i5 or i7 Macbook pro?

I am about to purchase a 15" Macbook pro with 8 GB memory and hi-res display with antiglare screen. The i5 product has 256K video memory vs. 512K on the i7. Other than that it's down to a slight diffence in clock sppedd and 33% more cache.

The main application requiring performance is 3D cad (vectorworks). The laptop will also run Fusion or Parallels (any feedback on these?) to support Windows 7 and some Windows Server 2008 development.

Can I expect any realistic performance gain by spending the extra $300 (Australian) for the i7 version for this application (read no games).

 

how complex of vectorworks rendering are you planning on doing?

and do a little reading here

http://kbase.vectorworks.net/questions/711/Vectorworks+2010+System+Recommendations especially under additional details.

and

http://kbase.vectorworks.net/questi...+Guidelines+for+Vectorworks+-+9{47}15{47}2009

you WILL want the i7 and 512VRAM though

 

We do industrial design. At the moment on a Dell M1512 XPS the renders take about 20 seconds.

In an immediate sense, I will be running Vectorworks 2010 on Windows 7 under Parallels or Fusion. This is purely financial based - will change to a native Mac Vectorworks at the next major upgrade. It will be interesting to know how the graphics performance will cope for a virtual Windows. The alternative I suppose is to run windows in Bootcamp but I then lose the ability to concurrently run Mac applications.

It's also a mystery whether Fusion or Parallels knows about the automatic hardware graphics switching?

 

You probably won't want to work in parallels or fusion, there will be a significant 3D performance drop verses native OS X, or bootcamp Windows.

 

If you do mostly windows work, don't buy a mac.
Straight up, that's the rule.

The hardware is ultimately the same these days, and if you are going to be running windows through vmware/bootcamp/anything really, get a PC.

The extra price to spend on a mac these days is if you are taking advantage of the operating system and build quality, and generally are a happy Apple customer.

 

^ that.

also, the i7 will only grant you about ~10% better performance which, depending on your usage, is negligible considering it costs $130-$150 for that upgrade. while decreasing your battery life (it uses more energy both idle and at load).

probably money better spent if put towards an SSD drive. that's where the real performances gains are found these days and it'll greatly increase your battery life.

I'd go i5 unless a quad-core option were available (there isn't one).

and can I be bitter for a second: If I buy a MBP, I'd want to buy it from Amazon, since sales tax can be averted. Naturally, the only pre-configured MBP's that Amazon sells are the damn glossy screen versions.

would have been less than my student discount. LeSigh.

 

I guess it comes down to being able to run a virtual Windows on a Mac but can't run a virtual Mac on Windows.

I am wanting to own a Mac so that I can expeience a Mac operating system and run some applications that are probably better on a Mac than on a PC. Acobe CS5 comes to mind (I hope) and Vectorworks when I get the next upgrade.

 

uhhh....yes, you can.

would you like me to post a screenshot?

 

CS5 seems to be alot better in windows sofar ( third party information from a friend who is a 25 year graphics designer on both platforms ). Vectorworks is identical in its interface und functionality.

 

To me heavy-duty computer use like CAD doesn't mix with virtual machines. It's nice for Outlook, but 3D performance still isn't close to native.

Creative Suite should run equally good (bad?) under both operating systems. There's no reason to go OS X (and Macs in general) for Adobe alone. Mind you, there are plenty other valid reasons though.

Why are you looking at laptops? Considering your intended use, I'd recommend something fast with a quality, big honking screen instead. Look at the larger iMacs, but don't buy a Mac Pro unless you absolutely can't wait. It's been more than a year since the last update.

 

After a lot of research I am convinced that both Parallels and Fusio0n are fairly pathetic at direct 3D performance. Although I was really keen on a new Macbook Pro, I am feeling that I would get frustrated with the graphics of a virtual machine. But I still want to do some Iphone and Ipad development - not much but some.

So how effective is a virtualised Mac under VMware on a Windows machine? Has anyone done a load and go version without messing around?

The windows machine I am looking at is the new Dell Precision M4500.

 

it is illegal and against the forum rules here to discuss...

if you ONLY want to use OSX for iPhone development, then you might want to grab a cheap little refurbed Mac Mini.

If you want to go with the laptop, your going to be booting directly into Windows a lot, and not using Windows in a virtual machine to have normal graphics performance... if you spend most of your time doing that, might as well have bought a Windows machine in the first place.

 

Sorry - I am happy that you picked that up. It is good to be in a community that respects the pitfalls of piracy.