Macbook Purchase Question

Hope this isn't a repost somewhere in the forums, I am currently looking to get my first macbook pro and i'm just seeking a little guidance to see if a maxed out 2.4ghz Core i5 is worth the money for Video rendering and Photoshop or should i just wait for the Ivy Bridge processors to come out ?

I guess the better question is... do you need a new machine right now, or can you afford to wait?

Bigger, better, faster is always on the horizon. So, buy the machine you need when you need it - and regardless of what comes out in the future, it will continue to fulfill those needs.

But if you don't need it right now, by all means wait. Ivy Bridge will bring with it USB3 and an incremental increase in processing power. USB3 might be worth it. The incremental performance boost probably won't be all that compelling.

i echo that, i just got a macbook pro 13 upgraded to 8gb ram and a 750gb wd black harddrive and photoshop flies

sometime i think we get caught up in marketing hype, ive run photoshop on many devices with a lot less power single and dual cores, in all fairness anything core2duo and up will do perfectly well, the core i5 are more than competant for most stuff being chucked at it.

Either way if you buy now because you need to you wont regret it, if you can wait do so, but remember even with a refresh imminent come 6 months or so a new refresh will be up and yours will become "old Hat" but no less useful

cwa107 said:

Ivy Bridge will bring with it USB3 and an incremental increase in processing power. USB3 might be worth it.

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Um, unless you have some insider information that I don't (with all respect, not likely) ... you may want to clarify your comment about USB3 a bit.

chas_m said:

Um, unless you have some insider information that I don't (with all respect, not likely) ... you may want to clarify your comment about USB3 a bit.

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With USB3 integrated in the chipset (i.e. not requiring an additional controller), it would be abject stupidity for Apple not to include it - in fact, I'm not sure it's technically possible to omit it, unless they eliminated USB ports altogether.

But OK, I understand your point, I should have said "will likely have USB3".

Why would Apple even need to add USB3 to the machines themselves when a third-party accessory vendor can just create a Thunderbolt addon with USB 3? Belkin unveiled a Thunderbolt dock with HDMI, Gigabit ethernet, USB 3.0, Firewire 800, etc. at CES last week, so it's not like Apple has to implement USB 3.0 themselves.

dmccloud said:

Why would Apple even need to add USB3 to the machines themselves when a third-party accessory vendor can just create a Thunderbolt addon with USB 3? Belkin unveiled a Thunderbolt dock with HDMI, Gigabit ethernet, USB 3.0, Firewire 800, etc. at CES last week, so it's not like Apple has to implement USB 3.0 themselves.

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They wouldn't really need to implement it using Ivy Bridge, as it's already there. It would be like forcing USB 1.1 on a machine equipped with a current chipset that natively supports 2.0.

People need to stop thinking of the two as competing standards. It a false dichotomy. USB is a peripheral bus, Thunderbolt is a direct link into PCI-E.

Every time new tech comes out soon later something comes to replace it so my suggestion would be simply to buy one now as depending what you do with it you'll still be able to keep up with those with the new tech.

cwa107 said:

People need to stop thinking of the two as competing standards. It a false dichotomy. USB is a peripheral bus, Thunderbolt is a direct link into PCI-E.

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Agreed. Completely correct. Although, I do agree that Thunderbolt greatly expands the ability to well.. expand the machine. (which means that I don't need to be upset that my 11mbp or iMac doesn't have USB3.0) I'm curious about the Belkin product

Dysfunction said:

Agreed. Completely correct. Although, I do agree that Thunderbolt greatly expands the ability to well.. expand the machine. (which means that I don't need to be upset that my 11mbp or iMac doesn't have USB3.0) I'm curious about the Belkin product

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It looks like it doesn't have USB 3.0 after all, but it would be trivial to add it to a future iteration of the product. Here's the press release from Belkin:

Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock - $299

dmccloud said:

It looks like it doesn't have USB 3.0 after all, but it would be trivial to add it to a future iteration of the product. Here's the press release from Belkin:

Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock - $299

Click to expand...

The price also is .. well.. disappointing

If I know anything about Apple, Apple will add USB 3 *if* it wants to *when* it wants to.

In short, it's not a given. Apple doesn't use Intel motherboards in their machines (at least not any models I've pried open) -- they use custom motherboards. So they're under no obligation to use any particular feature of a chipset if they don't want to.

But I'm not saying they don't want to, maybe they WILL add USB 3 to machines this year. But I really wouldn't take that for granted -- although USB 3 is backward-compatible in terms of speed, it doesn't use the same plug, meaning new cables for everyone, and it's pretty large as a connector -- not exactly the direction Apple tends to go in.

So far I've heard absolutely nothing from either the supplier's grapevines or the rumour mill about USB 3 on Apple machines, which is unusual. Maybe it's a fait accompli, or maybe they are going to stick with TB and USB 2 for a while yet. It will be interesting to see which way they go.