Help me Buy a Mac Book Pro!!
 

Hi I am in the process of buying a new Laptop, I will use it mainly for DVD Studio Pro, FCP, Photoshop and After Effects and BootCamp. I was waiting for the new Macbook but the specs are not that good for I want to do with it. I notice the price drops of the MAc Books Pro, now the 2.0GHz is the cheapest one! My question is if theres any marginal performace benefits for the 2.16GHz model, besides the memory and HD? procesor wise.(I will upgrade them anyway no metter what model I choose) does the ATI X1600 with 256MB it's worth the upgrade price? or with the Ati X1600 with 128MB I am fine? Anyone with any benchmark or review that will help me with the decission? thanks!!!

Regarding CPU-speed, look at it percentage-wise: the 2.16GHz model is clocked 8% faster than the 2GHz - that's not a whole lot. If cost is the issue, it would by my advice to go for the 2GHz model and opt for a 7200rpm hard drive instead of 2.16GHz and a 5400rmp drive. The faster drive will have a larger impact on over-all system speed than the minor increase in CPU-speed.

As far as the graphics card is concerned, I'd get the larger amount of V-RAM if you plan to regularly use an additional display of equal or greater resolution than the built-in display, and/or if you intend to keep this machine as a media production laptop for more than two years. If you have a tendency to upgrade to new machines more frequently than that, you should be fine with 128MB. Future software will make more use of GPU-processing, and a larger amount of V-RAM will help with that respect.

HTH,

Ron

Thanks Ron for the info!! I think the middle one the 2.16GHz is the best choice, but because I don't need it rifght away do you think it would be better to hold for the Meron MBP?
Thanks!!

Since no one knows when the Merom-based Macs will arrive, it wouldn't be wise to bet on that. But considering the recent history of silent CPU-speed upgrades in the MBP-line, it would clearly pay to wait until you really need the machine. It appears that Apple is going nicely along with Intel's release-schedule of higher-speed versions of their CPU-families. One clear advantage to sharing the same hardware platform with the 'dark side'.

HTH,

Ron

I would check out some of the apple forums first, it seems apples 17 inch pros are having some of the same problems the 15 inch did. Thier are alot of bugs in these systems still I would wait a little while longer unless you absoutley need the system now.

Good points. Bugs at the least cost time, at the worst cost money or both. Wait if you can.

-Nate