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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Notebooks > Need a new laptop

Need a new laptop
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mattyb
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Mar 8, 2011, 09:18 AM
 
I didn't want to pollute other threads, hence this one.

The Feb 2007 iMac that I have is getting a bit, well moody. Plus I want mobility.

I don't do anything fancy on the iMac, web stuff, music (50G of music), watch films (streamed and downloaded), download stuff, read stuff etc. BUT I use Aperture. Alot. The perf isn't bad. I've gotten used to the occassional beach ball, or seeing the Processing word at the bottom of the Aperture screen. I use the odd Aperture plug-in and Photomatix and Pixelmator a bit as well.

So I need a laptop that will do Aperture as well as the 'usual' stuff. But that 1G VRAM 15 incher is 400€ more. Yeah you get a better CPU and some more space, but damn thats alot.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Mar 8, 2011, 09:42 AM
 
Compared to a 4 year old iMac the 256MB card should still be a decent upgrade.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
mattyb  (op)
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Mar 8, 2011, 10:37 AM
 
Yeah thats what I was thinking.

On the everymac site you can get Geekbench scores and my iMac gets 2800 compared to the MBP 15" with the Radeon HD 6490M (at 256M also) gets 8800. Why do I need that 1G of VRAM. Yes, it would be nice but I'm cheap.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Mar 8, 2011, 11:58 AM
 
It will stay faster for longer. It is quite a big upgrade from 256 -> 1024MB, plus the faster GPU plus the faster CPU. You can't upgrade it later (You can but it would cost way more).
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
SierraDragon
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Mar 8, 2011, 11:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by mattyb View Post
...get Geekbench scores and my iMac gets 2800 compared to the MBP 15" with the Radeon HD 6490M (at 256M also) gets 8800. Why do I need that 1G of VRAM. ...BUT I use Aperture. Alot.
Since v1 Aperture has always demanded strong graphics support, irrespective of Geekbench CPU scores. The lesser MBP will run Aperture less well. How much less we will have to wait for BareFeats.com to hopefully run some real-world tests.

-Allen
     
mattyb  (op)
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Mar 9, 2011, 05:07 AM
 
You guys on commission? ;-)
     
Waragainstsleep
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Mar 9, 2011, 05:38 AM
 
Only if you are a business customer and buy through my Apple store Rep.

#fulldisclosure

I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
P
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Mar 9, 2011, 09:41 AM
 
Note that the 6750M is more than twice as fast the 6490M.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
SierraDragon
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Mar 9, 2011, 11:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by mattyb View Post
You guys on commission? ;-)
Nah, just an Aperture user since v1, Photoshop since the Power Mac 8500. Very accustomed to hardware restricting graphics app performance.
     
SierraDragon
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Mar 12, 2011, 08:13 PM
 
From BareFears.com commenting 6490M v. 6750M:

"We were hoping to include the 2011 MacBook Pro 2.0 with Radeon 6490M graphics. We have asked some remote mad scientists who have this model to do some testing. We don't have all those results yet, but I can tell you that it performs similarly to the 2010 MacBook Pro with GeForce 330M. In other words, you'll save a little money but lose a lot of graphics power." (emphasis mine)
     
Longwalker
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Mar 16, 2011, 07:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by SierraDragon View Post
Barefeats: " ...but I can tell you that it performs similarly to the 2010 MacBook Pro with GeForce 330M."
Mattyb, I'm in a similar situation to you. I find my 2008 MBP is just too slow running Aperture so I'm soon upgrading to a 2011 MBP for additional performance boost.

Here is a different BareFeats.com test that compares the new MBP (with the Radeon HD 6750M graphics) against last year's MBP (with GeForce 330M which, as SierraDragon pointed out, performs similarly to the new 256MB Radeon 6490M). Quite a dramatic boost in performance. I'm hoping that matters to Aperture.

2011 MacBook Pro -- 3D gaming

Personally, I'm going to pay the extra $400 (ouch!) to get the 6750M. Not so much because it has 1GB of VRAM, though I'm sure that will help hold textures for high-rez 3D games. More because it's a faster GPU, has at least 512MB VRAM, and is benchmarked to be significantly faster. Also, the i7 CPU is a bit faster, and I'm planning on ordering it with the optional 7200rpm 500GB hard drive (which is "free" with your extra $400 jump).

...David
     
   
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