Macbook pro vs IMAC: Hardware

I purchased a 24" Imac last week from my local Apple store. A Intel extreme model. Since buying it it is mostly working well for me with a single exception. The Apple IMAC 1.1 update bit me a bit and I had to reinstall and be sure not to install that update so my mac would freeze less when I went to play warcraft and did other graphics intensive things. It helped alot with that but it still freezes every now and then.

I have considered the possibility of exchanging my IMAC for a Mac Book Pro at the apple store. I already have a Dell 24" LCD so I imagine I can hook a Macbook pro right up to that and an external mouse and keyboard and it would be just like I had an imac but without the look. Plus I would gain the portability of the laptop.

Question I have for those familiar with both platforms is, given the imac is made from laptop parts would I notice any real difference in performance if I went this route? Granted the macbook pro CPU would be slightly slower since I don't believe they offer the extreme cpu in one of them.

Specifically I was considering 15.4-inch: 2.4GHz (MA896LL) which is the 15.4" model with 256 megs of video memory and 2.4ghz cpu. How would the performance compare? Would I even notice a drop? Honestly the video card in the laptop actually looks like a better card to me. IMAC has a ATI 2600 HD and the macbook pro has the Geforce 8600m GT.

Considering your needs, I wonder if your "Extreme" would benefit from a RAM upgrade? The 2.4GHz comes with 1GB of RAM, while the 2.8GHz has 2GB of RAM ... I guess if you have the 2.8GHz model you have plenty RAM!

Yes I hav the 2.8 model and it has 2 gigs of ram. I didn't mention ram because both the imac and the mbp will have the same amount of ram. Same chips in fact.

The MBP would be taking a step backwards in processor speed (2.8 to 2.4), hard drive speed without an upgrade (7200 to 5400), and hard drive space (500 to 160).

For any gaming you're wanting to do, the MBP's nVidia 8600 GT is a slightly better performing card vs. the ATI 2600Pro in the iMac.

The most significant differences you would see between the 2 machines I believe would be:
1) increased playable frame rates in most games on the MBP (and this one would bear much more research as Apple is known for underclocking the video cards in their rigs and I have not done the appropriate research to know this info related to either of these new models).
2) between the processor and the hard drive (without actual testing mind you, only my best guess), I would expect to see up to a 30% advantage in encoding times with the iMac over the MBP