Questions About Upgrading To Macbook Pro 13 in
Hey Everyone,
I currently own a dual 2 Ghz PowerMac G5, 5.5 GB DDR2 533 Ram, Nvidia GeForce 6600 LE 128 MB, etc with the old 20 inch Cinema (plastic bezel) display.
I'm looking to upgrade to the new 13 inch Macbook Pro 2.53 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB DDR3 1033 Ram, 9400M 256 MB, etc.
I would love the Mac Pro Quad but can't afford it right now. The iMac was an option but I'm attending college in January so the portability of a laptop would be great and I have the 20 inch display for home use. MacBook seems to be the best option for my needs at the moment.
I'm a huge multi-tasker and run the following programs every day: Photoshop CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Fireworks CS3, Flash CS3, Vue Infinite 7 (render times are slow on the G5), Terragen 2, Reason 3, ReCycle, and I play Second Life all the time.
Here are my questions:
What can I expect for speed/quality of experience differences between the G5 and the MBP? I know the MBP has got to be snappier, but will I notice a large speed increase?
I just need to confirm I need the Mini Display Port > VGA Adapter for the conversion to my old 20 inch cinema, right?
I'm seriously considering purchasing the 24 inch LED Cinema with this purchase but I haven't decided yet. Money is tight and my old Cinema still works great. But I am worried about lack of visual quality.
Should I get Applecare? I haven't on any of my desktops or an iBook I had in the past, and had no problems with them, but you never know right?
Do you think Snow Leopard will make the Macbook Pro even faster?
Can anyone recommend a fast and stable external hard drive (not too pricey) in the 250 GB range?
Any other suggestions that I may have overlooked?
Thank you.
I currently own a dual 2 Ghz PowerMac G5, 5.5 GB DDR2 533 Ram, Nvidia GeForce 6600 LE 128 MB, etc with the old 20 inch Cinema (plastic bezel) display.
I'm looking to upgrade to the new 13 inch Macbook Pro 2.53 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB DDR3 1033 Ram, 9400M 256 MB, etc.
I would love the Mac Pro Quad but can't afford it right now. The iMac was an option but I'm attending college in January so the portability of a laptop would be great and I have the 20 inch display for home use. MacBook seems to be the best option for my needs at the moment.
I'm a huge multi-tasker and run the following programs every day: Photoshop CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Fireworks CS3, Flash CS3, Vue Infinite 7 (render times are slow on the G5), Terragen 2, Reason 3, ReCycle, and I play Second Life all the time.
Here are my questions:
What can I expect for speed/quality of experience differences between the G5 and the MBP? I know the MBP has got to be snappier, but will I notice a large speed increase?
I just need to confirm I need the Mini Display Port > VGA Adapter for the conversion to my old 20 inch cinema, right?
I'm seriously considering purchasing the 24 inch LED Cinema with this purchase but I haven't decided yet. Money is tight and my old Cinema still works great. But I am worried about lack of visual quality.
Should I get Applecare? I haven't on any of my desktops or an iBook I had in the past, and had no problems with them, but you never know right?
Do you think Snow Leopard will make the Macbook Pro even faster?
Can anyone recommend a fast and stable external hard drive (not too pricey) in the 250 GB range?
Any other suggestions that I may have overlooked?
Thank you.
Comments
Hey Everyone,
I currently own a dual 2 Ghz PowerMac G5, 5.5 GB DDR2 533 Ram, Nvidia GeForce 6600 LE 128 MB, etc with the old 20 inch Cinema (plastic bezel) display.
I'm looking to upgrade to the new 13 inch Macbook Pro 2.53 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB DDR3 1033 Ram, 9400M 256 MB, etc.
I would love the Mac Pro Quad but can't afford it right now. The iMac was an option but I'm attending college in January so the portability of a laptop would be great and I have the 20 inch display for home use. MacBook seems to be the best option for my needs at the moment.
I'm a huge multi-tasker and run the following programs every day: Photoshop CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Fireworks CS3, Flash CS3, Vue Infinite 7 (render times are slow on the G5), Terragen 2, Reason 3, ReCycle, and I play Second Life all the time.
Here are my questions:
What can I expect for speed/quality of experience differences between the G5 and the MBP? I know the MBP has got to be snappier, but will I notice a large speed increase?
I just need to confirm I need the Mini Display Port > VGA Adapter for the conversion to my old 20 inch cinema, right?
I'm seriously considering purchasing the 24 inch LED Cinema with this purchase but I haven't decided yet. Money is tight and my old Cinema still works great. But I am worried about lack of visual quality.
Should I get Applecare? I haven't on any of my desktops or an iBook I had in the past, and had no problems with them, but you never know right?
Do you think Snow Leopard will make the Macbook Pro even faster?
Can anyone recommend a fast and stable external hard drive (not too pricey) in the 250 GB range?
Any other suggestions that I may have overlooked?
Thank you.
1. the macbook should be faster
2. you can run all those programs at the same time - I know because I run even more demanding software with no problems
3. the new 24 ACD is the best monitor ever made IMO and an excellent dock. I use it everyday and it has the best image quality in the market
4. get applescare after 11 months
5. snow leopard should make everything faster as the code is more efficient and it has grand central dispatch and OpenCL. It should be 10-times faster than Windows 7 (if you care)
6. buy a WD external, any model that suits you
7. nah
What can I expect for speed/quality of experience differences between the G5 and the MBP? I know the MBP has got to be snappier, but will I notice a large speed increase?
The Ram is faster in the new one and the 9400M is better than the 6600 (about twice the speed). The CPUs should be round about the difference in clock speed faster but Intel software is better optimized so it's sometimes better than just that difference.
When it comes to 3D rendering though, it'll still be slow. There's no getting round the need for more cores until they start using the GPU. If it takes say 20 minutes for a render on the G5, it'll take around 16 minutes on the MB. A quad Mac Pro would take about 5 minutes.
I just need to confirm I need the Mini Display Port > VGA Adapter for the conversion to my old 20 inch cinema, right?
If you're sure it's VGA then that's what you need. It may have ADC or DVI though. ADC was a proprietary Apple connection.
I'm seriously considering purchasing the 24 inch LED Cinema with this purchase but I haven't decided yet. Money is tight and my old Cinema still works great. But I am worried about lack of visual quality.
I would personally try picking up one of the older Cinema displays or for money saving, one of Dell's S-PVA displays.
Should I get Applecare? I haven't on any of my desktops or an iBook I had in the past, and had no problems with them, but you never know right?
Yes but you can buy it later on as Tauron said.
Do you think Snow Leopard will make the Macbook Pro even faster?
I think it will make it considerably faster in some areas. We will have to see what the end result is though. The developers releases haven't been noted as showing major performance increases yet but we've heard very little about OpenCL integration.
Can anyone recommend a fast and stable external hard drive (not too pricey) in the 250 GB range?
I like the Lacie drives as they have aluminum enclosures for better heat dissipation. I'd consider getting a portable drive though. I have some firewire 800 drives and although they are twice the speed of the USB portable drives, I don't like having a power brick attached and for just having access to your data, they are fast enough.
Marvin, you are correct, my current cinema is an ADC. My G5 is DVI and I have the big conversion brick to the ADC. I'm unsure if I can even connect an ADC display to the MBP. I'll have to look into that.
What do you think about Apple Refurbs? I've been looking at some and I can acquire some pretty good savings. Currently looking at a 15 inch unibody MBP, 2.8 Ghz, 4 GB 1033, with the 9400M & 9600M and a 128 GB SSD for $2249 CDN, which is a steal. It comes with the standard warranty + apple care is available.
Thanks for all your advice. It's been a big help. Especially the recommendations for a display.
Thanks both of you for your reply's!
Marvin, you are correct, my current cinema is an ADC. My G5 is DVI and I have the big conversion brick to the ADC. I'm unsure if I can even connect an ADC display to the MBP. I'll have to look into that.
What do you think about Apple Refurbs? I've been looking at some and I can acquire some pretty good savings. Currently looking at a 15 inch unibody MBP, 2.8 Ghz, 4 GB 1033, with the 9400M & 9600M and a 128 GB SSD for $2249 CDN, which is a steal. It comes with the standard warranty + apple care is available.
Thanks for all your advice. It's been a big help. Especially the recommendations for a display.
Mini-dispalyport to DVI to ADC to monitor? That's two adapters, but only the first one is changing the signal. I think it should work.
And the refurbs are usually a very good deal.
Marvin, you are correct, my current cinema is an ADC. My G5 is DVI and I have the big conversion brick to the ADC. I'm unsure if I can even connect an ADC display to the MBP. I'll have to look into that.
It seems like people have got it to work:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....53750&tstart=0
You'd use the Mini-Displayport to DVI and then the DVI to ADC adaptor you have. They mention only the Apple DVI to ADC adaptor worked.
What do you think about Apple Refurbs? I've been looking at some and I can acquire some pretty good savings. Currently looking at a 15 inch unibody MBP, 2.8 Ghz, 4 GB 1033, with the 9400M & 9600M and a 128 GB SSD for $2249 CDN, which is a steal. It comes with the standard warranty + apple care is available.
Yes, always go for the refurb store first as the machines arrive in great condition - any I've seen looked brand new and they have the same warranty. They don't come in the original box but besides that, they often save you a lot of money.
I'd perhaps avoid the SSD option. It has benefits for launching apps and booting but 128GB will fill up quick with uncompressed render files. The overall benefit to cost isn't great:
http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=3287&p=7
We also don't know of the long term reliability and performance of the drives. I've always wanted to make the jump and try one out but the cost is just too high. It seems like there would only be benefits and it would be more reliable but people have reported SSD failures so they aren't 100% reliable.
You can get a much larger capacity 7200 rpm 2.5" drive for under half the price of the SSD drive.
I'd actually go for this machine:
http://store.apple.com/ca/product/FC...mco=MjE0NDk5Mw
It's $300 less than the one with the SSD and only 5% slower CPU - at these clock speeds, there's not much between them. It's only when you get more cores that you notice the difference. It is a 5400 rpm drive though.
To be honest, I'd even consider this one:
http://store.apple.com/ca/product/FB...mco=MjE0NDk5Mw
It is 15% slower than the one you are looking at but $700 less. If you need to render 3D scenes, I'd consider buying a cheap Core 2 Quad tower with a render-only license of the 3D software you use. This way you can drop a render queue onto it and have it run at double the speed of your laptop while you keep using it. This way you won't overheat your machine.
Something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883241010
Quad core 2.5GHz for $570 (USD though). You can connect to it over a wifi network and it can sit in a cupboard somewhere rendering away.
Thanks for all your advice. It's been a big help. Especially the recommendations for a display.
Some links to help - the old 20" Cinema is on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Cinema-2...7352103&sr=1-1
The 24" Dell S-PVA ($450):
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...9&sku=320-6272