Is There Really Much Difference?

Hi all! I will appreciate any and all input you guys (and gals) provide. Tomorrow I'l be ordering my first Mac. I'm going with the MacBook Pro for several reasons, and none of them gaming. My question is how much (if any) of a performance bump would I see between the 15" 2.2 and the 15" 2.4. I will be using this mainly for creating music. I'm thinking that I can overcome any advantages that the 2.4 provides by upgrading to a 7200 rpm hard drive and another gig or two of memory. Thanks in advance.

 

No, then. The higher model MBP's main advantage is more VRAM, the extra .2 GHz processor speed is not significant, you probably won't notice any difference in everyday tasks. Go for the 2.2 GHz!

And just a reminder, you can save yourself some cash by purchasing RAM from third parties such as Newegg and installing it yourself .

 

Not much of a difference, don't worry. Agree that the money would be better spent getting 7200rpm and 2+ gb of RAM

edit: ooohh beaten by another Vancouverite!

 

Thanks guys. That pretty much confirms what I thought too. I've already picked out a 2 gig stick of Corsair ram on Newegg. The price upgrade for the HD isn't too bad. Although I really don't understand why the hard drive is so hard to get to on the MBP. It must be a size constraint is the only reason that I can think of. Thanks for the quick response! I'm sure I'll have more questions once I receive the unit and have had time to play with it.

 

Go ahead and splurge for 4 gigs! It's only like, $80 now... At least the HDD upgrade prices on Apple aren't too bad. But honestly, it's not a HUGE problem getting the HDD. A bit of the pain the first time, but after... not too bad at all.

Grats on making your order :-D Wish I had a new one...

 

Yeah, I guess I could go ahead and get the 2x2 gig pack, and Ebay the ram the comes with it.

 

I agree, 4GB makes sense if you are getting more RAM.

 

7200 HD has the biggest impact. I'd get it pre-installed, saving the hassle of installing it yourself - I have done it, wouldn't recommend unless you really love tinkering with hardware. It's not _that_ hard, but considering it took me about 2 hours... yes I was veeeeeeeery careful to document every step, took pictures, and glued the screws next to the instruction steps so I could follow them backwards without leaving anything out.... well my time is more valuable than the cost savings you'd get when getting a 3rd party HD.

The only reason I did it is that Apple at the time didn't have a 200GB 7200 HD on offer.

Note: Said 7200 HD was super fast but has died in the meantime. Now I have a 250GB 5400 drive which is fast but still noticeably slower than the 7200.

 

Bro if I were you I would wait a month or 2 because there are alot of rumors of upgrades to the macbook pro's. They are talking about putting 2 HD's or something (Which is one of the rumors).

If you wait you can get a much better system for a cheaper price. + they will probably change the keyboard to the new one like on the Macbook Air.

 

Another Vancouverite? You're from Vancouver too!

Awesomeness! We Vancouverites shall rule this place! .

 

Yeah there have been a lot of rumors for macbook pro upgrading.

I'd wait it off, and as for the processor, go for the 2.2 GHz, upgrade RAM on newegg, and get the 7200 RPM HDD.

And SWEEEEEEEEEEETness, I'm from Vancouver too!

Vancouverites own!!!

 

Lots of Vancouverites on NotebookReview, really...there's also AuroraS (which is funny, its two Sam the Moderators from Vancouver, B.C. carrying around white MacBooks ), and several other people as well .

 

Doesn't surprise me Vancouver ftw

edit: oh yeah! the upgrades...well IMO, if you are somewhat technically inclined, much better to do it yourself regardless of the time involved. If you save $100+ bucks, and spend 2 hours doing upgrades, it's like you were paid $50 an hour to do it!

Companies always gouge when it comes to upgrades too. HP wanted $80 for another gig of RAM, I bought my own for $40 instead. Lenovo wanted my brother to pay something like $250 for a 160GB 7200rpm drive, he bought one for $100 less and put it in himself :\

 

Well I took the plunge today and ordered the MacBook Pro with the following specs:
- 2.2GHz Intel Core Duo 2 with 4MB shared L2 Cache
- 800MHz frontside bus
- 15.4-inch TFT display with (1440x900) Glossy
- 2GB (2 x 1GB) 667MHz DDR2 Memory
- NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT GPU w/128MB
- 200 GB 7200rpm Serial ATA Hard Drive
2174.00 (USD)
I ordered from Ivan at Portable One, who is the best when it comes to customer service. I went ahead and ordered 4 Gigs of Corsair ram from Newegg, for 84.99. So it was 2258.99 (USD) for all. Still a pretty good deal. I hope to receive it by the end of next week. So for now I wait.

 

Congrats, LetsRok! Tell us how it goes!