deciding between a 2.2Ghz or a 2.4Ghz macbook pro

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: ChAoTiCpInOy
How about the difference between 128mb and 256mb in the video card?

0roo0roo - yeah, you're right. the first gen 7200rpm drives were comparable, but this generation is definitely faster. now im really looking for an upgrade, probably either a 200GB or a 250GB 7200rpm drive. hopefully it fits in the mbp!

chaoticpinoy - it depends on what games you play. if you play bioshock, oblivion, aka games that use more memory, as well as if you are a heavy gamer, then by all means go for it. for me, i play older games like ut2k4, halo, nfsu2, and even emulation stuff that runs fine on older cards. and i felt like $500 bucks wasnt worth it for the extra 128MB vram. i mean, apple uses literal pricing (if thats the right word?), so they use whatever intel sells them the 2.4Ghz chips at, the 256MB 8600GT sells for, and the 160GB hd that whatever company supplies them for, so thats why it evens out to $500 (i think).

 

[secretanchitman]

got it!!! and holy crap is it nice.

 

[jjahshik32]

I actually owned the 2.2ghz 128mb mbp and the 2.4ghz because I upgraded to the 256mb ram.. I remember when trying to run a few games on the 128vram mbp that it lagged somewhat and on the 2.4ghz ran so fast =D it was like a night and day comparison.. I saw my cousin who had the 2.4ghz mbp perform alot better and I saw this in real world test as well.. he was a developer for apple and he had the latest version of leopard and he ran it on his mbp and told me to future proof myself get the 256vram mbp so you can run leopard at its bare minimum requirement speed.. so if you want to upgrade to leopard later and get the speed requirements filled then get the 256vram which I think its well worth the 500 dollars but if you dont care about leopard then stay with the 128mbvram.. I installed the leopard on the 128mb mbp just to see.. and oh yea there's a HUGE difference in speed, pretty much double its speed.

pretty much check this out this is very true in real world testing as well http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...3dmark06_c.png the 2.4ghz felt like a totally different beast came close to running like my 2.66ghz mac pro and the 2.2ghz with 128vram felt so crippled

well the links not working it was 3d benchmarking and the 256vrams were up in 4500 scores while the 128vrams were at 2500 scores, I dont own any of the mbp though because I sold it to buy a pair of very nice ht speakers from b & w but I do advise you that get the 256vram it runs so much smoother, especially when I played a 2 or 3 year old game now on the mbp ran on both "f.e.a.r." and on the 128vram ran ok but seemed like the bare minimum and on the 256vram just ran right through it fps was so much fluid and fast.
Also leopard runs with every graphics on and ran smooth even though its not the final version and lagged a tiny bit on the 256vram because it didnt support the nvidia drivers very well yet, but on the 128vram ran so choppy and my cousin told me that when it does support the nvidia drivers on the final leopard product, you'll be happy you have bought the 256vram and that by then 500 dollars is well worth spending

 

[TheStu]

Um... you mind pressing the return key once or twice? Maybe some punctuation.

From someone that is currently running the 9a527 beta of Leopard, I can tell you that I am experiencing no problems on my MacBook with Intel Integrated graphics. My friend has the older MacBook Pro with 2.0GHz Core Duo and 128MB X1600, and it runs about the same really. And i'm not sure what kind of graphics requirements Leopard might have... Expose, Dashboard, Time Machine, they all run plenty smooth on my machine, and those are the most graphically demanding things I can think of that the OS itself contains.

The great thing that I have noticed is that even in beta Leopard seems to hold up the OS X mantra where it makes my hardware more efficient. I for the life of me cannot figure out how they do it, but my battery life is better, as is the overall feel of the OS... it definitely feels more responsive. Even on my 1.83 GHz Core Duo, gosh that must be like molasses to you eh jj?

 

[jjahshik32]

well TheStu, for me when I buy the final product of leopard I will want to see all the eye candy at its best performance, yea sure the older macbooks, macbook pro, even the 128mb vram will still run leopard fine but it doesnt seem as fluid and smooth as it should be and knowing that by the time leopard is out and the $500 dollars spent is well worth the money.

Pretty much what i'm trying to say is that the 2.4ghz 256vram mbp machine is the first machine to fully support leopard at its requirements, I dont know if future mbp's will have 512vrams in it but I know the bare minimum is 256vram and I saw its real world testing and experience with my own 2 eyes and I can say that 256vram is very very nice to have.

Lol one last thing to add is that I find it funny that most people on threads, when they get offended because of what someone else has to say about an experience and i'm sure it does kind of haunt you in a way about meeting the requirements to get all the features of leopard running in a smooth transition, always has to criticize the other person's form of writing before anything.

English is my second language so you have to excuse me.

 

[TheStu]

I had no idea that English was your second language, but without the punctuation and whatnot, it does make your post a little hard to follow, which was my main point, even if I didn't mention that. Where did you see the minimum requirements listed? I haven't seen them anywhere, and the only requirement I have heard of so far is that it be a G4 or better processor, and I have seen speculation that they will cut off the vid RAM at 32 or 64MB, but nothing like what you are saying. Do you have a link to your information? I am interested since I keep thinking about selling my MacBook for a MacBook Pro just for the larger screen and the ability to play games.

Oh, something real quick as an aside, I can't get to that photo you posted, you might want to check the link.

 

[jjahshik32]

I cant find the requirements off top of my head right now or through google, but my cousin is a developer for apple and works on the leopard and he informed me after I was whining about my copy of leopard not running so smooth on the 128vram mbp and that he told me that the minimum requirements on the graphics side is 256vram.

 

[TheStu]

It seems a little strange to me that they would make the minimum requirements 256MB when only a few of their systems have that capability. But hey, who knows

 

[jjahshik32]

I guess if your thinking about selling your macbook to add funds to a new macbook pro, believe me and please trust me that the 256vram is well worth the money. I mean I owned both 128vram and 256vram machines for a full 1 1/2 weeks before I exchanged for the 256vram.. and at that time I took the restock fee just to get the 256vram. And after playing with the 256vram my cousin had I noticed a huge difference.

TheStu, I dont call myself a gamer or even near it. I only play maybe old games and maybe 1 new about 2-3 years old. I'm sure you heard of f.e.a.r. and half life 2 and both ran at a much slower fps on the 128mb it was a huge difference. Also the 2.4ghz running parallels on it felt soo fast, in par with my 2.66ghz intel xeon mac pro desktop with ati radeon x1900xt 512vram and I actually ran 2 windows vista windows on my 2.4ghz 256vram mbp and ran it without lag. But on the other hand I ran 1 windows vista on my 128vram and it hiccuped so much and froze often.

Also dont trust the barefeats.com with their game testing and only 9% somewhat total speed over the 256vram from the 128vram. Trust me it felt like the 256vram was a laptop version of my mac pro and the 128vram felt like I was running a macbook 2.16ghz core 2 duo just with a little better graphics card (I originally had the 2.16ghz core 2 duo macbook and exchanged it to the 128mbvram then exchanged that to the 256vram mbp lol). I thought that the macbook's should get the 128vram and the 2.2ghz mbp should have 256vram and if possible 2.4ghz should have 512mbvram.

But I cant stress enough that the 2.4ghz 256vram felt like a totally different beast, like it just took care of everything I threw at it like it was nothing. While the 128vram felt as if it was chugging along as much as it could to meet the demands on what I threw at it... in easier terms for me to say is that the difference in speed from the 128vram to the 256vram cost more than $500 in my honest opinion. I would gladly pay even up to $700 just to have the 256vram.

 

[jjahshik32]

I know apple has said that g4's will run leopard but I have not tested any leopard on a g4 system. I mean on the graphics side the 17" powerbooks the last revisions do have 256vrams in it that should be good enough to run leopard ok. But then the g4 chipset is sooo slow so I wouldnt honestly know.

But then I'm sure with g4 owners or older powerbooks, you can run leopard on it with all the eye candy turned off or most of it anyways. I'm sure most g4 owners will either upgrade to macbook pros or just stick with tiger. I mean tiger is still very nice to run.

As for me when leopard is out in sometime october, I'll buy a copy for my mac pro because its more than enough to meet the requirements, I have a 23" apple cinema display with mac pro tower 2.66ghz with 7gb ram and a ati radeon x1900xt 512mb vram and 2.5terabyte harddrive all together.. But I do miss having a laptop and just the other day I was thinking about buying the 15" 2.4ghz mbp, that was my best laptop I've ever owned, the led screen is gorgeous on it. previously on the laptop side I've owned a 2.0ghz core duo white macbook, 1st rev. 2.0 ghz macbook pro, 1.67ghz powerbook g4 (last revision before bumping up to the mbp, that's where my apple crave started =D), and I owned the white macbook 2.16ghz core 2 duo, macbook pro 2.2ghz 128vram, and the mbp 256vram. Dont ask why I changed so much, but I always broke even and sold it in the right time to get the "next best thing" maybe lost a 100 or so on each =/.

But lol, I really miss my 2.4ghz mbp.. right now i'm debating if I should sell my 23" acd for a 30" instead.. I sure could use alot more room on the monitor side.

 

[jjahshik32]

oh one last thing TheStu, that when I had my 2.4ghz mbp I exchanged it of course without any restocking fee 4 times because of the bottom of the yellow tint issue. Some yellow tinting was worse than the others but the last 2.4ghz I had had very little yellowing on the bottom but I finally found out and accepted that the new 2.4ghz while the best led and most vivid screens i've ever seen just gives out naturally a yellow or rather warm tint to its screens.

I just think all these years that the powerbooks with ccfl backlighting gave out a bluish tint that were used to so the yellow is kind of weird and unacceptable. But its just the way it is, a blue led light with yellow phosphor is what apple uses on the new leds.. I do LOVE the new led backlit though.. cant wait till 17" is out with led with 1920x1200 resolution.. oh yea I owned the hd 17" as well but sold it because ccfl backlighting and led on the 15" is light night and day difference...

 

[TheStu]

I had heard of the yellow tinting issue, i had never heard what caused it though... the LED backlight you say? Very strange, but your explanation makes a certain degree of sense.

 

[secretanchitman]

the 128vram is totally fine for me. as ive stated before, my desktop has an overclock amd opteron 170 (at 2.6Ghz), 3GB of ddr-500 ram, and an 8800GTS 320MB @ 600/2000 with a dell 2407WFP monitor. i installed boot camp last week along with ut2k4, halo, starcraft, diablo, nfs carbon, nfsu2, nfs most wanted, and even WoW. they all run perfectly fine and fluid at 60fps...yes, even WoW does indoors and outdoors at 1440x900 with everything cranked.

i would have loved to get the 2.4Ghz model, but money restricted me...and $500 wasnt worth it for the extra 128vram.

maybe in next january 08, the macbooks will get revised to sport 512MB of vram...who knows.

 

[TheStu]

I would think that out of all of those, WoW would not be the one to be surprised about. It is a 3 year old game with the same engine as the day it shipped. I would think that the NFSs would pose more of a challenge, just due to the reflective surfaces and whatnot... but I don't really play WoW, so maybe I am wrong.

 

[jjahshik32]

I remember running WOW on the 128mb vram but i remember cranking up all the eye candy majorly slowed the the game but on the 256vram I remember most of the settings almost at high and still ran better but try running f.e.a.r. on that machine and do the hardware test where it runs the 3d engine while the demo runs, there are some parts when alot of shooting action is going on and the fps is pretty bad and I remember the 2.4ghz with the 256vram had a more stable fps and never slowed down.

You only have to see and play with a 256vram mbp to understand what i'm talking about, also this one game called s.t.a.l.k.e.r. is kind of new and I remember when I ran it on the 128vram it was so slow that I could not even run around with the character even with the settings at halfway and I remember the fps was so slow that it skipped a big chunk of movements. Then when I tested it out on the 2.4ghz I can crank it up to all high and the fps was still slow but still playable that was a HUGE difference.

Either way I think $500 is justifiable for a machine that will last you 2-3 years and will be able to run leopard efficiently.

 

[eflat]

Originally posted by: keeleysam
I went for the 2.2 with the education discount, free iPod, and free printer (which I sold for $300), so my net price was around $1600. I then bought 4GB of DDR2, sold my 2GB for $50, and upgraded the 120GB drive to 250GB (sold the 120GB for $65).

Total cost, around $1675 for a 2.2GHz MBP with 4GB DDR2 and a 250GB drive, which I'm sure will stomp all over a 2.4GHz one, for a lot less money.

Which printer were you able to sell for $300?

 

[ubercaffeinated]

also do the 2 gigs of ram that come with mbp come has 4x512 sticks? or are they 2x1gig sticks (in which case why couldn't you just buy 2x1gigs to make 4 gigs)?

 

[TheStu]

It is definitely not 4*512 since I can think of no laptop, ever, that had 4 RAM slots.

It is 2*1GB.