Recommendation Assistance
Hi, I recently graduated from high school and I plan on attending college this fall. I'm currently in the market for a new computer. I would be using the computer for film editing (I plan on majoring in film), watching films on Netflix, the occasional game (Team Fortress 2, Starcraft 2, nothing too graphics intense), writing papers, all that good stuff. I've been oscillating between the idea of getting a desktop or a Macbook Pro. It seems like you can get so much more processing power, RAM, hard drive space and all that stuff for a cost lower in a desktop than I could in a mid-range Macbook Pro. Though everyone seems surprised by the idea that I don't feel like a laptop is necessary. Any suggestions?
Comments
It seems like you can get so much more processing power, RAM, hard drive space and all that stuff for a cost lower in a desktop than I could in a mid-range Macbook Pro.
A laptop is good for taking to university due to the portability, which is handy if you need somewhere quiet to work and being able to work through power cuts but having a big screen is good for film work and games so they both have positives.
You have to be careful when looking at the specs of the machines because while it seems like you get more for your money with the desktops, the actual performance isn't directly comparable to the clock speeds.
The quad i7 Macbook Pros outperform all of the base i5 iMac models except the highest-end one - they have dynamic overclocking. Here is a list of compiled benchmark scores of the new iMacs vs MBPs:
Geekbench (Cinebench R11) scores:
iMac 21" 2.5GHz i5 quad = 7000 (4.15)
Macbook Pro 2.00GHz i7 = 8800 (4.6)
iMac 27" 3.1GHz i5 quad = 8700 (5.15)
Macbook Pro 2.20GHz i7 = 10200 (5.30)
iMac 21" 2.8GHz i7 quad = 10800 (5.74)
iMac 27" 3.4GHz i7 quad = 12000 (6.88)
The entry quad i7 MBP costs $1799 and is only outperformed by the 2.8GHz i7 21.5" iMac at $1699, which has a small screen and the 3.1GHz i5 27" iMac at $1999 and the 3.4GHz one.
You do get the bonus of having extra storage but storage is inexpensive and such large contiguous files are best kept separate from your boot drive anyway.
What I'd recommend is to look at getting an older MBP. The following one with an i5 at $1269 is much less expensive than either of the new options but still has the full warranty:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC...co=MTgwOTc2ODA
The GPU in that machine is faster than the Radeon 6490 in the new MBP too so fine for Starcraft etc. When it comes to a display, you can pick up an external fairly cheaply - the following is IPS so similar quality to the Apple displays:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...pf_rd_i=507846
You can pick up a 1TB portable external for under $100 and some of them like the Seagate ones are now putting SATA connectors on them so you can buy cables for any interface you want e.g Firewire, which you will definitely want to use for film work as it is more storage limited than CPU limited.
I think that setup gives you the best of both options - portability along with a big screen.
You can also get a refurb iMac fairly cheap too of course and gives you a 27" IPS screen, which alone would cost $1,000 but no portability. An iPad accessory can offer you some of this portability and much lighter to take to class so either way is good:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC...co=MTkwMzU2MjI