How much longer do you think I can use this?

I bought my Macbook Pro in April 2007, it is the base model with the 2.16ghz C2D, 128mb x1600 etc. It is completely stock except I have upgraded the RAM to 2GB.

Now, I am NOT a power user, I do not game on it, I do mostly school stuff. BUT, I am a power user when it comes to speed and productivity ie, having a lot of apps open in multiple spaces (I upgraded to Leopard), and I absolutely hate waiting for safari pages to load.

I am happy with the current performance, but I did notice an increase in speed when I used my friend's MBP with the 2.6 or 2.8 ghz MBP and I really liked it.

So my question is...how much longer until Ill notice that my machine is considerably slower than what the current technology offers?? 2 years? 3?

The reason I ask is because my warantee is about to expire soon and I dont know whether to upgrade to a newer model, or buy AppleCare to prolong this one.

 

Well, mine is older. Bought mine Sept. 2006. So far, the only place where I feel like I need more power is when I game.

It is simply impossible to play WoW and use Firefox. Of course, thats more of Firefox being crap than anything else (using Beta3). Which has forced me to use the POS Safari browser (come on Apple, at least let it support FTP).

I'm pretty sure mine is Yonah based, so my speed is a good bit behind both the C2D chips (merom and penryn). However, I don't feel the need to upgrade yet. And I'm a power user.

So I say you have another 2 years on that. Maybe longer. I know plenty of non power users who have kept their iBooks and what not for 4-5 years.

 

If it's only safari taking a long time, it's possible it's your internet connection.

 

I guess it's kind of a personal thing, but I have the same model as you and I'm planning on waiting at least until Nehalem comes out before thinking for changing. In the mean time I'm going to upgrade to 3GB of RAM soon since 2GB SODIMMs are extremely affordable now. I'm also planning on upgrading to a 7200rpm HDD when the sizes finally break past 200GB. The 160GB Hitachi I have was the fastest 2.5" 5400rpm HDD available at the time, but it is definitely the component that is holding back the system.

The generation after our 2.16GHz C2D were available in 2.2GHz, 2.4GHz, and eventually 2.6GHz, but they weren't that much faster since they were the exact same Merom processor just with a faster FSB from 667MHz to 800MHz, which isn't that critical since the 4MB L2 is a pretty good buffer. The current Penryn are only an architectural refresh, only being about 5% faster at the same clock speeds, and the current models still use the same chipset and 800MHz FSB. In June, Intel is releasing the Montevina platform which uses Penryn but with a faster 1066MHz FSB and DDR3 800 SODIMMs. These new Penryns may go up to 3.06GHz, and so will definitely be much faster than a 2.16GHz C2D.

However, Nehalem in Q4 will actually be a significant architectural redesign over Merom/Penryn and I think that will be the generation to wait for, especially since it's quite close. A lot of things will change including the return of Hyperthreading (this time in a form that is supposed to work better) so that even dual cores will process 4 threads. Quad cores won't likely make it to mainstream mobile chips though since the same 45nm process as Penryn will still be in use so quad cores will be too power hungry, but with Hyperthreaded dual cores, it should be good enough. Nehalem will also have an integrated memory controller like AMD for lower latency memory access, and the FSB will be replaced with CSI also for lower latency. Needless to say Nehalem should definitely display the generational gap you are looking for. The only thing is that desktop Nehalem chips aren't scheduled until Q4, and mobile chips won't likely be out until Q1 2009 since there is little threat from AMD on mobile and notebooks have already been refreshed with 800MHz Penryns and soon Montevina and I can't see Intel having 3 refreshes in the same year. But that is a year's wait, and if that is too long, you should still wait for Montevina since in addition to the new platform, nVidia and ATI are waiting until then to introduce their mobile GPU refreshes. And we might see the mythical MBP case redesign with Montevina too.

 

I didn't catch that all the first time Arquis, but now I reread the OP post...
You're spot on. A processor increase will NOT increase page loads AT ALL (at least, not at this level)... If you were trying to load a Flash heavy page on say, a 486... then yeah, there would be a difference.

But there really should not be a speed difference in rendering the same pages that are uncached (which would make a huge difference) between those two laptops on the same internet connection, unless there is a problem with the network card on one laptop.

 

I'd replace Safari.

 

I've got a friend with a G4 Mac mini and he's just now starting to feel the need to save up for a new computer. The good thing is, that he can still get a decent amount for it because it's a mac. Apple computers tend to hold their value a lot more than other manufacturers.

I'll probably be using this machine for a good while. I bought it in April or May of '07 and it's still lightning fast for me.(Came from a desktop with an Athlon 3200+ w/ 1GB ram)I can't imagine upgrading until the end of '09 or beginning of '10 unless I come into some big money.