MacBook Pro - 2GB or 4GB RAM / 5400RPM HDD or 7200RPM HDD

My brother is looking to get a MacBook Pro (he's been converted and brainwashed after a day training with Apple lol) .. And I've got no clue about Leopard so ..

Would performance benefit greatly from have 4GB of RAM instead of 2GB? And HDD wise 5400RPM or 7200RPM ..

I know the 7200 is obviously faster (better seek times and all that jazz) and having 4GB of RAM would be good if your doing lots of multi-tasking stuff but with Leopard are you going to notice not having the extra RAM or faster drive?

Cheers

Anubis_386 said:

My brother is looking to get a MacBook Pro (he's been converted and brainwashed after a day training with Apple lol)

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Awesome, tell him 'Welcome' from us.

Anubis_386 said:

.. And I've got no clue about Leopard so ..

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Don't sweat it. Leopard is the first Mac OS to get official unix certification, so if you've played with Unix or Linux there will be many familiar things under that pretty GUI. If you haven't, that's ok too. Because getting started here should be a great experience. Soon he will enjoy completing the same task in 3 button clicks instead of 12 with some 'other' OS's.

Two great places to look for 10.5 software are: http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/leopard/ and http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php

Anubis_386 said:

Would performance benefit greatly from have 4GB of RAM instead of 2GB? And HDD wise 5400RPM or 7200RPM ..

I know the 7200 is obviously faster (better seek times and all that jazz) and having 4GB of RAM would be good if your doing lots of multi-tasking stuff but with Leopard are you going to notice not having the extra RAM or faster drive?

Cheers

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In a word, yes. Both will enhance the machine's performance greatly. A good 7200 rpm drive with 16 or 32MB cache can increase performance by almost 28%. I personally like this drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145160 and the Mushkin ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146683

Now if it's a question of expense fear not, both of these upgrades can be done by the user with a screwdriver and a few minutes of time. You can get the ram and drive upgrade from any reputable PC parts supplier (Newegg) for much cheaper than the Apple store charges.

If money is no object and your brother would prefer the convenience then by all means, have Apple to the upgrades for you and you'll never have to worry about it again over the entire life of the machine. His laptop, like any laptop will performa better with better components. Many of Apple's hardware come off the exact same manufacturing plants (i.e. Foxconn) just any other PC hardware.


- Blackstar

If he's doing internet, email, general usage, etc... 4GB Ram is kind of a waste; 2GB will be plenty. If he's going to use resource intensive apps like Adobe CS3 or Final Cut Pro than I would highly recommend 4GB.

If the 2 HDDs are the same storage size than the 7200 will definitely be faster. However a 320GB 5400 will usually perform just as well as a 160GB 7200 drive. So that is something to consider.

If there is a budget in mind I think these points should help your Bro out.

It dawned on me that I could put 4GB of RAM in for him easily (and found it would be much cheaper then having Apple do it .. How easy is it to swap out HDDs (compared to just putting more RAM in ..) The 5400 HDD is 250GB and 7200 HDD is 200GB .. But if I can get upgrade it for him then what's the best price/performance/capacity drive I could get?

Also .. Any other upgrades/mods around?

Cheers for all your help by the way .. I'm a hardcore M$ man .. but those Apple Time Capsule's (which he also plans on getting .. Despite the quantity of network storage we already have) looks pretty dam cool ..

Replacing ram in a MBP is pretty simple. The HDD is considerably more involved. It's not hard just a lot of screws and you need to be careful when lifting the keyboard area from the lower chassis. There's plenty of guides online too so you can see what you're in for.

Yes getting ram and HDD parts from newegg or other store is way cheaper than Apple. It's cheaper than any manufacturer/distributor and that's what I did with my XPS M1530 too. I even replaced the screen in my laptop as the one Dell originally gave me was horrible.

Anubis_386 said:

It dawned on me that I could put 4GB of RAM in for him easily (and found it would be much cheaper then having Apple do it .. How easy is it to swap out HDDs (compared to just putting more RAM in ..) The 5400 HDD is 250GB and 7200 HDD is 200GB .. But if I can get upgrade it for him then what's the best price/performance/capacity drive I could get?

Also .. Any other upgrades/mods around?

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Here are some install guides to help if you want to do it yourself:

The 15 inch MBP hard drive: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Core-2-Duo/Hard-Drive-Replacement/115/10/

The 15 inch MBP everything list: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Core-2-Duo/115/

The 17 inch hard drive: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/MacBook-Pro-17-Inch-Core-Duo/Hard-Drive-Replacement/87/8/

The 17 inch everything list: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac/MacBook-Pro-17-Inch-Core-Duo/87/

The regular MacBook upgrades are far easier IMO, so if he does not need a huge 15 inch screen, the benchmark differences between them are minor. You can save a lot of cash upgrading a 13 inch white 2.4 GHz MacBook yourself.

The only difference you are really paying for is the larger screen and better video card in the MBP GeForce 8600M GT over the MacBook's Intel GMA X3100.


- Blackstar

Anubis_386 said:

My brother is looking to get a MacBook Pro (he's been converted and brainwashed after a day training with Apple lol) .. And I've got no clue about Leopard so ..

Would performance benefit greatly from have 4GB of RAM instead of 2GB? And HDD wise 5400RPM or 7200RPM ..

I know the 7200 is obviously faster (better seek times and all that jazz) and having 4GB of RAM would be good if your doing lots of multi-tasking stuff but with Leopard are you going to notice not having the extra RAM or faster drive?

Cheers

Click to expand...

5200 vs 7200 isn't going to be that great of a deal unless you're doing some heavy duty disk i/o stuff on it which you usually don't on a laptop.

OSX LOVES RAM!!!! The more you feed it, the faster it goes!

I got me 2GB of 667mhz SoDIMM for my iMac for $35. NOW is the time to buy RAM as it is CHEAP!!! The same stuff a year ago would've cost me $240.

FudgeNuggets said:

5200 vs 7200 isn't going to be that great of a deal unless you're doing some heavy duty disk i/o stuff on it which you usually don't on a laptop.

OSX LOVES RAM!!!! The more you feed it, the faster it goes!

I got me 2GB of 667mhz SoDIMM for my iMac for $35. NOW is the time to buy RAM as it is CHEAP!!! The same stuff a year ago would've cost me $240.

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And to add to this...

avoid buying ram from apple... they charge wayyyyy to much. Buy some online and put it in yourself... you'll probably save 100-150$.

Edit: i suppose if i had read the entire thread... I wouldn't have repeated what the last few posts have already said....

No worries .. All input appreciated .. Now I just need to find a good 4GB kit of RAM that'll work with a MacBook Pro in a UK based online store .. So far I've only found 1 kit that says it's 'Mac Compatible' ..

Anubis_386 said:

No worries .. All input appreciated .. Now I just need to find a good 4GB kit of RAM that'll work with a MacBook Pro in a UK based online store .. So far I've only found 1 kit that says it's 'Mac Compatible' ..

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If Macs in the UK use the same basic hardware as in North America you can buy just about any 200pin SODIMM memory at 667MHz. Mac Compatible Ram is the same thing as Vista Ready Ram or SLI Ready Ram, it's all BS

Anubis_386 said:

No worries .. All input appreciated .. Now I just need to find a good 4GB kit of RAM that'll work with a MacBook Pro in a UK based online store .. So far I've only found 1 kit that says it's 'Mac Compatible' ..

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Don't worry about it saying Mac Compatible. It's all Mac compatible now since they switched over to x86.

4G for sure, leopard alone uses close to 1G and ram is so cheap these days

Awesome .. That should save some £££ then .. Cheers everyone