MacBook vs. MB Pro (Does the graphic card matter for me?)

switcher3365switcher3365
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I was planning on buying my first Mac in January, which I planned on being the middle priced MacBook Pro. However, watching Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey nowadays has made me feel guilty about purchasing one, being that I am a teacher in a large city ($$$) who is one year out of college with no savings, which means I would be financing most of it. I could save $1,000 just buying the middle-priced MacBook with 2GB RAM instead.



My main need is a computer that can handle the Garritan Personal Orchestra that comes with the Finale music notation software, which needs a strong processor and tons of RAM, which a MacBook can handle. (How about running that with another application?) On the side, I do want to do to a little gaming, but more on the Roller Coaster Tycoon, Civilization, Age of Empires kind of games rather than a lot of Halo or EA Sports type games. I am also interested in doing some Java programming as well, and possible hobbyist video editing.



One thing that turned me off from the cheaper PCs in the past and the MacBook was the Intel Integrated Graphics. Do you think today's Intel Integrated Graphics are good for what I want to do? Could this computer last 3-4 years?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 1
    buddhabuddha Posts: 386member
    Based on your needs I sort of think that a Macbook Pro would work better. I think a Macbook could run all of this but it would be somewhat sluggish on a couple of these. The midrange Macbook Pro however would probably cruise for all of these and would definitely last a few years.



    15"

    2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

    1440 x 900 resolution

    2GB memory

    160GB hard drive1

    8x double-layer SuperDrive

    NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics with 256MB SDRAM



    That's the setup I would get but wait for some other opinions too.
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