New MacBook Pro Intel core 2 duo ?'s

[deadlift]

has anyone gotten their hands one these new items? i am contemplating the 2.16ghz (ugraded to 2gb RAM) or the 2.33ghz. the big difference is the graphics cards. the 2.16 = 128 and the 2.33 = 256. does it make that much of a difference in terms of speed and operation? using the norm ... photoshop, illy, indy, quark, etc.

my price difference is over $350, with the 2.16 being the cheaper.

thoughts?

[PrintDriver]

You doing video or animation?

[deadlift]

nope! not yet at least! just regular design stuff ...

[mojoprime]

you should be ok with the lower one, unless you want to run games on the pc side through boot camp. also, software like apple's aperture leans heavy on the core image technology built into os x that offloads a lot the graphical heavy lifting to the graphics card. always remember, though, buy as much machine as you can afford and it will last longer. software is only going to continue to scale up in regards to system requirements. you may be an early adopter of technology, but you also may be able to use your machine for another six months to a year when the newer stuff comes out.

just a thought.

[mojoprime]

i realized that i have a tendency to use jargon. sorry about that. core image is the code in OSX that makes the shadows, translucent effects, animations, etc. in OSX. the operating system moves a lot of that stuff over to the graphics chip so it doesn't slow down the processors while you're working on stuff. some techologies, like photoshop, don't take *complete* advantage of that yet, but they will. you can see that because the system requirements for photoshop still list a "16-bit video card" as a minimum, which is pretty old school.

microsoft vista will (does) use a technology called Aero Glass which, is you turn your head just slightly and barely squint your eyes, is almost an exact rip-off of the Aqua interface in OSX. (*gets down off of soapbox*) at any rate, part of what microsoft is doing now by rating new compauters as "windows vista capable" is saying that the technology you have in your machine will run Vista, but it won't be as pretty as your neighbor's smoking gaming system, i.e., all the pretty operating systems effects won't be there. further, some sources have said that machines with "integrated graphics chips" (often seen or referred to as "shared memory") won't run Vista at its best as well.

of course, this is way more than you asked, but i was feeling chatty. :)

if you can afford it, get the bigger card. if not, you probably won't miss it.

[deadlift]

thanks, mojo. i do agree with your sentiments. curse money and i my need for it!

so the graphic cards are essentially for vid/music/gaming? would it help in the programs mentioned above?

btw - if ANYONE goes looking on ebay, watch out for scammers! there are a ton right now and there's even more "second chance offers" once your bidding is over ...

deadlift

[patkennedy78]

GO BIG! Pack that baby full of everything! Your going to have it for a while, right?

Seriously, your making a big purchase, a big investment. In the long run you'll be happier if you get the high end stuff. It's better than saying "I dropped a load of cash on this laptop and I knew I should have spent the extra $ for the graphics card."

I wish I had spent an extra $500 when I bought my laptop.

[deadlift]

hell, mojo! who doesn't want bigger, faster, stronger? *sighs* i hate money ... or lack there of.

[deadlift]

maybe i could sell my soul for the 17"er! get more RAM ...

"sould for sale! soul for sale! a mere $2800!"

[mojoprime]

if i could have done that, i would be the proud souless owner of a macplus some years back...

seriously, if you can swing it, do it. more and more, the operating system is going to offload the part of the code that "makes things pretty" to the graphics card, because that's one way they'll get you to buy the OS upgrade. a lot of folks using beta versions of Vista say just that: "wow, not much of an upgrade as far as features i can't live without, but it's kind of pretty." of course, they also say that the pretty gets in the way.

ah, microsoft and bloatware. two great wastes that waste great together.

[deadlift]

Lol!

Still Gotta Figure Out The Money?!?!?! Aah!!!!!

[mojoprime]

this may be kind of controversial, but did you look at the refurbs on apple's website? they do come with a full warranty. i haven't bought a refurb machine, but if i had $3K, i'd buy that refurb dual 3.0 xeon mac pro tower they have up there...

[tZ]

I purchused the macbook when it initally came out and it is an excellent.

Even, with rosetta programs are quite fast in my opinion.

I'm running 2ghz macbook with 2gigs of ram and mine runs fine. The thing I would be most concerned with is the memory. If you can I think they now offer up to 4gigs so that might be a worthy investment. They also offer more hard disk space which is also good. The graphics card I wouldn't think is that important unless your using this for games or animation type work.

[mojoprime]

tZ,

how do you like the glossy screen? does it bother you in bright light, with a glare?

[deadlift]

thanks, peeps! i need the portability of a laptop though! i didn't even checkout the towers!

i'm curious about the glossy screen too!?!?!?

[tZ]

mojoprime wrote:
how do you like the glossy screen? does it bother you in bright light, with a glare?

nope, havn't even noticed this.

[mojoprime]

cool. been wondering about that. thanks.