Please help a new purchaser
Hello
I have been patiently waiting for the new macs to come out and have a few questions I am hoping some of the more experienced users will answer. I am tentatively planning on buying the 2.4 MB and upgrading the memory to 4 GB.
1) The new MB's state they have 3mb l2 cache and the MBA has 6mb l2 cache. How much of a performance difference will the 3MB L2 make compared to the 6MB L2 on the air?
2) I believe it is $135 (educational price) to upgrade the memory to 4GB. Is it cheaper and easier to do this through a place like macmall or is worth just getting it online from Apple directly?
3) Any thoughts on apple care? Is it worth the $185.00 you are charged?
Thanks
I have been patiently waiting for the new macs to come out and have a few questions I am hoping some of the more experienced users will answer. I am tentatively planning on buying the 2.4 MB and upgrading the memory to 4 GB.
1) The new MB's state they have 3mb l2 cache and the MBA has 6mb l2 cache. How much of a performance difference will the 3MB L2 make compared to the 6MB L2 on the air?
2) I believe it is $135 (educational price) to upgrade the memory to 4GB. Is it cheaper and easier to do this through a place like macmall or is worth just getting it online from Apple directly?
3) Any thoughts on apple care? Is it worth the $185.00 you are charged?
Thanks
Comments
Hello
I have been patiently waiting for the new macs to come out and have a few questions I am hoping some of the more experienced users will answer. I am tentatively planning on buying the 2.4 MB and upgrading the memory to 4 GB.
1) The new MB's state they have 3mb l2 cache and the MBA has 6mb l2 cache. How much of a performance difference will the 3MB L2 make compared to the 6MB L2 on the air?
2) I believe it is $135 (educational price) to upgrade the memory to 4GB. Is it cheaper and easier to do this through a place like macmall or is worth just getting it online from Apple directly?
3) Any thoughts on apple care? Is it worth the $185.00 you are charged?
Thanks
1) The performance difference is not much. Because the New MB's are 2.0Ghz vs Air's 1.6Ghz, the MB would perform stronger.
2) Im not sure how easily it is to replace the RAM in the new MB casing (i'm sure it's easy, behind the HD), but because the new RAM is DDR3 and running at 1066Mhz speed, the 2 x 2GB Modules would be expensive, just around the price of $125.
3) Depends on what you do with it, clumsy? careful? etc...
Hello
I have been patiently waiting for the new macs to come out and have a few questions I am hoping some of the more experienced users will answer. I am tentatively planning on buying the 2.4 MB and upgrading the memory to 4 GB.
1) The new MB's state they have 3mb l2 cache and the MBA has 6mb l2 cache. How much of a performance difference will the 3MB L2 make compared to the 6MB L2 on the air?
2) I believe it is $135 (educational price) to upgrade the memory to 4GB. Is it cheaper and easier to do this through a place like macmall or is worth just getting it online from Apple directly?
3) Any thoughts on apple care? Is it worth the $185.00 you are charged?
Thanks
1) Minor differences in things like cache size and FSB speed really aren't noticeable 99.99% of the time. Don't worry about it.
2) It's never a good deal to buy RAM from Apple. Memory on all Macs is very easy to upgrade yourself.
3) For a laptop, yes, it probably is worth it. But you have a year to decide- you can buy it any time up until the first years' Applecare runs out.
And remembering correctly, a 2 x 2GB DDR2 set @ 800Mhz was around $90.
I can't seem to find DDR3 Memory that sells 2 x 2GB @ 1066Mhz right now?
And remembering correctly, a 2 x 2GB DDR2 set @ 800Mhz was around $90.
http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgr...=Show+Upgrades