Question: How is the 2.4GHz Macbook Pro

[GodWhomIsMike]

I been looking at a refurbished 2.53 GHz 15" Macbook Pro (4GB DDR3 ram, 512MB 9600GT, 320GB hard drive) for $1449 from Apple's website. My sister contacted me saying she is able to get a 2.4 GHz 15" Macbook Pro (2GB DDR3, 250GB hard drive, 256MB 9600GT, and 3year AppleCare) for significantly less than that.

What are the limitations of the 2.4 GHz model? Are there any major differences between the two CPUs other than the clock speed? What is the max ram the 2.4GHz MBP can address? Will there be significant differences between the two?

 

[yaroldb]

This model was the $2k low end MBP in it's day. I have this model and love it. Apple says it will only see 4gb if Ram, but you can put up to 6gb in with no problems. The 2.53 has a faster bus speed and can address up to 8gb of Ram. It is also has a faster GPU. I work a lot in photoshop, lightroom and Illustrator and only use the 9400Gt card. I hardly ever use the 9600GT. I find it eats battery way to fast and I can hardly see the speed increase. I will use it if I am working with a very large file. I have no complaints with this machine at all.

 

[GodWhomIsMike]

Most of the time, I will be hooked up to an external power source, and displaying to a 22" external monitor in 1680 resolution. I plan on replacing the monitor with a 24" Dell S2409W 24" Widescreen Monitor by the end of this year, so my needs with increase to displaying to a 1920 resolution.

It will be doing Photoshop CS4, some light duty video editing, rip/encode DVDs, create video DVDs, and light duty gaming.

 

[J the Ninja]

This model was the $2k low end MBP in it's day. I have this model and love it. Apple says it will only see 4gb if Ram, but you can put up to 6gb in with no problems. The 2.53 has a faster bus speed and can address up to 8gb of Ram. It is also has a faster GPU. I work a lot in photoshop, lightroom and Illustrator and only use the 9400Gt card. I hardly ever use the 9600GT. I find it eats battery way to fast and I can hardly see the speed increase. I will use it if I am working with a very large file. I have no complaints with this machine at all.

The bus speed is the same, it's the L2 cache that is different (3MB vs 6MB). Also, the GPU is not faster, they are identical. The 2.53 has a questionably-useful VRAM increase. Honestly, I'd go for the 2.4. I stand by my assessment from back in October that the 2.53 is dumb buy. At the time it cost $500 more for $150 of extra RAM and HDD space you could easily do yourself, and some nearly unnoticeable boosts to the CPU and graphics card.

Also, was the 2.53 ever confirmed to support 8GB? Apple claimed it didn't at the time. The 2.66 model that followed it could, but I don't know about the 2.53.

 

[GodWhomIsMike]

The bus speed is the same, it's the L2 cache that is different (3MB vs 6MB). Also, the GPU is not faster, they are identical. The 2.53 has a questionably-useful VRAM increase. Honestly, I'd go for the 2.4. I stand by my assessment from back in October that the 2.53 is dumb buy. At the time it cost $500 more for $150 of extra RAM and HDD space you could easily do yourself, and some nearly unnoticeable boosts to the CPU and graphics card.

Also, was the 2.53 ever confirmed to support 8GB? Apple claimed it didn't at the time. The 2.66 model that followed it could, but I don't know about the 2.53.

I would be saving close to $550 savings over the refurbished 2.53 GHz model, which could very well be put towards a Corsair 256GB (P256) SSD drive and 4GB ram. I think that would pretty much nullify any speed increases I might have seen with the 2.53 GHz model.