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Upgrading Macbook Pro

I

InsightsIE

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 29, 2008
673
43
I'm going to upgrade my 17" 4,1 MacBook Pro and I'm torn between the:

Highend 13"
Highend 15".


Basically video editing in motion,after effects, color , FCP is important to me. Photoshop - yea partially and abit of gaming on the side.

I want to take this with me everywhere and of course the 13" is portable but if that graphics is 55% the proformance of my current mac (according to october keynote) which one will I get. I could get the faster 15" which is 2" bigger than the 13 but also 1.5 pounds heavier. And how portable is it for I mean everywhere. Thanks
 
That's a tough decision.

If you can live with using 13" with PS, then go for it. The GPU is more then up to the task.

For me back in october, the GPU was the deciding factor, but when I got home, I found the integrated GPU to be very fast for my needs and I'm on the 9400m 99% of the time (qualifying note - I don't play games). With that said, I don't regret the choice because the larger screen size makes working with PS and LightRoom a breeze. Plus the 9600m GPU is there if I do suddenly need the power.

What I'm getting at, is if you think you need the power of the discreet GPU and larger display size, then the 15" MBP makes too much sense - imho
 
GeekOFComedy said:
I'm going to upgrade my 17" 4,1 MacBook Pro and I'm torn between the:

Highend 13"
Highend 15".


Basically video editing in motion,after effects, color , FCP is important to me. Photoshop - yea partially and abit of gaming on the side.

I want to take this with me everywhere and of course the 13" is portable but if that graphics is 55% the proformance of my current mac (according to october keynote) which one will I get. I could get the faster 15" which is 2" bigger than the 13 but also 1.5 pounds heavier. And how portable is it for I mean everywhere. Thanks
Click to expand...

If you can afford it then bag yourself the 15 incher. It really is the only option.
 
15" is plenty portable. It'll be smaller than your 17", so if you want the power, the 15" is great. The 13" is decent also; the 9400M is pretty powerful, although not at all high end.
 
@maflynn Do I see the scion on your avatar:mis:

So the 15". How do people find it carrying around like in the middle of the city, shopping centres, etc because I'll be bringing into dublin city/town into star bucks etc. Also since the 9400m is 55% slower than my current mac computer could that mean in 2 years no game will run properly on the 9400m unless on really low graphics whist the 15 could last playing games. And what are the chances in the next 13" revision they will kick the graphics up a notch
 
GeekOFComedy said:
@maflynn Do I see the scion on your avatar:mis:

So the 15". How do people find it carrying around like in the middle of the city, shopping centres, etc because I'll be bringing into dublin city/town into star bucks etc. Also since the 9400m is 55% slower than my current mac computer could that mean in 2 years no game will run properly on the 9400m unless on really low graphics whist the 15 could last playing games. And what are the chances in the next 13" revision they will kick the graphics up a notch
Click to expand...

The 15" is plenty portable. I carry it around with me and it's not bulky at all. At only 5.5 lbs, it's a pound heavier than the 13" and lighter than the 17" and most textbooks.

I don't know a whole lot about the graphics in the next generation though; there's still a lot of speculation as to wether or not nVidia will even be used at all, etc.
 
airplaneman said:
The 15" is plenty portable. I carry it around with me and it's not bulky at all. At only 5.5 lbs, it's a pound heavier than the 13" and lighter than the 17" and most textbooks. Yea I was guessing the 15" I mean the 13" with a 500GB HDD+ Apple care comes to the same price as the highend 15" over here then in a few months I can go out and by apple care. But How wide is it, I mean I know I have the 17" and it nearly isn't that portable and will taking two inches off of it horiziontally make a difference

I don't know a whole lot about the graphics in the next generation though; there's still a lot of speculation as to wether or not nVidia will even be used at all, etc.
Click to expand...

maflynn said:
Scion??? Not quite sure what you're asking?

its a merging of the apple logo and the ubuntu logo since I'm a fan of both :)
Click to expand...

Oh sorry in Tomb Raider 1 Theres an artefact called the scion.

Or should I save longer and keep the 17" and get the highend 13"??
 
If you don't care about gaming then go 13".

If you can wait, wait. The current 9600m gt is quite ****** compared to current gen chips like the gtx260m. Apple will probably implement or better these soon.

Otherwise just get current 15". As for portability, no problem if you carry it in bag (who doesn't?) so....why not
 
oregon2 said:
If you don't care about gaming then go 13".

If you can wait, wait. The current 9600m gt is quite ****** compared to current gen chips like the gtx260m. Apple will probably implement or better these soon.

Otherwise just get current 15". As for portability, no problem if you carry it in bag (who doesn't?) so....why not
Click to expand...


What about now of the MacBook Air. Basically the processor is the same as a base macbook pro 13, Same graphics at 256MB. The macbook air would have a SSD. And it's super light. But then again what about it are bad rather than only having 1 usb port.
 
GeekOFComedy said:
What about now of the MacBook Air. Basically the processor is the same as a base macbook pro 13, Same graphics at 256MB. The macbook air would have a SSD. And it's super light. But then again what about it are bad rather than only having 1 usb port.
Click to expand...

The GPU is slightly underclocked to save battery. The battery is only rated at 5 hrs, not 7 like the uMBPs. 2GB of non-upgradeable memory. SSD is only 128GB. No superdrive. etc...
 
GeekOFComedy said:
I think I'll settle for a 13" MBP on it's next revision. ;)
Click to expand...

Good choice. For the past few years the improvements have been very small internal hardware wise. My dad's 2.33 MBP is a few years old yet offers near equal performance to my unibody.

However, I think we should see some significant updates soon, both from the new intel processors as well as from a significant graphics update.
 
oregon2 said:
Good choice. For the past few years the improvements have been very small internal hardware wise. My dad's 2.33 MBP is a few years old yet offers near equal performance to my unibody.

However, I think we should see some significant updates soon, both from the new intel processors as well as from a significant graphics update.
Click to expand...

Imagine a quad core whore with blueray in it and a nice nvidia graphics. Also can anyone confirm if the 9400Ms max video memory limit shouldn't case im playing games on 4gb of memory and it uses 2gb. Because on apple it uses 256MB at the min. ;)
 
GeekOFComedy said:
Imagine a quad core whore with blueray in it and a nice nvidia graphics. Also can anyone confirm if the 9400Ms max video memory limit shouldn't case im playing games on 4gb of memory and it uses 2gb. Because on apple it uses 256MB at the min. ;)
Click to expand...

quad core whore...lolwut?

as for memory limit max, don't let it concern you. video memory is not important compared to the actual graphics processor, yet people seem to focus on the video memory as a means of measuring it even though it tells you almost nothing. there are tons of bad cards being made with 1GB of memory yet still perform terribly because they have low end processors.

the 9400m will perform badly no matter how much memory it uses.
 
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