Upgrade to I5, I7 really worth it?

[lukester]

I have a mbp 15" 2.16 c2d 3 gig ram. I use it for photo editing and run a 30" cinema. CS5 and pro show gold are what I use mainly for programs.

If I go to a newer model I will have to buy the mini dvi to dual link converter too. I have read some problems with it on reviews. I don't know if it has been resolved.

So my question is it going to be a really big upgrade over my perfectly fine 3 1/2 MBP?

I just looked at the 17 in antiglare and compared it with the 15 AG.
I notice the print is small but not like a lot of people are saying where you cant read it. Plus you can increase the page size a bit, so what't the deal with that?

 

[Hellhammer]

If your old one serves you fine, then there is no need. New one would be a lot faster though. RAM is important thus getting 8GB to the new one is a good idea

 

[rdas7]

If you are working on photography and video editing, you will certainly benefit from the latest machines. The motherboard runs faster, the CPUs run faster, they come with more RAM by default (as the previous poster said, 8GB is a great investment for someone working with media) and come with significantly faster graphics cards.

No doubt you will notice a speed improvement over your current machine.

I would also strongly recommend the antiglare hi res option on the laptops. Go to your nearest Apple Store and ask for a demo and make up your own mind though.

Personally, the step from the previous generation of MacBook Pros to the unibody enclosure has been worth the price alone.

 

[lukester]

I think the 8 gig of ram may be more important than going to the I7 processor.

I do get bogged down opening a bunch of large files and editing them..

 

[Hellhammer]

I think the 8 gig of ram may be more important than going to the I7 processor.

I do get bogged down opening a bunch of large files and editing them..

That's what I think too. You could go to Apple store or other reseller and take some pictures with you in a memory stick and simply test is i7 faster for your purpose and if it is, how much faster

 

[sadcamper]

I have a mbp 15" 2.16 c2d 3 gig ram. I use it for photo editing and run a 30" cinema. CS5 and pro show gold are what I use mainly for programs.

If I go to a newer model I will have to buy the mini dvi to dual link converter too. I have read some problems with it on reviews. I don't know if it has been resolved.

So my question is it going to be a really big upgrade over my perfectly fine 3 1/2 MBP?

I just looked at the 17 in antiglare and compared it with the 15 AG.
I notice the print is small but not like a lot of people are saying where you cant read it. Plus you can increase the page size a bit, so what't the deal with that?

I don't find the print that small either...maybe I'm looking at different programs though(?) Looks fine on various websites and programs...easy enough to fix in word processing apps if need be.

I'll let the experts comment on what specs you need...but I will say that I just got a 17" i7 and it's very zippy...I didn't upgrade the 4gb of ram, but I think I may in the future (when the pain of the amount of $$ I just spent dies down).

 

[lukester]

I don't find the print that small either...maybe I'm looking at different programs though(?) Looks fine on various websites and programs...easy enough to fix in word processing apps if need be.

I'll let the experts comment on what specs you need...but I will say that I just got a 17" i7 and it's very zippy...I didn't upgrade the 4gb of ram, but I think I may in the future (when the pain of the amount of $$ I just spent dies down).

I can buy either a 15 Hi res AG I7 or a 17" AG both with 4 gig. for very close to the same money.
I am trying to decide. What do you think of your 17? do you like the size?

 

[macOskar]

I can buy either a 15 Hi res AG I7 or a 17" AG both with 4 gig. for very close to the same money.
I am trying to decide. What do you think of your 17? do you like the size?

I faced the same dilemma and in the end opted for the 17". I'm a sucker for screen size (resolution) so that was a decider for me. You also get slightly better specs on a couple of the other hardware components.

The 17" does have some cons though compared to the 15".

• No built in SD card reader (you can get an ExpressCard SD reader for around $25 though if I'm not mistaken)
• Some GUI components really are very small and it can get annoying some times (in many applications tho you can set them to show bigger fonts)
• The machine itself borders on not being so portable anymore, it's not heavy but it wont fit into any backpack etc

It really is a close race and I can't say either or, only point out a couple of more things to consider.

/O

 

[J&JPolangin]

I have a mbp 15" 2.16 c2d 3 gig ram... over my perfectly fine 3 1/2 MBP?...

...keep your current good machine until it no longer serves its use... then buy new...

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

...keep your current good machine until it no longer serves its use... then buy new...

Worst idea ever. If you can, sell an old machine and throw in a couple hundred for a new one. That way, you don't spend thousands in one go, but hundreds every few years. But definitely don't use a machine until it dies completely and get a new.

 

[rafatmit]

I just made exactly this upgrade (3.5-year-old 2.16-GHz MBP to Core i7 MBP with 8 GB of RAM and a high-res screen) and it seems like a great upgrade so far. The higher-res screen is awesome and the processor is much less bogged down when running moderately complex tasks. Even Aperture is speedy now, which was my major laggard app before.

 

[jackiecanev2]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3Gs: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-us; Nexus One Build/FRF50) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

The upgrade from C2D to i5 is huge, and totally worth it. From i5 to i7, less so.

 

[MovieCutter]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3Gs: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-us; Nexus One Build/FRF50) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

The upgrade from C2D to i5 is huge, and totally worth it. From i5 to i7, less so.

Totally is. I went from a 2.6 C2D 17" MBP to an i7 17" MBP. My FCP renders went from 60 minutes per episode to 40 minutes per episodes

Worst idea ever. If you can, sell an old machine and throw in a couple hundred for a new one. That way, you don't spend thousands in one go, but hundreds every few years. But definitely don't use a machine until it dies completely and get a new.

Totally agree. I don't hang on to a laptop for more than 6-8 months, depending on Apples refresh cycle. It only costs me about $100-200 every 6-8 months to upgrade to a brand new machine.

 

[lukester]

I bought the 17" I7 4 gig ram AG, great deal off Ebay..

It came sealed exactly as specified. I have to admit that is is bigger. The screen is so much brighter than my old mbp, huge difference.
I could have gone with the Hi res 15" but what moved me to the 17" was the extra ports, and the higher res. and it only cost me $50 more.
I think I can sell it right now more than I paid for it.

Since I have a 30" cinema I suppose I could have made it fine with the 15". It is a inch higher so it does cause me to move my cinema up a tad higher and I have to make sure the MBP screen is tilted back a bit more. Other than that it is great especially running the 30" monitor. My old laptop have problems scrolling through lots of pictures in CS5 bridge. it took forever to scan up or down. It only had 128 meg video ram. Plus I would get some errors trying view large pictures with Iphoto. I have not done any photo editing yet but I am sure I will blow throw pictures and be able to open up more large files than before and hopefully it will not slow up as I edit them.

I will have to buy a new bag for it since my old one is not large enough.

I wonder why it weighs a pound more for only being an inch bigger.

It was so awesome that I could transfer everything over to it in a couple of hours. I just had to go into the disk utility and repair permissions, not that I needed to but I did and found that it made many changes.

So far I really like it.