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

Stop me before I do something Stupid

V

Vyruz Reaper

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 23, 2009
134
0
Well, I have been waiting for the Macbook Pro with I cores since Dec. I sold my Alienware M17x and have been using a netbook and its killing me. I was thinking of either

a) getting the new 13 MBP ONLY if they have i5 540 min with a higher resolution

or

b) 15 inch MBP with at least i5 540 or the 2.66 i5

Now, the problem is my school is offering the 13 and 15 and an even more discounted price. the 13 is an xtra 50 off so from 1499 i can get a brand new one for 1349 but the 15 is an even better deal!

I can get the 2.8 15 inch top of the line one for 1899. Thats 400 off the reg price of 2299.

So i thought about it logically for a second. I was planning on buying the mid 15 inch new MBP. the pricing on those are 1849 after student discount(assuming apple doesnt change prices). Those will most likely come with an i5 2.5 or 2.66(i think). I can have a 2.8 TODAY for basically the same price. Lets say the new i series intel chips give 20% more performance clock for clock. 2.5 at 20% higher would be 3.0. a 2.8 and 3.0 doesnt seem too much of a difference for me.

What should I do? I have been waiting for a couple months now... but this deal is tempting. Is there anything else with the i5 i am missing? they are both dual core, are faster, but the 2.8 C2D with 6MB L2 cache seems like it can keep its own.

i dunno what do you guys think?:confused:

ps. please refrain from if you need a laptop now, then buy, if u can wait then wait.
 
Lets say the new i series intel chips give 20% more performance clock for clock.
Click to expand...

This is a pretty meaningless statement. 20% more performance doing what? Listening to music? Ripping a dvd? Checking facebook? Too often people make a really big deal out of "improvements" that don't actually help them at all.
 
if you do nothing more that web, iWork, some video editing, maybe photoshop, or other similar things, i think you should buy one now. im honestly waiting just to have the latest and greatest and in case they do some architecture changes.
 
You are paying absolutely exhorbitant amounts of money for the hardware you are getting, even at those discounted rates. For $700 you can get a computer that is equal to that 'discounted' 15". If you need OSX so be it, but take a second, step back and actually think about the deal.

The I5's are 20% in non-threaded apps, more in multi threaded apps. The Arrandales (i5's) are 2 cores but run 4 threads, the core 2 duo's are only 2 core/ 2 thread.

If you dont need Graphics horsepower and you are deadset on a Mac id say go ahead and order the notebook, Arrandale will be faster but not earth shatteringly so. If you ever plan to edit videos / Use Cuda or OpenCL / Game then you should simply not even think about the current pros, the GPU is highly dated.
 
Vyruz Reaper said:
...
ps. please refrain from if you need a laptop now, then buy, if u can wait then wait.
Click to expand...

That last "sentence" slightly contradicts your thread title. If you think it is stupid to buy now, then wait.

And it depends on what kind of work you do with your MBP. If it is only browsing, chatting, emailing or word processing, then the new expected CPUs won't make that in any way faster, you will still type with the same speed or read as fast as you do now.
 
If you just want a good deal, wait for the new ones to come out and then buy the end-of-life (old) ones.
 
If you have to have the latest and greatest then wait. If your life is not defined by the specs of your Apple Mac then get a current machine that is powerful enough for your needs. They only last 3 years anyway so the obsession with "future proofing" is laughable.
 
There is ALWAYS going to be a slicker, faster, lighter, better-battery, larger hd, more RAM, sharper resolution, etc....machine. I just bought a 13" MBP 2.53 and I could care less that a new chipset is coming. This thing rocks for what I do--I'm not a programmer or a heavy game player. It'll last me for a few years and by then, the "new" better MBPs coming out now, will be long obsolete :D Like others have said, it depends on what you're doing with the machine--are you a casual user and gamer who uses iTunes and Pages and Firefox? Then the current Macs probably offer plenty of computing power :cool: If, on the other hand, you want a machine that could easily be assimilated into Skynet for world domination, then you may want to wait :D
 
thanks for all the quick replies.

I guess what I am afraid of most is new things put on the MBP such as a better GPU, USB 3.0 and higher resolution options. The 13 2.26 is too slow for my needs(mg gf has one and use it) and the res. is just not cutting it. I would llove the 13s but would need a 1600x900 display

as for as the money... I AGREE thats 1899 for what I am getting is insane.

the problem is this is my first mac, I cannot stand windows anymore.

Sony has their 14 inch 1600x900 CW series with

i5-540 2.53
4GB Ram
7200 RPM HD (320GB)
BLUE RAY PLAYER AND BURNER

all going for a whopping 1250!

If it wasnt for the stupid mac osx, I would have bought that and have been happy. I must say I am really addicted to a few things fom mac

1) AWESOME trackpad, the multitouch and smooth scrolling is really important to me

2) Display is great

3) Good battery life and i like Mac OSX better than windows 7

4) very good keyboard


hmmmmmmmmm
 
You oversimplified the upgrade. It's going to be more than just a processor upgrade, and that's a fact because Nvidia can't make chipsets for the new processors. Furthermore, you can't throw out numbers like "20% faster." If you were comparing one Core 2 Duo to another you could perhaps say something like that for a purely processor-bound task, of which there are few in practice and fewer everyday due to new technologies such as OpenCL, which leverages the GPU in conjunction with the CPU for calculations. There are several exciting technologies, some being brought back, and others being implemented for the first time with the new chips.

A couple of examples:
1) Hyperthreading: The multitasking performance of the Core i7 should be significantly improved over its Core 2 Duo father. You can't throw blind statistics at that since improvements will vary based on individual applications.
2) Turbo boost. Under certain conditions, the processor may increase its frequency resulting in performance gains. Again, it's hard to put a number on what this will actually do for an end-user since we don't know as-yet how much thermal overhead there will be and how often the processor will actually do this.

If it were me, having just sold a laptop for the purpose of getting a new one, I wouldn't settle for Apple's previous best. I would wait for the new laptops to see what Apple has in store for us, and pay the premium over the old laptops for the newest and greatest technology that my money could buy.
 
I caved today I got a 15inch unibody dedicated 9600gt 512mb 4Gigs of ram and a 250gb hardrive.

$1200


Sure it's not the newest but it blows the pants off my old PowerBook G4 without breaking the bank.
 
Chaos123x said:
I caved today I got a 15inch unibody dedicated 9600gt 512mb 4Gigs of ram and a 250gb hardrive.

$1200


Sure it's not the newest but it blows the pants off my old PowerBook G4 without breaking the bank.
Click to expand...

wow, brand new? from where? maybe off of CL? or are these the older version from the current version?
 
Vyruz Reaper said:
wow, brand new? from where? maybe off of CL? or are these the older version from the current version?
Click to expand...

No it's the orginal Unibody 2.4ghz but still
a great deal. The cheapest I could find
of the current gen with the 9600gt was $1,994 and for that much
I would rather just wait for the new ones.


I didn't need the fastest one ever cause I barely used my PowerBook G4 I always used my PowerMac G5. I have a octo-core Mac
Pro now so not I'm not sweating it.
 
umm wouldnt doing something stupid be waiting for a product that does not exist or have any credible source declaring that there even will be i5 and i7 mbp's? show me 1 source where an apple employee came out claiming i5's and i7's..on top of that, who knows when they will even be released. id say 95% of people waiting for new mbp's dont need anything beyond what is currently on the market. everyone is acting as if they buy a current mpb that they are buying junk that is somehow unusable. buy a current mbp especially if you can get a good deal and go on with your life. every thread on this forum is about these mbp's that dont even exist! every week that goes by people say oh it will be released tommorow, oh wait that didnt happen, that means it has to be next week...keep playing the wait game and end up dissapointed when you get no i7's.
 
(for anyone reading this thread for general advice)

I have a simple rule - If you're asking whether you should hold off, then you can and should.

When you HAVE to buy, [usually what you have just doesn't run anything anymore and you can't go another day with it], then you just do and hang the consequences. If a new release is a few days away, Apple usually delays your order until the announcement is made and gives you another choice.

In this case - ANYTHING would have been faster than a G4 (that info should have been in the original question, or we should have asked) and you've made an excellent choice, without breaking the bank.

Refurbs are also a good choice. If your Mac is 3 or 4 years old, you obviously don't need the machine that's 20% faster than last years model. The rule used to be that a machine needs to be 4x faster to even notice the performance increase. Nothing comes out even 2x faster year over year these days, so it's no biggie.
 
Vyruz Reaper said:
The 13 2.26 is too slow for my needs(mg gf has one and use it) and the res.
Click to expand...

I find that hard to believe, unless you are being limited by the GPU (aka you want to play games). The 2.26 is only ~11% slower than the 2.53, which is almost too small to notice.
 
thanks guys... i have refrained myself from buying it :p

im not going to spend 1899 on just a C2D and 9600 GT....

Back to waiting again:cool:
 
I know many of you guys are saying that the current MBP is goo enough for everyday work, but honestly tovthe OP, I would say wait as long as you can becase you still don't want to pay the current price since it technically is becoming an old technology...
 
Peter95 said:
I know many of you guys are saying that the current MBP is goo enough for everyday work, but honestly tovthe OP, I would say wait as long as you can becase you still don't want to pay the current price since it technically is becoming an old technology...
Click to expand...

thats exctly what I am doing now. Its not about the speeds are good enough for me now, and I dont need all that power...

its just Im not getting my money's worth for the hardware im getting in return. Like some other people said, I can get blue ray, nvidia 330, i5 540m for around 1000 brand new....

Im just stuck on this "i want a mac osx"

so i wait
 
Buy the macbook pro 15 now with the rebate, you'll pay less and get basically the EXACT same thing except for the resale value which will be a bit lower... (balances with the fact that you paid less)
 
Buy the macbook pro 15 now with the rebate, you'll pay less and get basically the EXACT same thing except for the resale value which will be a bit lower... (balances with the fact that you paid less)
 
i would wait for sure.
It is not all about the cpu in this update. The GFX also most likely to get renewed.

and even with your discounts its still too much for what you get
 
I won't stop you. I would love to see you do something really stupid
 
20100210062346_4b72c1726d41e.jpg
 
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