2.4Ghz Macbook Pro Good Enough For My Uses??

Coming from a Desktop, with 2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2gb of ram, Windows Xp and some very old Nvidia Geforce 7050 graphics, Im wondering if the standard 2.4ghz 13 inch Macbook Pro would be ok for me. My main uses would be heavy web browsing (always have more then a dozen tabs open), torrent downloads ( Hd video files), and HD video streaming. I would also like to install Windows 7 on it. Just wondering if the 2.4ghz is ok for those uses, or should i save up for the 2.66ghz model? Would i notice a decline in speed and overall performance going down to a 2.4ghz processor?

 

Go with the 2.4, it will be more than enough for what you need. The 2.66 is not a good value compared to the base model.

 

have you asked yourself if the 13" will be good enough for your web browsing? I think that's the more important question. If so, then yeah the 2.4 should be solid.

 

Actually you'd probably not even notice a difference if you did get the 2.66. Its only 0.16Ghz more. The macbook also has a much better video card that than geforce 7050 so you will have no problems playing HD video. I'd actually bet you'd notice and increase of speed on the 2.4GHz mac, if anything.

Definitely consider the screen upgrade, and even an SSD. You'd notice a big speed increase on an SSD.

 

it's actually 0.26ghz more 11% faster.

 

You're not going to notice the difference between the 2. The upgraded processor will help slightly in gaming and encoding/decoding tasks.

 

Yes, i prefer a 13 inch laptop...

I thought there would be perhaps Some improvement coming from my past configurations, considering i only had 2 gigs of ram, and the weaker graphics card. And from what i understand, Mac OS is a lot speedier then Windows in general.

 

The OS X is much nippier then Windows in general - Windows feels 'clunky' next to the MAC OS X.
The 2.4 will be fine for your needs. I also have many tabs open at any one time, and its runs flawlessly.
I personally went for the 2.66 to make my encoding a little faster (I create video DVDs of my kids), but I dont really know how much of a difference it would have made over the 2.4 TBH!

I didnt bother with a Win7 install in the end, and sold my copy of Windows 7 Pro in the end. The OSX just does everything I need it to do, and does it well!

 

I have the 2.4 GHz base model MBP 13" and it's a rocket. Things I do with it:

• Run virtual machines (like Windows 7 and Ubuntu)
• Browse the web with Firefox, usually end up with some 15 tab windows open by the end of my hours on end surfing sessions.
• Do some rendering projects with Cararra 8
• Run Visual Studio.... inside a virtual machine

About the only thing I don't do with it is gaming, as that's why I have a desktop PC for.

 

2.4 GHz is more than enough. You'll probably want a little more RAM than you have right now. I'd go to 4 gb but no more than that. The big question for you is screen size/screen resolution, and laptop size. For your needs minimum specs otherwise (except a small ram upgrade, and however much hard drive space you need) should suffice.

 

I only had 2gb in my previous computer..im going with 4 gigs on the macbook pro, with a 2.4ghz processor ( the base mbp model).

 

2 gigs doesn't go far nowadays, especially if you do any serious multitasking ... I have 2 gigs on my eee pc, and it really hampers the performance (as much as the processor does, imo).

I also currently have 2 gigs in the alienware computer in my signature (though upgrading to 8 gigs soon), and windows + some of the background processes I run take up 1.67 gigs alone.

On my mac 4 gigs, however, is enough to run OSX, have WoW up and running, along with a few web browsers + youtube video + e-mail program + chat program + audiochat program. I did have problems doing all that while running the SC2 beta, however ...

 

On my 1005HA, I find the processor to be the biggest bottleneck by far. The atom just can't handle anything beyond mild web browsing (no 720p videos for you!) Normally RAM isn't that big of an issue for me in W7, even with 1GB.

 

I dont think im going to do any serious gaming on this thing. I will probably install some older games like counter strike source and half life 2 ( not sure if that will be possible?).

 

Go with the 2.4GHz version as I do a whole lot more than you do (comparing to what your describing) and the 2.4GHz version does it with ease.

 

Cool, i most likely will just go for the 2.4ghz version. From the responses i think it will be fine.

 

Yes, but that is 11% of the max CPU power. Seldom will the CPU run at 100%, even under full load. And the CPU is only one part of the whole system. Its likely RAM and/or Hard Drive will bottleneck before the CPU.