Need advice buying a new Macbook Pro

Ken Yamamoto's icon

Dear fellaz,

I need your advice before burning hell lot of money.
I am going to buy a new Macbook Pro.
[ I know, I know… they are all way too expensive, but after spending my whole computer-life on Macs I am not going to change. ]

So the starting point is: I am working with my Max teacher on a Max patch which will process my (live-) voice while performing poetry. Sounds pretty trivial but I already see that this will be very intense for processor and ram because a lot of processing will have to happen simultaneously.

I always worked on 13" Macbook Pros. Then, not long ago, a friend told me that this will be a lot less problematic if I switch to a 15" because the 15" Macbook Pros have Quadcore Processors which are ways faster. Is that so important? Is this that noticeable? Plus, my further question is, if this will depend a lot on 8GB ram vs 16GB ram?

Do I worry too much about specs? Any advice is really appreciated. Damn these things got even more expensive and not upgradable.

Best
K

benniy's icon

in case you haven't read this thread yet – maybe it gives you a hint or two for starters :) (– also from the horses mouth, rodrigo).

beyond that, i'd be interested in any other comments, too :)

Ken Yamamoto's icon

Oha! Thank you. A Site search is always a good starting point :-)

Ernest's icon

Do not buy another Macbook pro. They have absolutely terrible performance. Get a Windows machine with dedicated graphics memory. The processor speed makes no difference at all if your machine has shared graphics memory like all Macbooks.

broc's icon

Are there any benchmarks about the graphics performance of Macbook vs. Windows machines?

spectro's icon

@broc Theres a jitter specific benchmark on this site comparing a variety of mac/win hardware/os but it could be of use...

Pis Pas's icon

The hardware is crap and extremely expensive. You can get an amazing windows machine for 1/2 of the price.
They explode kids and they even pay taxes. Can't believe people still buy this overrated design sh***
My2cents

dhjdhjdhj's icon

That's just the wrong way to think about it. First you need to decide what software you want to be able to run and then figure it what you need.

Some may feel that OS X is worth a premium.

Also, while Macs can seem to be more expensive, the total cost of ownership is often less because you don't waste as much time on admin crap. Obviously that also depends on how your time is valued.

As for the hardware being crap, I think that has to be considered to be your personal experience. For the most part, Apple stuff is damn well engineered.