Buying Advice

JohnnieBlue · Apr 18, 2009

Hey all,

New to the forum and would much appreciate some buying advice.

I'm getting my wife a 15" Macbook Pro. She uses it for just everyday things- music, photos, occasional home videos etc. On the Apple Store you can configure your 15" system from two different base models. I've been playing around with the configurations and have come up with the following two systems by starting with the two different 15" configuration starting points.

$2,224.00
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
320GB Serial ATA @ 7200
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB

$2,549.00
2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
320GB Serial ATA @ 7200
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB

As far as I can tell, the only difference is the 0.22GHz bump and 256MB extra with the graphics card.

So my question is this: are these subtle differences really worth the $325 price difference given her planned usage of this machine? To be honest, I have no idea what that 256MB on the NVIDIA even means. Thanks for the help!

Collin Bl · Apr 19, 2009

My take - unless there is a plan for serious Network Gaming in the future, save your money, with todays internet i would be surprised if you noticed the difference.

miles01110 · Apr 19, 2009

The Macbook Pro is overkill in the first place. She will not notice any improvement with the faster model.

bobtomay · Apr 19, 2009

For a non-hardcore 3d gamer, the lower end model is totally adequate.

iggibar · Apr 20, 2009

you wont even be able to tell the difference yourself let alone your wife. I don't think the difference is worth the price. The memory upgrade will be noticable since your wife does photo, music, and videos. Good luck on your purchase!

XJ-linux · Apr 20, 2009

The base MBP or even a MB unibody will be more than plenty. You can also buy the additional RAM (up to 6GB) and 7200rpm HDD (up to 500GB) for much less from somewhere other than Apple and still be ahead of the game.

macfrik · Apr 20, 2009

JohnnieBlue said:
Hey all,

New to the forum and would much appreciate some buying advice.

I'm getting my wife a 15" Macbook Pro. She uses it for just everyday things- music, photos, occasional home videos etc. On the Apple Store you can configure your 15" system from two different base models. I've been playing around with the configurations and have come up with the following two systems by starting with the two different 15" configuration starting points.

$2,224.00
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
320GB Serial ATA @ 7200
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB

$2,549.00
2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
320GB Serial ATA @ 7200
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB

As far as I can tell, the only difference is the 0.22GHz bump and 256MB extra with the graphics card.

So my question is this: are these subtle differences really worth the $325 price difference given her planned usage of this machine? To be honest, I have no idea what that 256MB on the NVIDIA even means. Thanks for the help!

The 2.66Ghz model can support up to 8GB of ram. But the 2.4 Ghz can only support just 6Gb of ram.

JohnnieBlue · Apr 21, 2009

XJ-linux said:
The base MBP or even a MB unibody will be more than plenty. You can also buy the additional RAM (up to 6GB) and 7200rpm HDD (up to 500GB) for much less from somewhere other than Apple and still be ahead of the game.

Are these relatively easy things to do on my own? Also, would this void applecare if I swapped out the hard drive and added RAM on my own?

XJ-linux · Apr 21, 2009

Yes, they are very easy and Apple even posts instructions on their website regarding how to do the installations. The link below is for installing RAM and the HDD is actually easier. It won't void your warranty, but I'd suggest keeping the OEM parts in case you need to send it in for repair. Apple can be picky about working on machines that are not entirely OEM.

RAM installation: MacBook: How to install memory