Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Questions on the Penryn, early-08 MBP

N

nph

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 9, 2005
1,054
216
Hi

I am looking at the Penryn Early -08 version, glossy, to replace my original MBP and have a few questions:

1) How much faster would you say it is, would 2x be a fair statement I have the 1.83 version. GPU wise how is 8600 compared to X1600 I have?
2) Have they improved Wifi reception any? Mine is lousy.
3) Battery life, today I get 3 hours when using Safary and nothing else with a screen turned down quite a bit, 2 hours max of watching streaming video. Would this improve?
4) Heat, I have some heat especially before sending it in to Apple and after that it is just hot. Is the new one any cooler for surfing and watching video, not doing anything heavy?
5) Finally, coolbook, how much does that help? Can you use the MBP in your lap?

Hope I can get some answers from people who have done a similar upgrade.

Thanks
 
Tallest Skil said:
The 8600M is worthless. They're all defective.
Click to expand...
This is not true. They are not all defective!
1) How much faster would you say it is, would 2x be a fair statement I have the 1.83 version. GPU wise how is 8600 compared to X1600 I have?
Click to expand...
You'll find RAM will impact the average user's performance more than CPU speed.
2) Have they improved Wifi reception any? Mine is lousy.
Click to expand...
I've had no problems with WiFi reception, but reception has more to do with your environment than the MBP. If you have interference in your area, that won't change with a new MBP.
3) Battery life, today I get 3 hours when using Safary and nothing else with a screen turned down quite a bit, 2 hours max of watching streaming video. Would this improve?
Click to expand...
With the brightness turned down about 4 steps, I get 3-4 hours on a charge.
4) Heat, I have some heat especially before sending it in to Apple and after that it is just hot. Is the new one any cooler for surfing and watching video, not doing anything heavy?
Click to expand...
Mine gets warm, but not hot. I can use it on my lap without discomfort.
5) Finally, coolbook, how much does that help? Can you use the MBP in your lap?
Click to expand...
See #4
 
wifi sucks, it gets warm, get and incase hard case if it bothers you, and i get over 4 hrs doing said internet stuff at bout 3/4 or a lil brighter. Seems like that last bubble on the brightness deal really puts it to the battery lol
 
I wouldn't call the 8600M worthless. Sure some are downright defective but I haven't had any problems with mine. As to its performance compared to the X1600 from what I'm told it is quite a lot better for games and the like.
 
Tallest Skil said:
My mistake.

"The 8600M is worthless. The ones in Apple's MacBook Pro are defective." :p
Click to expand...
Maybe the one in YOUR MBP is defective, but the one in mine... and millions of others.... aren't! Making blanket statements like that is a obvious display of naiveté.
 
MBA Rev B or Penry early -08

Thanks for the comments, however since my MBP has a max of 2Gig RAM I dont get a good idea of how much faster (and potentially cooler) a Penryn MBP would be.

I really like the MBA rev B but in order to get any good speed it seems the 1.8 with SSD at quite a cost is necessary.

Anyone else who had the first MBP and upgraded to a Penryn that can comment? Or upgraded to a MBA rev B?

Thanks
 
1) How much faster would you say it is, would 2x be a fair statement I have the 1.83 version. GPU wise how is 8600 compared to X1600 I have?
The 8600m GT is a huge improvement over the X1600, i'd say around 2X better in many games

2) Have they improved Wifi reception any? Mine is lousy.
the powerbooks and macbook pros have been known for poor wifi reception mainly because of the aluminum enclosure. So, wifi on the early 08 mbp will most likely be on par with the first gen mbp

3) Battery life, today I get 3 hours when using Safary and nothing else with a screen turned down quite a bit, 2 hours max of watching streaming video. Would this improve?
battery life would definetely be much better than your first gen mbp because of the 45nm process that the penryn chip is based on

4) Heat, I have some heat especially before sending it in to Apple and after that it is just hot. Is the new one any cooler for surfing and watching video, not doing anything heavy?
again, the early 08 macbook pro will be significantly cooler than the first gen mbp because of the penryn processor. Also, the first gen mbps were notorious for running very hot so you will definitely notice that the penryn mbp will run much cooler

5) Finally, coolbook, how much does that help? Can you use the MBP in your lap?
I believe the current coolbook version is not compatible with the penryn macbook pro's however i could be wrong. I can use my mbp (early '08) on my lap fine if I use it for taking notes at school, internet, and chat. However, I wouldn't recommend using it on your lap if you do any heavy gaming or any cpu/gpu intensive tasks.
 
1. The Early '08 MBP's CPU is anywhere from 133% (2.4 GHz) to 145% (2.6 GHz) more powerful than the 1.83 GHz CPU in your old MacBook Pro (sourced from Geekbench). It also supports a maximum of 4 GB of RAM, whereas I believe your older model only supported 2 GB.

For most tasks, it has power to spare. The only things I've done that have really taxed the CPU are video encoding and gaming.

As for the video card, the 8600M GT from nVidia will have higher performance than the old ATI card, but it's still very much a middle-of-the-road card in terms of performance.


2. WiFi reception isn't great, honestly. I have an Airport Express and a Time Capsule in my living room; from my bathroom, about 10 metres away, I can't pick up the Time Capsule's signal at all, and the Airport Express's signal barely comes through (the Time Capsule's signal is weaker because I have the antenna set to broadcast at 5 GHz, 802.11n only).


3. Battery life is pretty great. For word processing and surfing with the brightness turned down a few notches, you can get anywhere from 3.5 to 4.5 hours of use before the battery drains out. Movies, you're probably looking at closer to 3 hours. Gaming, I don't know; I haven't tried gaming off the battery.


4. Mostly thanks to the Penryn CPU, there's virtually no heat issues with the Early '08 MBP at all. The bottom enclosure gets warm, but not boiling hot. The only part of the enclosure I'd avoid touching is the metal bezel directly above the keyboard and below the LCD – under moderate to heavy CPU load, that area gets uncomfortably hot.


5. I use the MBP in my lap all the time without any outside cooling unit. It's the coolest laptop I've ever owned, in more ways than one.


Early 2008 MacBook Pro, 17" 1920 x 1200 LED backlit, 2.6 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 250 GB HD
 
ggjstudios said:
Maybe the one in YOUR MBP is defective, but the one in mine... and millions of others.... aren't! Making blanket statements like that is a obvious display of naiveté.
Click to expand...

All are defective because all are built exactly the same way with the same materials. The reason why not all fail despite being defective is because failure depends on how the computer is used. Particularly, it has been established that periods of high GPU activity followed by inactivity (leading to abrupt changes in GPU temperature) are especially harmfull for these GPUs.
The fact that yours is still working does not mean is not going to start failing tomorrow. Actually, you have an extended guarantee from Apple just for your GPU without specifying serial numbers, because they know any of them could fail.

P.S.:not so many millions. Just read the forums and you'll see how many people have defective videocards. They started failing around one year after purchase, so I guess in a few months we'll see many early-08 MBP failing. I'll get Applecare just in case.
 
nph said:
Thanks for the comments, however since my MBP has a max of 2Gig RAM I dont get a good idea of how much faster (and potentially cooler) a Penryn MBP would be.

I really like the MBA rev B but in order to get any good speed it seems the 1.8 with SSD at quite a cost is necessary.

Anyone else who had the first MBP and upgraded to a Penryn that can comment? Or upgraded to a MBA rev B?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I have, and you will be amaze at the speed increase. Even if you just have 2GB of RAM to start, once you upgrade to 4GB you'll see even more improvement.

I don't know about the GFX cards in the 15" models, but my 17" 8600M GT is fine, and I have been taxing the HELL out of my 17" these past few month. No problems, not a hiccup, nothing.

WiFi reception is great, for those that don't have good reception try turning WiFi on first. The Powerbooks had the worst by far, and the issue was fixed with the last Powerbook update, then completely resolved by the first MBP.

Battery life is wonderful. Even with a 17" at full brightness I get 4 hours ow wireless productivity. When running Aperture and/or FCP I get about 2.5 hours. The machine only gets warm when I push it in the pro apps. Other than that it stays pretty cool.

Don't get those fugly incase hard shells. They are terrible.
 
Macmel said:
The fact that yours is still working does not mean is not going to start failing tomorrow. Actually, you have an extended guarantee from Apple just for your GPU without specifying serial numbers, because they know any of them could fail.
Click to expand...
are you so sure it will? just because the majority of the reports on this GPU are bad on this forum does not mean the larger part of the GPUs released into the public will fail as a result of its design otherwise an official recall for the item would have been issued.

same materials, same company and same make doesn't necessarily mean that an item like a GPU is destined to fail unless you knew details about the manufacturing lots that were turned out at the factory. do you? one lot could have been not as good as others for all you know. i would be watchful but i would be so pessimistic that i'd just be waiting for my GPU unit to fail just because every guy on here cries wolf.

i have been using my early 2008 MBP to perform school/ work tasks, DJ, record and mix music and i';ve yet to see the trouble that other users have reported on here happen to me (knock on wood).
 
Macmel said:
All are defective because all are built exactly the same way with the same materials.

P.S.:not so many millions. Just read the forums and you'll see how many people have defective videocards. They started failing around one year after purchase, so I guess in a few months we'll see many early-08 MBP failing. I'll get Applecare just in case.
Click to expand...

NOT all are defective, because Intel admitted that not ALL of the GPUs were defective, only some lots. Apple sells millions of MacBook Pros and I doubt you'd be able to come up with even 1,000 who have reported problems in these forums. If ALL were failing, Apple would issue a recall. They're not going to do that because only a minority will ever fail. And according to the posts in the forums, they DON'T start failing after a year, since a great number who reported problems had only owned their MBP a few months.

Check your facts before you distribute fictitious information.
 
1) How much faster would you say it is, would 2x be a fair statement I have the 1.83 version. GPU wise how is 8600 compared to X1600 I have

in 3D, yes.

2) Have they improved Wifi reception any? Mine is lousy.

Yes, big differet...given that you have wireless N at your locatiion; the best of crop for wi-fi reception would be the 1st gen c2d mbp and SR mbp, both featuring atheros card with 3 prongs antenna whereas unibody and penryn mbp are 2 prongs with boardcom...

3) Battery life, today I get 3 hours when using Safary and nothing else with a screen turned down quite a bit, 2 hours max of watching streaming video. Would this improve?

substantially...roughly about 4 hours of Safari and 3 hours of youtube..


4) Heat, I have some heat especially before sending it in to Apple and after that it is just hot. Is the new one any cooler for surfing and watching video, not doing anything heavy?

So much better on the penyrn....i would say -10 celsius than the 1.83 at least!

5) Finally, coolbook, how much does that help? Can you use the MBP in your lap

not a big fan of it...


I used to own all the generation of mbp, from 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, and 4.1 (coreduo, c2d, SR, and penryn), I disassembled and tested them intensively on daily basis)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back