Buying Advice - Snow Leopard / 8GB Ram?

I'm in the market for a new mac. I'm planning on doing uprgrades to the 15.4inch macbook pro. I'm upgrading to 3.06Ghz and 500GB HDD @ 7200rpm, but am undecisive about the 4gb to 8gb jump on ram. If im gonna do the upgrade i want to do it through Apple, no installing it myself or anything. I'm just wondering if I'm trying to get atleast 5-6 years use out of this computer if i'll need the 8GB of ram or if 4GB will be just fine for the long run. I know i dont NEED 8gb now, but will i in 4-5-6 years? I'm gonna be a Film Major in college next year, freshmen year, and will be doing a lot of high performance stuff like rendering in the future with my macbook. so my question is 4gb of ram or 8gb of ram for longevity of 5-6 years.

Second question is on Apple.com they say the upgrade to snow leopard is only 9.95 if you purchased a new macbook before or on june 8th that didnt come with snow leopard, so my question is, Will Snow Leopard start shipping on new macbooks as soon as June 8th, today? Because i would like to purchase my macbook pro with snow leopard already installed.

Thanks in advance. I know its alot of text to read, but i would appreciate any feedback on this. Its a HUGE purchase.

 

get 4 gb now,use your computer for 2 years,sell it and then get new one.and SL will stat shipping in september

 

Let me get the keys to the Delorean from the Doc and I'll see what you'll need in a machine in 4 - 6 years. Save your money for now and get 4GB. If you find thats not enough in the future, you can always take it to an Apple store for the upgrade, if thats what you wish to do.

 

Why would you spend $1000 extra on such a simple task that will cost you about $400?

 

agreed, what you can also do is buy the ram from somewhere else and have apple help you install them for a small fee

 

Actually finding a store that will install 3rd party ram for you is a hit and miss. There are three local apple stores where I live I called all of them and they said that they do not install 3rd party ram or HD's no matter what. I then called one in the City (Manhattan) and they said that they did for $40.

 

I buy from Crucial and you can install without major problems yourself. Very simple to do no need for 3rd party installers or even the Geniuses at the Bar!

 

Well first off, congratulations on your purchase.

Like others have said, I'd wait and get 4GB of RAM now, and wait for 8GB at a later date. It's very expensive, and they'll only get cheaper as newer and faster RAM comes out. You can still get Apple Technicians to replace the RAM for you, at a small fee, whenever you'd like.

 

If you don't know what you need, you probably don't need the better option. Most people do not require more than 4GB.

 

I think the next major laptop change will be to the Intel Core i7 CPUs, and that's a pretty major change for CPUs and ram. So in 2010 (or late 2009) that will happen. If you are going to work in film and be a pro film guy you can expect to change hardware FREQUENTLY. So in my opinion, 4GB will be fine for video work, keep the extra cash and plan to upgrade your MBP in a couple of years (not keeping it for 4 years+ which is probably unrealistic for a professional video editor).

 

There's a chance you'll change majors...a big chance - I know tons of my friends and their friends have - and so I'd just save some cash now. And in college, you will probably need a new laptop within 4 years no matter how well you take care of it - especially if you're going to be putting such a strain on it. So save your money! 4gb ram will be more than enough - just don't run many apps when you need to do the rendering.

 

save your money and stick with 4gb.

If you're going into film, you're gonna need some serious horsepower and theres no way any laptop today will last 5 years in that enviroment.

You'll be much happier by getting a decently powerful laptop every 2 years. That way you'll be current, and not spend a crap ton of money.

 

so do you think i should do the upgrade to 3.06ghz or just get the factory configuration of 2.8ghz? Because right now its gonna be about 2,900 for the 3.06ghz or 2,500 for the factory config with 2.8ghz this of course is figuring in AppleCare and Tax. So which one should i get?

3.06Ghz + 500GB HDD @ 7200rpm + 4GB DDR3 Ram = $2900

OR

2.8GHz + 500GB HDD @ 5400rpm + 4GB DDR3 Ram = $2500

 

Stick with the 2.8GHz configuration. There will be minimal differences between the 2.8 and 3.06 in daily computing, and the only significant difference is going to be with video encoding and heavy applications that depend on the CPU. Also, the HDD's will be very alike, and the small upgrades too much to justify the amount of money to do so.

 

Yup I agree, go with the second configuration.

In 1 year there will be new macbooks with the new intel codenamed Intel Arrandale.

It is based off Core i7, has integrated GPU on the CPU, dual core running 4 threads. Its gonna be a real screamer and you'll feel much better about not spending over $3k on your current macbook when those Arrandale's arrive.

 

the 3.06 will get quite hot imo. stick with the 2.8. it will run cooler but still be hot.

 

I use Vista Ultimate 64-bit as my 1080p and gaming machine, on my Q6600, and I will tell you that I've NEVER gone over 4Gb of RAM even with intense gaming and lots and lots and lots apps open.

Do not buy 8Gb of RAM right now unless you actually use it (like for professional 3D rendering). DDR3 is especially expensive presently.

 

8GB of ram helps a TON if you use virtual machines a lot... extremely helpful

 

I want to get atleast 3 years of life with my new purchase of a macbook pro right now. I have come to the relization that it will not last me all of my college career if im a constant user of Final Cut Studio because its a quickly moving industry. However, i do want my $2500+ purchase to have atleast 3 years of longevity. which config would you buy in this situation 2.8 or 3.06ghz?

 

2.8 for sure. The 3.06 steps up from 25W THD to 35W, more heat, less battery life. And the .26 GHz is nominal. Spend the money on other features. Also the Arrandale cpus I think are supposed to be focused on ultra low power consumption more so than speed. However I don't know much about it. Any one know how powerful the integrated graphics on the cpu is? I also read something like 1.6GHz clock on a duel core (4 threaded) at 32nm. Not sure if it will be than much of a boost over core 2, performance wise only.

 

From my experience with working with Final Cut, its not a really intensive program. So I would say go with 2.8 to save some dough and it should last you at least 3 years.

Now if you plan on picking up Adobe after effects, that may change as it is a very resource heavy program. But then again some desktops have trouble running that even.

Here's an excerpt on Arrandale for more info:

"The 32nm Clarkdale/Arrandale parts arriving by the end of this year really means one very important thing: the time to buy a new notebook will be either in Q4 2009 or Q1 2010. A 2-core, 4-thread 32nm Westmere derivative is not only going to put current Penryn cores to shame, it’s going to be extremely power efficient. In its briefing yesterday, Intel mentioned that while Clarkdale/Arrandale clock speeds and TDPs would be similar to what we have today, you’ll be getting much more performance. " - Anandtech

I'm not sure if they stated how powerful the GPU is on Arrandale, but I think Intel is shooting for a little more powerful than integrated.