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Which [to you] is the most important performance component

gorskiegangsta

gorskiegangsta

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 13, 2011
1,281
87
Brooklyn, NY
Different people have different needs and uses for their MBPs. But, which, to you personally, is the most important system component performance-wise.

Is it:
the CPU,
the GPU,
the RAM,
higher capacity Hard Drive,
faster Hard Drive [rpm],
SSD,
or something else altogether.
 
CPU --> SSD --> GPU --> Capacity --> RAM (assuming 4gb ram)

Most important to least
 
In order (first three are roughly equal to me, though):

  1. CPU
  2. GPU
  3. Screen resolution (went for high-res 15")
  4. Hard drive size
  5. RAM
  6. Hard drive performance
 
Depends on your needs

To me it depends what your doing:

General work:

1. CPU
2. SSD
3. RAM
4. GPU


Gaming:

1. CPU
2. GPU
3. RAM
4. SSD
 
1. CPU
2. RAM
3. GPU
4. HDD

I use the Final Cut Suite on a near daily basis, and I run a virtual machine constantly
 
Interesting answers! People included things that I didn't even think of.

I guess I forgot to share my own list.

1. SSD (as a student who has to whip out his laptop quickly in classrooms this is pretty much on top of my list)
2. CPU
3. Battery life/Battery longevity (also very important since my typical workday is ~8hrs long)
4. RAM
5. GPU
6. Display Resolution (specifically, higher ppi displays; screen size doesn't matter as long as it's above 13.3in)
 
Unibody. It's great for hanging drywall when you don't have a hammer ready. The other stuff is just icing on the cake.
 
1a) CPU
1b) GPU
3) Thermal performance
4) Battery
5a) HDD
5b) RAM

Top 4 are generally fixed, while the bottom 2 generally are upgradable, hence my choices.
 
Depends on what you use it for.

For the average user any model in the range is fine so just go the size that suits you. Now if we talk about where you should spend $$$ to upgrade components . I would say SSD and ram, ram is cheap say from crucial and the SSD will make your system very fast. Stay away from the CPU upgrades, and spend the money on a SSD.

SSD is by far the biggest game changer in the industry in recent years, notice how quick the airs seem.... All SSD there, the ram and CPU are lacking but the system seems very fast
 
CPU, HDD Speed, GPU

RAM probably has the largest effect on system performance but unlike the others, performance doesn't keep increasing. You hit a wall once you have as much as you need.
 
hmm tough. When purchasing a laptop, often it is GPU>CPU>screen size/res>SSD

As important as an SSD is to me, it's not tops because I can always get that later on. GPU/CPU often cannot be changed and thus it is most important performance component to look at.
 
CPU->GPU

I list those mainly because I can upgrade the rest later once it starts feeling sluggish.

I already moved up to 8GB of RAM and that suits me well, I was getting a ton of Page Outs before and I only have a 5400 RPM HDD so it was a bad performance hit, but now I usually have around 1 GB of free RAM left at all times so I don't think I will have to upgrade any further (Well, I can't on my 2010...), at least until my next MBP in a few years.

An SSD would be nice but I am waiting until I can get a large one for a decent price. And it would mainly benefit startup and shutdown as I typically leave open all my apps and put it to sleep rather than a full power cycle. And the only HDD intensive task I do occasionally is video editing, but I use an external drive for that anyways.
 
MH01 said:
Depends on what you use it for.

For the average user any model in the range is fine so just go the size that suits you. Now if we talk about where you should spend $$$ to upgrade components . I would say SSD and ram, ram is cheap say from crucial and the SSD will make your system very fast. Stay away from the CPU upgrades, and spend the money on a SSD.

SSD is by far the biggest game changer in the industry in recent years, notice how quick the airs seem.... All SSD there, the ram and CPU are lacking but the system seems very fast
Click to expand...

+1. That is exactly how I look at it.
 
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