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

upgrade to SSD or new MBP

Q

qualizon

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 13, 2010
4
0
Hi All,

I have a MBP 1226 (4gb ram 2.4Ghz non-unibody) and currently I'm in a debate of upgrading the harddrive to SSD or simply buy a new macbook pro.

It's hard to decide because of the followings:
-my mbp is totally fine except battery life sucks
-concern of after market SSD with no Trim support (some people said certain brand has better garbage collection thus it's ok to have no TRIM support?)
-resell value of my old mbp (can it be sold for 1k ?)
-some people say the i5 and i7 in mbp is not truly quad core performance, it's just multi-threaded

So please help me out here, any suggestions are welcome
 
Since you are happy with your current machine, I suggest one of these options, if I were in your position, I would do #2.

1. new battery and SSD for your existing MBP
2. sell existing MBP (probably for around 700-800), buy 2008-2009 unibody and SSD, spend around 500 out of pocket
3. wait until ~ April (just a guess), new MBP is released, buy a used 2010 model from someone who is an early adopter of the 2011 model, spend about $1000.
4. Buy a new 2011 model.
 
I'm actually more leaning toward for option one also, but the version of battery (even getting a new one from apple store) is prone for losing battery life. Not sure if apple has fixed it or not...

I have the original one and it only last 2 hours, and I bought an aftermarket one which seems to last 4 hours but it'll turn off the machine even it has 1 or 2 hours battery life indicated.
 
Last edited:
qualizon said:
I'm actually more leaning toward for option one also, but the version of battery (even getting a new one from apple store) is prone for losing battery life. Not sure if apple has fixed it or not...

I have the original one and it only last 2 hours, and I bought an aftermarket one which seems to last 4 hours but it'll turn off the machine even it has 1 or 2 hours battery life indicated.
Click to expand...

The older models are going to get worse battery performance. This is as much a function of the computer's power consumption as it is a function of the battery's storage capacity. Even a new battery for your present computer is going to offer nothing compared to what the newer models can give you.

When the 2011 line comes out, the current models with significantly decrease in price. If you're cost sensitive, your best option would be to wait and then buy a used computer.
 
if you are satisfied with your current setup, I would wait for the refresh. See how it is. If you dont like it, you can always pick up a ssd.
 
If your battery life sucks, upgrading to SSD (or not) will have no effect. The solution to bad battery life is to replace the battery.
 
qualizon said:
Hi All,

I have a MBP 1226 (4gb ram 2.4Ghz non-unibody) and currently I'm in a debate of upgrading the harddrive to SSD or simply buy a new macbook pro.

It's hard to decide because of the followings:
-my mbp is totally fine except battery life sucks
-concern of after market SSD with no Trim support (some people said certain brand has better garbage collection thus it's ok to have no TRIM support?)
-resell value of my old mbp (can it be sold for 1k ?)
-some people say the i5 and i7 in mbp is not truly quad core performance, it's just multi-threaded

So please help me out here, any suggestions are welcome
Click to expand...

If you are happy with the model you have then just bump the memory to it's maximum and get an SSD and a new battery. I cannot see the next MacBook Pro coming with SSD as standard so your going to have to pay for it either way. And you are alway's going to have to get a new battery after it's been charged so many times. These are costs you will have with any laptop new or your existing model.
I have been thinking of changing my MB Pro for an iMac lately, but it's only so I can play some games better, however, I have since seen videos on You Tube showing pretty good performance from my model with games so I shall get Windows 7 first and see how I go as I only have XP. If I keep my current machine I fully intend to get an SSD and 8GB of ram.
As for the trim, well that's an OS issue and not a machine issue but it may come with Lion anyway. Otherwise you can get a good sandforce controlled SSD or one of Intels new G3 models when they are released, people on here love the Intel current gen and the new Sandforce drives.

As for my performance, well the games issue is just cause I am trying to set the games to run at the screens native resolution which the 330M can't cope with in Starcraft 2, very well.
 
Last edited:
apolloa said:
If you are happy with the model you have then just bump the memory to it's maximum and get an SSD and a new battery. I cannot see the next MacBook Pro coming with SSD as standard so your going to have to pay for it either way. And you are alway's going to have to get a new battery after it's been charged so many times. These are costs you will have with any laptop new or your existing model.
I have been thinking of changing my MB Pro for an iMac lately, but it's only so I can play some games better, however, I have since seen videos on You Tube showing pretty good performance from my model with games so I shall get Windows 7 first and see how I go as I only have XP. If I keep my current machine I fully intend to get an SSD and 8GB of ram.
As for the trim, well that's an OS issue and not a machine issue but it may come with Lion anyway. Otherwise you can get a good sandforce controlled SSD or one of Intels new G3 models when they are released, people on here love the Intel current gen and the new Sandforce drives.

As for my performance, well the games issue is just cause I am trying to set the games to run at the screens native resolution which the 330M can't cope with in Starcraft 2, very well.
Click to expand...

Windows 7 isn't going to be offering a significant difference in gaming performance from XP. DirectX10 will give you the opportunity to makes some things look better, but if anything I think you'll be struggling even more. I'm actually dealing with the same problem with my 2009 13 mbp. I don't want to lose the form factor, so I'm hoping that apple ditches the optical drive and puts a discrete GPU into the refresh.
 
I get a new battery every year and installed an OCZ Agility II SSD and moved my old harddrive to the optical bay spot. Its like a brand new computer.
 
yea, I have max out my ram to 4gb since the first day when I had my mbp. And I think my original battery is one of the victim of the faulty battery from apply during those days.

Has anyone buy a new replace from apple and can fully get 4 hour battery life?

Like you guys have suggested, I might just get a SSD and extend my mbp life span.
 
if you are satisfied with your current setup, I would wait for the refresh. See how it is. If you dont like it, you can always pick up a ssd.
 
I just bought a new 17" i5 Macbook Pro with the apple 512GB SSD, 8GB RAM. I honestly can't see a difference in performance from my previous generation 15" core 2 duo.

-Handbreak rips at the same speed.

-iMovie or Final Cut renders at the same speed.

-Safari still moves slow at times and beach balls a lot. (I have 50MB per sec thru Comcast)

-iTunes beach balls when I try to play a movie or TV show.

-Transfer rates seem the same.

If I had to pic I would get the Macbook Pro over the SSD. I don't think the performance is worth the price.
 

Attachments

  • Screen shot 2010-12-13 at 11.46.21 PM.png
    Screen shot 2010-12-13 at 11.46.21 PM.png
    54.7 KB · Views: 50
  • Screen shot 2010-12-13 at 11.43.26 PM.png
    Screen shot 2010-12-13 at 11.43.26 PM.png
    42.3 KB · Views: 55
qualizon said:
-some people say the i5 and i7 in mbp is not truly quad core performance, it's just multi-threaded
Click to expand...

It is not just "some people" its everyone, including Apple. It's a 2-Core Processor in the MBPs so it is not Quad Core, 2 Core with 2 threads per core does not necessarily ever mean quad core.
A Thread basically means that you will have multiple resources share a thread, So if you have 4 threads and a program or OS actually are coded to run in an optimized manner for that sort of system, then you will likely get quad-core performance, depending on whether the threads/cores are sharing cache and some other technical things.

Overall OS X does a decent job with multi-threaded processing, the rest is up to individual software developers. I would recommend getting a i5/i7 considering your laptop is a bit old, and beginning to get outdated, if you can hold out I would wait for a refresh.
(Or hold out, get a refurb i5/i7, then with saved money since refurb will be cheaper then for the current gen i5/i7, get an SSD.)
 
phyzics101 said:
I just bought a new 17" i5 Macbook Pro with the apple 512GB SSD, 8GB RAM. I honestly can't see a difference in performance from my previous generation 15" core 2 duo.

-Handbreak rips at the same speed.

-iMovie or Final Cut renders at the same speed.

-Safari still moves slow at times and beach balls a lot. (I have 50MB per sec thru Comcast)

-iTunes beach balls when I try to play a movie or TV show.

-Transfer rates seem the same.

If I had to pic I would get the Macbook Pro over the SSD. I don't think the performance is worth the price.
Click to expand...

Odd, I recently got an SSD in my i5 MBP and everything is much improved. I don't think i've seen a beach ball since.
- iTunes, Word, Photoshop, Apple Motion, and Final Cut all launch within the first bounce.
- My Transfer Rates have improved 2-3x orignal.
- Rendering did not improve much (but it is not supposed to anyway)
- Overall battery life has improved by 5-8%.
- Also never had an issue with loading a movie
- No problems loading webpages in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome, and retaining them(and I am a tab whore, running about 40+ tabs at all times, multiple with flash content.)

Also TF2 loads quicker which is a plus as well!

Also I doubt you get 50MB/s through Comcast, if so I'm moving in to back up the internet on my HDD.
 
Your right about that 50MB per sec. It's closer to 60.

but thats interesting about everything else. I did a time machine restore. Should I do a clean install or will that even matter?
 

Attachments

  • Screen shot 2010-12-14 at 12.25.02 AM.png
    Screen shot 2010-12-14 at 12.25.02 AM.png
    556 KB · Views: 76
phyzics101 said:
Your right about that 50MB per sec. It's closer to 60.

but thats interesting about everything else. I did a time machine restore. Should I do a clean install or will that even matter?
Click to expand...

Hmm you meant 60 Mb<--- notice lower case!!!, so its like 7.5MB/s which is still impressively fast!

I don't think a clean install will do much for you considering you bought the machine pre-installed with the SSD.
For comparision you can run XBench and compare to mine:
My Xbench Score
 

Attachments

  • Screen shot 2010-12-14 at 2.50.31 AM.png
    Screen shot 2010-12-14 at 2.50.31 AM.png
    172.6 KB · Views: 41
Last edited:
Do both and give me the other one. I really need a new one! :p

I'm kidding.. It really depends but is the SSD going to benefit you more than another Macbook Pro? I'd go with what others have said and wait for the refresh because it makes sense for them to make the SSD more common since that's the latest in today's technology.
 
apolloa said:
Does an SSD and 8gb RAM help with Starcraft 2's performance at all? Help it stop glitching as it does sometimes?
Click to expand...

SSD will help in Loading times, RAM will help in performance. But really most of the game is depending on CPU and GPU, which it doesn't really sound like your lacking in with that i7 and 330M.

dime21 said:
Comcast is rolling out 100 Mbps residential service in my neighborhood this Spring. :D
Click to expand...

Comcast is very deceptive with those speeds btw. You will get a 100 Mb/s line but they will only give u 100Mb/s (12.5 MB/s) as a Burst speed, meaning for about the first 10-20 seconds of the download, then it will level off to the same 'ol 800 KB/s. At least thats how it works in my neck of the woods.
I sure would like to be able to get a constant 12.5 MB/s while downloading a 1080p movie, last time that happened was during college at 6:00 AM, downloaded a 8GB 1080p movie in around 10 minutes at 12MB/s.
 
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