[Veltliner]

I'm going to pass on a 15" MacBook Pro for now.

The 13" is a good upgrade from what I have now (24" white iMac 2.1 core 2 duo), even the integrated graphics with 384 mb RAM seems a good upgrade.

Now: I decided to put an SSD in.

1. I heard the Apple SSDs aren't the best. Is it better to buy the basic configuration and buy an SSD and put it in yourself (is this easy to do?)

2. RAM upgrade: is it easy to do the upgrade to 8 Gb RAM yourself?

What SSD would be best to put into the 13" MBP?


PS: spinning disc hard drives can't be filled up without a huge performance penalty. How about SSDs? Can you fill them up and NOT have a performance penalty?


PS2: The monitor will be a NEC Wuxi wide gamut display (24"). They are ugly, but the Apple cinema displays are no longer usable because of their glossy surface.

[Veltliner]

Note: I will wait for the new MacBook Air to see how fast they are and if you can use Photoshop CS5 and Final Cut Pro with them OK.

[OreoCookie]

Regarding cpu speed: the slowest MacBook Pro (i. e. the slowest 13" MacBook Pro) is faster than the fastest MacBook Pro of the previous generation (15" or 17"). That being said, the quad core models are even faster. For Photoshop, this is pretty much irrelevant, but for Final Cut Pro, this may make a difference.

2. RAM upgrades are easy. All you need is a screwdriver. I wouldn't recommend anything less than 8 GB at this point.

1. Apple's SSDs. From what I hear, they're not the fastest (~225 MB/s read). The fastest SSDs claim to be twice as fast (~550 MB/s read, 520 MB/s write), but I doubt the controller in the MacBook Pros can keep up with that. There are cheaper ones with a throughput that is slightly faster (270 MB/s/220 MB/s) and quite a bit faster (415 MB/s/260 MB/s). SSDs do not have a performance penalty.*

In terms of economy, I would replace the optical drive with an SSD and keep a harddrive for mass storage. You can transfer single files to the SSD and then work off it as a scratch drive (seek times are one order of magnitude faster in SSDs).

* Harddrives have one, because of geometry: the farther inside the sectors lie, the smaller the circumference and thus linear throughput.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

...see how fast they are and if you can use Photoshop CS5 and Final Cut Pro with them OK.

Any SSD box will feel faster to you on probably all apps. IMO the idea of using HDs for boot drives or for scratch is obsolete.

"use them OK" will be very personal, dependent on each individual's workflow. And IMO any Sandy Bridge box with SSD will feel fast, but IMO what actually is fast is better defined in the apps tests we see at barefeats.com than in the pure cpu tests like geekbench.

I agree with Spheric that 8 GB makes sense.

All that said, sometimes a setup can have a synergy of RAM/CPU/GPU/SSD. It seems to me that Apple is hitting some kind of synergy with the better Sandy Bridge boxes so far, but I have not worked with any integrated-graphics-only boxes, and integrated graphics do not perform well on heavy graphics apps.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Regarding cpu speed: the slowest MacBook Pro (i. e. the slowest 13" MacBook Pro) is faster than the fastest MacBook Pro of the previous generation (15" or 17"). That being said, the quad core models are even faster. For Photoshop, this is pretty much irrelevant, but for Final Cut Pro, this may make a difference.

2. RAM upgrades are easy. All you need is a screwdriver. I wouldn't recommend anything less than 8 GB at this point.

1. Apple's SSDs. From what I hear, they're not the fastest (~225 MB/s read). The fastest SSDs claim to be twice as fast (~550 MB/s read, 520 MB/s write), but I doubt the controller in the MacBook Pros can keep up with that. There are cheaper ones with a throughput that is slightly faster (270 MB/s/220 MB/s) and quite a bit faster (415 MB/s/260 MB/s). SSDs do not have a performance penalty.*

In terms of economy, I would replace the optical drive with an SSD and keep a harddrive for mass storage. You can transfer single files to the SSD and then work off it as a scratch drive (seek times are one order of magnitude faster in SSDs).

* Harddrives have one, because of geometry: the farther inside the sectors lie, the smaller the circumference and thus linear throughput.

So you are basically recommending to go with Apple's SSD's and not start screwing around with other brands - is this a correct interpretation?

I know the 4-core will be faster. But one has to cut corners so I'm going with the 13" MBP (or a MBA - but I don't think their graphics cards will be that great).

My plan is to keep the Superdrive and to use an external hard drive through Thunderbolt. This would work as I won't use the laptop solo for any kind of editing, but just for writing, and when it's connected to the 24" display I will have the external hard drive at hand.

Only thing to consider is if I can do with only 128 Gb hard drive space. I will probably have to put all RAW files to an external hard drive right away and only keep the selected, project specific files on the hard drive.

I'll see how much space Lion will take. Photoshop and Final Cut Pro are small software packages (if you don't install the 50 or so Gb "extras" )

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by SierraDragon 

Any SSD box will feel faster to you on probably all apps. IMO the idea of using HDs for boot drives or for scratch is obsolete.

"use them OK" will be very personal, dependent on each individual's workflow. And IMO any Sandy Bridge box with SSD will feel fast, but IMO what actually is fast is better defined in the apps tests we see at barefeats.com than in the pure cpu tests like geekbench.

I agree with Spheric that 8 GB makes sense.

All that said, sometimes a setup can have a synergy of RAM/CPU/GPU/SSD. It seems to me that Apple is hitting some kind of synergy with the better Sandy Bridge boxes so far, but I have not worked with any integrated-graphics-only boxes, and integrated graphics do not perform well on heavy graphics apps.

Yes, I'm definitely going for an SSD.

I know the 15" MBP has a better graphics card. But compared to what I have now (7600GT in a 24" core2 duo) it will be a good upgrade. The 7600 GT is so old it can't handle even CS5 correctly. I sometimes get images that won't display sharp at 25%. They will be OK at 16,7%, and at 33%, but at 25% they won't work.

As I'm running a business, more regular updates are fine, tax-wise. So I can always do another step up next year.

And, by the way, the 24" NECs should be pretty nice displays (I am a bit sad I can't buy Apple's industrial design for my desktop. I'd prefer a matte display by Apple to the ugly bezels by NEC).