which of these 17" MBPs would you buy?

Trying to decide between these two 17" MBPs - based on cost, longevity, etc.

1) Core i5 2.53Ghz, 8GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, NVidia 330 512MB, High-res glossy screen - currently under the initial year warranty until May, at which point I'd need to shell out and buy Apple Care, which would take it through 2013. $1450

or

2) Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz, 8GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, Nvidia 9600 512MB, High-res AG screen - has Apple Care until April, 2012. $1150

I'm really stumped on this one. On the one hand, the 1st one would have a longer warranty and would also have the newer Core i processor. It's a great price already, but I'd need to buy Apple Care, which would run me $240. It also has the $100+ 1TB drive in it.

The second one is a great deal, wouldn't need Apple Care, but it would only be under warranty another year, and also has the older C2D processor. Anyone have any thoughts? Assuming both machines would serve my needs presently, which one would you get based on longevity and price? Or simply, which is the better deal in terms of hardware and price?

Thanks in advance.

 

I'm very sure that the MBPs equipped with Core2Duo CPUs come with the Nvidia 9400M/9600M GT combo & not the Nvidia GT330/Intel IGP combo.

Anyway, I'll take option 1. Good luck.

 

Oh yeah, you're right, that was a typo. Thanks for your advice, I'm leaning that way.

 

It depends what your going to do with it... and if you need the better power in the more expensive one or not.

 

For what I do right now, I'm sure the C2D could handle it. Some light gaming, Adobe Creative Suite, light/medium video editing. But I'd like to keep this MBP for at least a few years, which makes the i5 a little more attractive. C2D is also pretty old at this point. Still pondering, but leaning toward the i5.

 

Option 1, IMO.

 

I like option 1.

 

Why does Apple limit its graphics card to below 1 GB? I have a sony from a couple years ago and it has a 512 mb card.q

 

you'd have to learn about vram and marketing... many computer and graphics card makers will throw tons of extra ram on one so it looks better and they can up the price and make more profit off very cheap ram... even if it doesn't even improve performance at all.

The current high end 15 and the 17 are the first Mac laptops to have 1gb in them... the two the ops are looking at are both older models.

 

The cards are similar of the platforms I was thinking of and I have seen my older mac lag even in firefox if video is being played unlike my windows machiens, especially with divx ones.

Now, don't tell me divx is stupid and buggy and needs to be killed off as well!

 

eh...the 330M is about 20%-30% more powerful than the 9600M GT, iirc.

 

Based on cost, and if you need to save money now, it's clear: second option.

Based on longevity, etc., etc., etc., also it's quite clear to me. If I were you I'd go with the first option. You won`t need to upgrade in the long run.
I include an encouraging sentence taken from Infoworld that would support the firs op. (there must be many examples in the same way): "The 15- and 17-inch quad-core models deliver twice the CPU performance of Core 2 Duo, three times the graphics performance of the previous generation's Nvidia GeForce GT 330M, and more than ten times the external I/O bandwidth of 800MHz FireWire..."

 

I have an early 2008 17 inch with high-res matte (I far prefer matte to glossy for software engineering work) with Penryn (later Core 2 Duo) and it runs fine and I can see myself using it for the next five years unless Apple comes out with a model compelling enough for me to drop $3K on something newer).

In terms of longevity, newer is better. Technology is improving at a rapid pace. The Nehalem processor has vector instructions that Core 2 Duo doesn't. You get a faster bus, bigger disk, etc.

If cost is a factor, then go with #2. I suspect that #2 would be good for the next five years as well. I can drool all I want at the new MBPs - the truth is that my 3+ year-old model meets all of my needs today and will likely meet them for many years to come. BTW, the one major upgrade to my machine that has made a huge performance difference is the addition of an ExpressCard SSD - boot time and application launch time is so much faster. The 17 inch models give you the ExpressCard slot so that you always have the option of putting in a small ExpressCard SSD in the future.

 

Thank you, everyone, for responding with your advice and helping me make a choice. Of course, after I debated and debated and finally decided on the 1st MBP (with the Core i5), the seller of the 2nd MBP finally sent me some pics that revealed the computer had been dropped. Which of course removed the decision altogether. At least it was the one I didn't want.

For posterity, and in case anyone faces a similar dilemma in the future: ultimately, I decided on the 1st option because of a couple of key factors - the longer warranty, better battery life, and better graphics card. I'm hoping to keep this computer for a couple of years at least, so I think it makes sense.

Thanks again.

 

The Intel C2D on the older models at 2.66 and 2.93 Ghz are not able to reach 8GB ram... only 6GB ram will be readable. So you made a good choice on the i5. =)

 

It seems the computer is slower (that round cursor thing appears more often in firefox) since I have upgraded to 6GB.

 

I believe that memory works best in matched pairs. Mismatched sizes can cause performance issues. Larger DIMMs might be slower than smaller DIMMs too.

 

When I was researching this issue, I didn't find it an issue for OS X, though I know know it is for dual core windows machines. Larger DIMMs shouldn't be much different if specifications are the same, though I think I read that since they process more information in a shorter period of time, an end user might feel a slow down.

 

I think that the issue with larger dimms is that you need and additional layer of branching to get to the right memory bank within the DIMMs.