Refurbishing advice needed please :)

[Dannik]

I've been a mac user for a couple of years now, but i'm not very tech savy.
i've owned a macbook pro for a few years now and i'm looking at getting it refurbished, as its getting a little long in the tooth.

these are my machines specs that i've taken from system profiler. im pretty sure its an 08 model, but i've had it for so long i've forgotten :/

Hardware:
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.28f3

Graphics/displays:
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT:

Chipset Model: GeForce 8600M GT
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x4
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0407
Revision ID: 0x00a1
ROM Revision: 3212

I mainly use this machine for designing and also a bit of animation/video work and would like to start exploring the area of 3d graphics and animation.

I dont have a huge budget and a friend suggested that i should look at refurbing this machine rather than getting a new one.

I'd really appreciate some advice on what to ask for and what is possible for my machine, rather than walking into some store and potentially getting taken for an expensive ride.

 

[joelhietala]

Hm, according to EveryMac, you could add 2GB of RAM.

 

[simmonsj]

How about an SSD?

You don't say what sort of hard disk you have but you could consider replacing the hard disk with an SSD and that will massively improve general system performance.

Pros: Prices are tumbling; relatively straightforward upgrade

Cons: Limited SSD capacity at the budget end - bigger capacity is much more expensive

Also note that graphics performance, especially 3D graphics; is always going to be limited by your 8600GT which you can't upgrade - though it's not a bad graphics card by any means.

As a compromise, you could look at something like the Seagate Momentus XT SSD which is a hybrid of a hard disk with an SSD cache. It should boost system performance and still give you plenty of storage.

Video of an SSD upgrade here http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbookpro_17_hd_l/

Let us know what you end up doing? And good luck