2.8ghz vs 3.06ghz

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Hi everyone,
I've just found out I can get a rather decent discount on a Mac being a student. I was originally saving for a 3.06 ghz MBP with a 7200rpm Hard drive. I've decided to scrap the hard drive upgrade as a slightly slower hard drive really won't bother me that much. The thing I can't decide on is processor. I currently own an Acer Apsire Windows laptop, with a 2.0ghz Core 2 duo. It seems to handle things pretty well, I guess I can't fault it. What I'm asking basically is will I notice a big difference in the 3.06ghz as opposed to the 2.8ghz one? It's quite a bump in price and unless I'm going to notice it I'd rather not spend the extra money. I've looked on YouTube for some comparisons and found a couple of interesting ones but none that truly show the difference.
 

Raz0rEdge

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You're probably not going to notice a difference between the 2.8ghz and 3.06ghzon day to day activities as long as both have the same amount of RAM..

Regards
 
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A suggestion ..... go for the lower priced 2.8 AND get the fast disk :D

Cheers ... McBie
 

cwa107


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Not sure that I would pay the premium Apple wants for a 7200rpm drive, when you can get one and install it yourself for less than $100.

Unless you're doing 3D rendering or any incredibly processor-intensive tasks where the difference of an extra 10 seconds of rending time is worth the price, I can't imagine the need for the 3.06.
 
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Not sure that I would pay the premium Apple wants for a 7200rpm drive, when you can get one and install it yourself for less than $100.

Unless you're doing 3D rendering or any incredibly processor-intensive tasks where the difference of an extra 10 seconds of rending time is worth the price, I can't imagine the need for the 3.06.

I completely agree with that. You can get a 500gb 7200rpm drive for a bit over $100 if you want massive space. I got a Seagate 7200.4 500gb and it cost me about $120 and only lowered my battery life by like maybe 20mins.

And 200mhz on the CPU is nothing. That's only about 7% of the total speed of a 2.8GHz chip. Unless your doing video editing or a lot of gaming you could even go with a slower chip and not notice it.
 
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I'd say the fastest thing you will notice is how quickly that money will leave your wallet=D The difference is not worth it to me, but I know people who have to churn out as much products as possible each day, who's income depends on how many products they can make each day, and are willing to pay for the best money can buy. But for an average person, 2.8ghz is blistering fast on on a macbook pro with OSX! It would be sweet to have a 2.8, but I have a 2.4 and I am as happy as a dude can be:)
 
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Get the 2.8, and order a 7200 RPM HDD off of Newegg and put it in and save yourself a lot of money.
 
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I am in the same pickle, except now I am wondering if 2.66 would suffice!

I wont be using it for 3D rendering, etc but I will be doing lots of DSP on the fly, especially lots of work with live audio!

Would this require 3.06? Would 2.8 be more than enough? Would 2.66 do?

What a pickle :)
 
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Batman Bill
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Thanks for the input guys, very helpful. Just the answers I wanted really. I'm in the UK and the 7200rpm HDD is only £40 (a lot less than the processor obviously) So I think I may aswell upgrade to that.

Like the person above just said, I'm now wondering if I even need 2.8ghz. Though I think I will go for it because it comes with a better graphics card right?
 

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