Buying Advice for 13 inch MBP - 2010 vs 2011

Hi,

I am looking to buy my first Mac and I'm currently looking at the new higher end 13 inch Macbook Pro with 2.7 Ghz processor which costs roughly around $1500. I noticed that at the same time that last year's 13 incher with the 2.66 Ghz processor and the Nvidia 320M can still be had from Amazon for around $1150. I am torn as to which one to get.

This will predominantly be for work at grad school. I'll be doing a lot of reading (papers, books etc; ), web browsing, music and video consumption, Office and Latex type setting. I will also occasionally have to do some work in Mathematica. I'm also a painting hobbyist and will want to run Photoshop and Zbrush moderately well.

Will the 320M give me a noticeable performance advantage over the integrated HD 3000 in any of these tasks to warrant going in for the last generation Macbook Pro?

I'm looking to buy some time this week and I'd really appreciate some help.

Thanks,
Lanchka

 

I would go with the cheaper machine and use the money saved to purchase a solid-state disk. If you're going to use Photoshop with any regularity, the SSD will make it fly. You'll give up some capacity in the process, but if you don't need a huge amount of space, the speed boost from an SSD will be well worth it.

 

I would get the base 2011 MBP for $1200.

Its Core i5 2.3 GHz is *much* faster than 2010's Core 2 Duo 2.66 GHz, and you will get Thunderbolt (future-proofing, resell value, etc.), FaceTime HD camera, SDXC reader, etc. Much better investment imo.

 

Thanks for your advice you guys. I was specifically wondering how much of a difference (if any) there would be between last generation's 320M and the new HD3000.

 

There shouldn't be much difference, they are roughly equivalent overall.

About the CPUs, the Core i7 2.7 is almost 2x faster than prev-gen Core 2 Duo 2.66, so Core i5 2.3 would be around 1.7x faster than C2D 2.66 GHz. Source: Apple. This is probably somewhat exaggerated, but nevertheless, Core i5 2.3 is way better than even the fastest Core 2 Duo.

 

Alright. It looks like I'll be best off going with the $1200 model and throwing in some RAM and maybe an SSD. I remember OCW used to make a 8Gb kit at 1066Mhz. Anything similar available for the 2011 notebooks (1333Mhz)?

Thanks,

 

the intel will do OK at those types of tasks. the only reason i would get the old 1150 machine vs the new 1200 one would be if you were worried about application compatibility with a few specific graphics programs that are really particular about the kinds of video cards they support.

That list would include certain games as well as certain 3d graphics programs like autocad and maya.

I don't see any reason to drop 1500 on the new expensive one.

 

Any DDR3 kit will work. No need to get anything specifically designed for Apple. Go to Newegg and buy whatever's cheap. Sign up for their e-mail promotions list. More often than not, there will be a sale with a coupon code and/or mail-in rebate. 8 GB DDR3-1333 kits have been available for less than $70 if you time your purchase correctly.

 

Thanks for the reply. I don't really plan on gaming. Maybe some FIFA or Worms but I'm not too particular. I don't really plan on running any 3d applications. I might try Modo though but it looks like Modo would be compatible since Apple's site shows Modo used in the bench marks.

 

So I found these 2 kits on amazon. Corsair and Corsair XMS. Would either of these do? And would I need any special screw drivers to swap out the RAM?

 

The second one is a desktop kit so that won't work. This is $1 cheaper right now, but Newegg frequently has coupon codes that could bring the price down even more.

 

The HD 3000 is just fine. I hated they went to it at first, but after having one and running a few things at it, its really not different enough in performance than the 320m to worry about.. almost identical... in OSX at least, I haven't tried either one in Windows.

 

You do need a Philips #00 screwdriver to remove the screws on the bottom of the 13" MacBook Pro. I ordered one along with the Crucial RAM (that saturn linked to) for $89 ($88.59), it will be here Friday with my free Super Saver shipping.

There are plenty of tutorial videos online but upgrading the RAM is pretty easy, you just have to take out a bunch of scews to remove the bottom casing. The screwdriver I ordered is magnetic so it will hold onto those pretty nicely. From what I have observed, the entire process takes about 5 minutes. There are a ton of online videos detailing how to upgrade the RAM. Either way, I am glad I purchased it myself as $89 for the whole thing is a lot better than spending $180 and waiting another week to get my MacBook Pro (which will be here tomorrow, I opted for the $15 extra 2-3 day shipping).

 

If the 2010 model was something like $800, then it would be a hard decision. Well, I'd still go with the 2011 MBP13 core i5.

If you don't game, 2011 MBP13 will be perfect. It stays cool too, and you'll get at least 7 hours normal work.

 

In fact i got a feeling that 13 inch model is the "hottest" one — multiple reports on apple official forums specifically about 13 inch /shrug

 

Eh, I wouldn't take those too seriously especially since most people in forums like that go there for tech support or to vent. That is why you can't gauge the quality of a product by visiting its official forums as most people in those want help. I can go to the Sony Walkman forums and it makes the product look bad same as if I went to iLounge for the iPod.

The official reviews are saying that it gets pretty hot (around 108 degrees F in the back) but that is pretty much typical for MacBook Pros (even going back to the Powerbook G4) and anything else that uses an aluminum casing. The guy I share an office with has an Envy 14 and his gets pretty damn warm as well. I don't know if it is on the same levels as the 13" MacBook Pro. Cramming that dual-core Core i7 processor in such a small space doesn't leave much room for ventilation.

 

Ram upgrade guide here

YouTube - 2010 MacBook Pro 8GB RAM Upgrade

 

Is there ANY reason to upgrade to 8Gb?
Will i need to open like 2-3gb worth of documents for it to kick in?

 

It really depends on how much multi-tasking you plan on doing and the requirements of the software you will be running. Personally, I will be upgrading to 8GB today (once everything comes in) simply because it was only $85 including the price of a Philips head #00 screwdriver. That is much better than the $180 Apple charges (at least through the education store, I think they charge $200 through their normal store).

In all reality, you will likely be fine with "just" 4GB of RAM. I have had that much RAM in my desktop at work for the past year and have never come across a need for more even when running AutoCAD, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, IE, and Lotus Notes all at once. That was all on a lowly dual-core Pentium as well.

 

^^ thats exactly what i was thinking.
Sure its "just $85" but do i need it? — is the question )

 

wether you need 8gb or not depends on what you do on your computer.

 

I am looking on it from the other end — what can i do to use it? -)

I am working as a designer — a lot of photoshop work.
Also gaming from time to time.
Obviously multitasking to some extend, watching HD video.
Nothing out of the ordinary.

 

open a ton of apps and keep them going... use huge pictures in photoshop... the fastest way to eat up a few gb fast is running a virtual machine.

 

Do you really need anything in life? We wouldn't own 95% of the crap that we do if we just went with stuff that we needed.

Based on your usage, upgrading to 8GB of RAM might be necessary especially if you plan on multi-tasking while having Photoshop open editing a large picture. You can look at it this way: upgrading to 8GB of RAM isn't going to hurt anything. You also don't have to upgrade right away, you can always use the system as-is and then upgrade to 8GB if you want a performance increase.

I am a creature of habit and have always put the maximum amount of RAM in each of my notebooks and desktops as soon as I purchased them. I was that way with my desktop in 1997 (which held an amazing 128MB of RAM!), my desktop from 2002 (that one went up to 1GB!1!), notebook in 2005, netbook in 2009, and now 13" MacBook Pro which arrived just a few minutes ago (though I am still at work, the RAM will be in later today from UPS). I have always thought that it was better to just spend the extra money to upgrade the RAM right away instead of coming across a situation where I really needed it at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning while running software necessary for my degree/job. I don't think 10 minutes of time and $85 is really all that much just to be on the safe side.

 

Thats not a fair comparison at all, i might not NEED new Bentley instead of my old fiat but my driving experience will improve if i switch to Bentley.

I have a notebook with 3gb ram now and i dont feel like its loading for too long or anything. I mean sure, large file may take few seconds to open but then i am working with it whole day without any glitches. That makes me think i wont get any extra experience for those $100usd and extra 4gb ram.

 

Ram is cheap. $80 for 8GB DDR3 1333 Sodimms. Plug and Play.

 

Putting i7 in 13inch doesn't create more heat compared to base i5 model. They are both dual core, i7 having extra 1mb cache. Sure i7 dual core will be faster than i5.

I tried looping a movie today, 640*480 resolution mp4. With brightness 4/16 kb light off, wifi bt on the whole time, it lasted little more than 7 hours. The temperature was around 40c and other parts mid or low 30c. I think it is amazing. I'm just sad that I'm gonna return this since I don't really really need it right now. I also thought there were too much going on in school for me it's actually hard to completely jump from windows tablet pc to osx. I will buy the 2012 mbp13 for sure though.

 

That was the point. We really don't need much in life that we actually end up buying. That is why, for 99% of the time, electronics purchases should not come down to "what do I need" but rather "what do I want." Otherwise we would all still be using our old Apple IIe machines with physical encyclopedias instead of having these nice MacBook Pros with high speed internet.

I installed my 8GB of RAM last night and it really took me all of 3 minutes. I only had one issue with one screw. The small screws around the sides of the MacBook Pro go in at an angle and, for whatever reason, one of the screws didn't want to go in at an angle. It took some fidgeting but it went back in and I have not had any bad experiences with that RAM previously linked to (though I ordered it through Amazon).

I did take notice of how much RAM I was actually using though. Last night, I had Safari open, the Mail client running, and I was downloading some media through iTunes using Home Sharing. I was using 2.5GB of RAM. Given that the Intel HD 3000 uses some system RAM, it might be a good idea to just upgrade to 8GB anyway so that you don't have to worry about things. I believe the HD 3000 can pull 3GB of system RAM (though it might be 1GB, I haven't checked the specs yet) when needed so that might mess some things up if you ever plan on playing games. It won't be an issue if you have 8GB of RAM total. I have had no previous experience with Intel powered Apple computers (so take this for what you will) but I must say that my 13" Core i7 MBP really flies with 8GB of RAM. I wasn't able to slow it down at all last night despite running a bunch of programs.

 

Want to add that based on a few reviews and asking others who have the 2011 and the 2010 (or had this one) say that battery life is equal, if not better due to the Intel graphics card.

Laptopmag and CNET's review of the 2011 show that as well and I believe CNET's review said that it was the best scoring laptop on their battery test out of all laptops, including netbooks and beat out the 2010 MBP by an hour. Even though, it is "rated' at 7, its only due to the change in testing I believe.


There are some youtube vids of people gaming COD, SCII and it seems to run perfectly fine on medium settings. The frame rate on the 320m is better by like 3 frames from what I've seen but for the battery life (and I dont do much gaming to notice a difference) I'd say that it's worth getting the new one.

Getting one today.


EDIT: Also want to add that if you look at the youtube vids and ask people who have them, the programs load VERY fast due to the core i5 processor (or core i7). I wouldn't say its AS fast as a 2010 MBP + SSD but it's fairly close, in which case you can skip the SSD. Or get one and have that much faster of a computer.
Ram at the higher clock speed also comes up higher on WEI if that means anything.