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Which MBP configuration is better for creative professional?

E

Echoblue

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 30, 2009
10
0
I believe that I am in the final stages of selecting a new MBP. What a process this has been, I think it is making me crazy! Would appreciate any additional advice. I am a professional graphic designer so I use most of the Adobe suite. Thanks!

1. MBP 15" 2.66 with a 500gb at 7200rpm or
2. MBP 15" 2.80 with a 500gb at 5400rpm

I keep toying with getting a 17" but feel like it borders on just to big if I need to truly take anywhere. I figure I can always add an external display to make up for it.
 
Edit: I didn't realize that as a creative professional, you may need more than 256GB of storage on your boot drive. If this is the case, you may feel that the cost of an SSD is too high right now. The rest of my rant still applies though.

Neither. You won't notice a difference between 5400 and 7200. Get an aftermarket SSD, or if you aren't comfortable with installing it, get the SSD straight from apple. Skimp on the processor if you have to -- going from a conventional hard drive to a solid state drive will trump any processor speed boost.

On the size issue, go to the store to use a 17" model and see how "big" it really is. If you can't go to the store, cut out some cardboard in the dimensions of a 15" and 17" to compare.

Don't be scared of the size, people! It's not that bad! The screen real estate gained will boost your productivity, and you won't need the external display (unless you were definitely going to buy one anyway, which it sounds like you aren't).

Going from 15" to 17" is 1.12" wider (add 0.56" to each side), 0.69" deeper, and the difference in thickness is negligible.
 
Creative professional is really a very broad term. :) Are you a video editor? Motion graphics designer? Illustrator? Please tell us what you exactly do so that we can accurately recommend the right hardware.
 
Jiten said:
Creative professional is really a very broad term. :) Are you a video editor? Motion graphics designer? Illustrator? Please tell us what you exactly do so that we can accurately recommend the right hardware.
Click to expand...

I am a graphic designer. I work in both print and web. As mentioned my usual applications are the adobe creative suite: Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. At this point in time I do not do a lot of motion or video editing. I also tend to also take a lot of photographs.
 
any MBP made in the last 3 years would work fine.

again, can you wait? new MBPs in a couple of months...

I run the entire Adobe Creative Suite + Quark 8 on a 2.4 AL iMac w/4 gigs ram and it handles it all without even breaking a sweat. And I'm talking multi hundred meg Photoshop files and 100+ page Quark files with gigs of links. Not some crappy little 72 dpi web graphics and a few 3 panel brochures.

So any current MBP, which is probably slightly faster, will handle what you want.

fwiw, I work in 2 locations, and run 90% of my files from a portable 2.5" 5400 RPM FW800 drive, works fine.
 
Echoblue said:
I believe that I am in the final stages of selecting a new MBP. What a process this has been, I think it is making me crazy! Would appreciate any additional advice. I am a professional graphic designer so I use most of the Adobe suite. Thanks!

1. MBP 15" 2.66 with a 500gb at 7200rpm or
2. MBP 15" 2.80 with a 500gb at 5400rpm

I keep toying with getting a 17" but feel like it borders on just to big if I need to truly take anywhere. I figure I can always add an external display to make up for it.
Click to expand...

If the 2.66 model has the previous gen CPU, it won't have as much L2 cache as the 2.8 version (3MB vs 6MB). That WILL be of help to the Adobe suite...

You can always upgrade the hard drive in the 2.8 to a 7200RPM drive...

Oh, the 1920x1200 resolution on the 17" - you'd miss it if your main desktop uses that size and you go down to 1440x900 on the MBP...
 
Echoblue said:
1. MBP 15" 2.66 with a 500gb at 7200rpm or
2. MBP 15" 2.80 with a 500gb at 5400rpm
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I can not wait a few months for the new lineup and need the laptop now. So, between the 15" options I listed if they were equal price, it is sounding like option 2 would be the way to go because it is slightly a better machine. Where as I can always replace the hard drive at a later date with a 7200rpm for possibly better performance if the 5200 bugs me. Although it sounds like a 5200 will do more then a fine job to begin with. Who knows by the time I do that maybe SSD drives will come down in price and could even get that. Also, since I can run the higher res on an external I can regain any size and rez los when used as a desktop.

Hopefully this wont add to my confusion but as a last check I will run to the apple store later and just check out the 17" in more detail. However, I am feeling at this point it is to big if I needed to lug it around besides home for more then one day.
 
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