Help with choosing a Macbook Pro

Hi all first time poster here on NBR and I have decided to buy the new macbook pro but can't decide on whether to buy the 2.53Ghz version or the 2.4Ghz version with the main problem being the difference in ram for the graphics card, what i want to know is whether the 256mb difference in memory would have drastic effect in performance when it comes to gaming etc. also would the difference in the 2.4 and 2.53 processor speed have any major difference in performance as well. The things that i plan to use this laptop for is surfing the web, playing games such as warcraft and starcraft ii (when it comes out), checking emails etc. Sorry for the messy layout and thank you to those who reply.

 

The additional 256mb of ram is pointless as the GPU is bottlenecked elsewhere. Go with the cheaper model. Warcraft and Starcraft II are not exactly demanding games anyway.

 

I always like to get the lower end, with less ram. Then get cheaper ram at like newegg and jsut install that into the machine. You end up getting more ram for less $$

 

Thanks for the reply so far guys, does anyone know a newegg equivalent in the uk. And also what aout the performance difference in cpu?

 

You may want to research the part of this that says the other 256vram is bottlenecked...I believe it's been proven otherwise. Don't have the link right now, but it was linked in someones post in this forum.

For me, I always get the most power I can afford so I don't regret it later (for CPUs/GPUs). I do agree on getting RAM/Bigger Hard Drives from third parties IF you can find them cheaper.

 

yeah, it is not "pointless"
it just depends on the applications you are running, there is a thread about it in arstechnica.. cant remember the link right now

 

what applications would benefit from the extra 256 vram then?

 

Applications which require a lot of video memory, such as games or programs that use high resolution textures. However, most demanding games will not benefit too much in terms of performance with more Video Memory, it just means they can load larger textures. Their performance will still be bottlenecked by the clock and memory speeds of the GPU.

The best place to get RAM in the UK would be with Crucial ( http://crucial.com/uk), although other websites such as ebuyer.com or dabs.com or scan.co.uk will sell less well branded memory at cheaper prices.

 

Thanks for the reply Sam, but can any1 answer my question regarding the cpu?

 

get it taxfree when flying: http://www.dixonstaxfree.co.uk/

 

The difference can be up to 10% in CPU intensive benchmarks, although do note that there will be a penalty on the battery due to the higher clock speed.
Here are some benchmarks: http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3246&p=12
For gaming, you will be restricted by the GPU before the CPU will make any noticeable difference.

Hehehehe, you're welcome...

 

And to use said high res textures, you have to load them and access them in memory. You will be bottlenecked here by the 128 bit bus.

 

Oh wow I thought the 9600m GT used a 256bit bus. Quite surprised at that.

 

Your avatar kind of threw me off for a sec too.

 

Trick or treat

 

Here is the link to the ars technica 9600gt review...256-bit...

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/nvidia-9600gt-review.ars/1

 

That's a review for a desktop 9600 gt, the mobile version is still 128bit

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3435&p=3

 

Specs for the 9600m gt

* Codename NB9P
* Core Speed 500 MHz
* Current Consumption 23 Watt
* DirectX DirectX 10, Shader 4.0
* Max. Amount of Memory 1024 MB
* Memory Bus Width 128 Bit
* Memory Speed 800 MHz
* Memory Type GDDR2, GDDR3
* Pipelines 32 - unified
* Series GeForce 9M
* Shader Speed 1250 MHz
* Technology 65 nm
* Transistors 314 Million


source

 

I just picked up a 2.4 MBP w/4gigs of ram and couldn't be happier. The thing is lightning fast and I'm really surprised how much ram I'm using (Over 2 gigs when office for mac is running, so the extra ram helps multi-task).

 

I agree, go with the 2.4 GHz, the extra 128 MB of dedicated GPU memory isn't too big of a deal, and neither is the bump from 2.4 to 2.53 GHz. The extra money spent can be better used elsewhere; seeing Blizzard's track record, Starcraft II most likely won't be extremely demanding (say like Crysis).

 

Omg Johnny T how kind of you to bless us with your presence

 

Well, I stand corrected on my link (/em blush), however your link clearly states the 9600 laptop version IS helpful for gaming and professional applications...and there IS still a link floating around here somewhere to an article at ars technica debunking the belief the 128 bit is any type of bottleneck. Anyway, but what you can afford...I'll always be a power user so I will never say to anyone to go cheap at the expense of performance...

 

Did I ever state otherwise? I'm just arguing that the performance difference of going from 256mb to 512mb of VRAM is negligible and not worth the $500 upgrade cost.

 

No problem, Sam, I specialize in flaming fanboys .