What improvement will I see?

[silvermike]

I'm looking at buying a new MPB, to upgrade my current model, which is a late-2008 model, 2.4 Ghz intel core duo. It's the first time in a while I'm ready to upgrade a computer that's still working, so it's been a while since I've really had to do research to figure out how much improvement I'm likely to see and if it's worth it to buy.

So I'm not sure how to compare specs: the Ghz numbers aren't changing much any more, of course. I've looked at benchmarks, and I'm getting about a 2:1 difference over the current model, but I'm not entirely sure what that's going to mean.

 

[miles01110]

How are we supposed to know? You don't give any examples of what you use your computer for.

I'm looking at buying a new MPB, to upgrade my current model, which is a late-2008 model, 2.4 Ghz intel core duo. It's the first time in a while I'm ready to upgrade a computer that's still working, so it's been a while since I've really had to do research to figure out how much improvement I'm likely to see and if it's worth it to buy.

So I'm not sure how to compare specs: the Ghz numbers aren't changing much any more, of course. I've looked at benchmarks, and I'm getting about a 2:1 difference over the current model, but I'm not entirely sure what that's going to mean.

 

[silvermike]

How are we supposed to know? You don't give any examples of what you use your computer for.

Sure - moderate amount of gaming (Civ 5, Diablo 3, Portal 2); web browsing; music, movies, and other media, either streaming or downloaded.

 

[Astroboy907]

Sure - moderate amount of gaming (Civ 5, Diablo 3, Portal 2); web browsing; music, movies, and other media, either streaming or downloaded.

Wait a week for the refresh if you can wait- then if you dont like it you can buy a refurb of the older model.

Anything mac should handle the video/browsing.

As for gaming, how moderate is it? The ones currently have 4 core processors, your has 2 cores. You will definitely see a difference in processor intensive apps..

 

[Stetrain]

We won't know the real performance comparison until the refresh happens next week. Once they're announced you'll be able to do comparisons between the exact CPUs and graphics cards with the benchmarks that are available online.

The big thing that will matter for gaming is the GPU, and you can usually find pretty good benchmarks on how different GPU models perform in specific games.