RAM or video card

I'm planning on buying a MBP to use for school. I also plan on doing a lot of photo editing, but I'd also like to play some games on it as well. Should I get the 2.4Ghz, 256mg 8600gt? I can also configure the 2.2Ghz, 128mg 8600 gt and add 2 gigs of RAM (so 4 total), and it will come out to the same price.

Would it be better for my purposes to get the 256mg card and 2 gigs of RAM, or should I get the 128mg card and 4 gigs of RAM?

Thanks

 

You won't be using 4 GBs of RAM much...2 GB of RAM is enough to run programs very smoothly and 3 GB of RAM is excellent.

I'd personally get the 256 MB graphics card. That will provide a better gaming experience, while 4 GB of RAM is kind of excessive in my opinion. Plus, you can get the 256 MB graphics card now, which is not upgradeable, and if you want, later on when you have more money you can add more RAM then.

So get the 256 MB graphics card and 2 GB RAM in my opinion.

 

hmm well if the macs use the same RAM as PCs or the RAM is cheap then go for the 256MB video card cuz its something u cant upgrade in the future.

 

just be aware that there are only 2 slots for ram in the macbook pro.

that means you cannot just add 2 gigs of ram (which would be relatively inexpensive and would be great).

you would have to remove the ram already in there (2 x 1 gig modules) and replace it with 2 x 2 gig modules, which is relatively expensive at the moment.

if you want to play games in native resolution, its a good idea to get the 256 meg card. even then you will probably want to end up over clocking it a little. if you don't care about native res, anti aliasing or aniso tropic filtering, either should be fine

 

get the higher end model, and if you really feel that you need to you can upgrade to 4gb later on, which will continue to get cheaper as well.

 

Thanks for the replies. Would putting in my own RAM void the warranty, or is that allowed? Also, the games I'm thinking of playing shouldn't be that graphically intensive (Oblivion is the max probably; maybe Spore), so would that change your decision?

Thanks again!

 

RAM doesn't void the warranty.

if you just want optimal gaming performance (windows xp) the extra video ram is probably going to help you more than the system ram.

2 gigs is the sweet spot right now, as is 256 megs for video ram.