
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(stupid me: after re-reading this thread I finally became aware, that the 15" unibody c2duo MBPs do also have got a discrete GPU - hu, so those ones are really not prone to fail?)

The mid-2009 2.53GHz 15in unibody MBP without discrete GPU would be perfect for me - but it lacks ExpressCard which I need. :(
 
The mid-2009 2.53GHz 15in unibody MBP without discrete GPU would be perfect for me - but it lacks ExpressCard which I need. :(
Yep, I wouldn't want to miss my USB 3.0 PCExpressCard34 too :)
(together with an encrypted 500GB SSD in an external USB 3.0-closure my favorite companion for fast CCC-backups ...)
 
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