Do I need the 128mb Video??
Hey all,
Newbie here. I am going to purchase a 15" Powerbook and was wondering how much of a difference the 128mb Video card would make? And what about going to the Gig of RAM. I seem to always try to go big on my Windows machines cause of Windows but I want to get into the MAC world to expand my knowledge and the growing demand in the business world with MACs. So I want to build a machine that suits me. I have it narrowed to the Powerbook 15". I am planning on keeping the unit for a few years. So any help would be great.
Thanks
Newbie here. I am going to purchase a 15" Powerbook and was wondering how much of a difference the 128mb Video card would make? And what about going to the Gig of RAM. I seem to always try to go big on my Windows machines cause of Windows but I want to get into the MAC world to expand my knowledge and the growing demand in the business world with MACs. So I want to build a machine that suits me. I have it narrowed to the Powerbook 15". I am planning on keeping the unit for a few years. So any help would be great.
Thanks
Comments
The 128MB video card will mostly be useful if you're doing fairly heavy graphics or video work, spanning the PB's desktop across a 23" Cinema Display, and/or playing DOOM 4.
It's pretty easy to upgrade RAM in the PBs (just unscrew a little door in the bottom, pop it in, put the door back on), so feel free to not pay Apple's rather steep prices for upgrading RAM and buy and install your own. 512MB should be fine for general use. Again, the more heavily you use the machine, the more RAM you'll want. Since it's easy to upgrade RAM, and since you'll have two slots to play with, you can always upgrade later as you need to.
You'll love the PB. My brother has a 15", and I envy the lucky little bastard. They're sweet machines.
Considering where the OS is headed with Tiger and how much apps will start leveraging the GPU, extra VRam is probably a sound investment.
My rev A Ti only has 8 MB of VRam. It was the only option at the time and even then I could tell it was underpowered when connected to an external display with a resolution higher than 1024. So maybe I'm a little biased.
But if I were to replace my Titanium today, I'd go high-end 15" PowerBook with the VRam upgrade. I dunno if I'd spring for the 100 GB Hard Drive, but I also have a G5 tower. I'm a drive space whore but soon I'll have another 250-500 GB in my tower so I won't need everything on my PowerBook all the time. Also I'd keep Apple's stock Ram and add a 1GB stick for a total of 1.5 GB. I have 1.5 in my G5 now and wish I had another Gig.
Originally posted by lewd0006
I want the 15" just for the backlit keyboard. WHY ISNT THIS AN OPTION ON THE 12" yet? Hmmph! Get the 128mb card. It's a laptop... youre going to regret not getting the top end in a couple years.
I thought I wanted that feature, but really wanted to stick with the 12". In the end, I realized I know where all the keys are and don't have to stare at the keyboard to type. I also don't typically type in the dark. Cool gadget feature though.
Originally posted by Advance The Man
I went to Apple.com and couldn't find how to upgrade the video. It isn't an option. How would you do this and how much does it cost?
It is a build to order option. Go to the apple store online and configure a 15" PB it is in there.
Originally posted by Advance The Man
I went to Apple.com and couldn't find how to upgrade the video. It isn't an option. How would you do this and how much does it cost?
It's only an option on the 1.67 15" and the 17". The 1.5 15" Only has 64.
--B
Originally posted by Protostar
Why dont they have an option to upgrade to a nVidia 6800?
There's an nVIDIA 6800 chipset that will run in a PowerBook?
Originally posted by Amorph
There's an nVIDIA 6800 chipset that will run in a PowerBook?
no