Is the new MACBOOK PRO just a cosmetic upgrade ?

faisalbaig · Post by **faisalbaig** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 6:41 am

Seems the new MBs only have upgraded video cards and the glossy screen and track pad, all else seems to be the same......and less Firewire connectivity.

True ?
Thanks
Faisal

john doe by choice · Post by **john doe by choice** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:01 am

I wouldn't say it's totally cosmetic...the build of it is supposed to be streamlined, which, the way Apple talks about it, should in theory make it lighter and sturdier. I would say that the new approach to accessibility for the hard drive is a plus for a few reasons (replaceable if the drive craps out, or if you want to upgrade without going to the apple store, or have a separate hard drive for different applications). I personally like that the bottom part is constructed of one piece - no button to open it that may have problems, and the screws on my older MBP have come loose on the sides more than once which also isn't an issue on the new ones. No button on the trackpad, so it's one less thing to worry about, although I'm sure it takes some getting used to.

I would go to an Apple dealer and pick one up, literally - hold it in your hands, see how it feels. My MBP will actually flex in my hands, but the new ones, much, much less, which is definitely attractive.

And although it's boring and Sir Jobs seems a little crotchety in the video, you should watch the keynote on the release of the new MBP's, but fast forward through the part where he passes the empty body around...you'd think they would edit that crap down, but whatever.

Hope that helps.

mohler · Post by **mohler** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:16 am

There's also a significant increase in the front side bus speed from 667mHz to 1066mHz and it uses DDR3 memory as standard which means you can do more operations quicker.

Having a separate graphics processor means that you're CPU can be freed up to focus on processing your apps & not drawing the screen.

Sales pitch over...

sroom3000 · Post by **sroom3000** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 3:39 pm

mohler wrote:There's also a significant increase in the front side bus speed from 667mHz to 1066mHz and it uses DDR3 memory as standard which means you can do more operations quicker.

Having a separate graphics processor means that you're CPU can be freed up to focus on processing your apps & not drawing the screen.

Sales pitch over...

yes, having the bus speed increased is a huge improvement. in many ways, with a mac, the bus speed is more important then the actual processor speed. you will notice a significant difference in speed from an older model with say a 2.0 core 2 duo processor then with the newer model, same processor, faster bus. add this to the faster ram and yes, this is much more then a cosmetic upgrade.

Hidden Driveways · Post by **Hidden Driveways** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:29 pm

The glass screen is great if you don't like concentrating on your work and would rather see a ghostly image of yourself and the space you are in every second of every moment you ever use the machine.

Geebag · Post by **Geebag** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:24 pm

Hidden Driveways wrote:The glass screen is great if you don't like concentrating on your work and would rather see a ghostly image of yourself and the space you are in every second of every moment you ever use the machine.

continuous · Post by **continuous** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:19 pm

Are they not offering the matte screen at all now? I love my matte screens.

Atomikat · Post by **Atomikat** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:48 am

continuous wrote:Are they not offering the matte screen at all now? I love my matte screens.

I love my glossy one...

Crash · Post by **Crash** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:53 am

If you need performance, get the one with the biggest CPU, then comes cache and only then comes memory performance. Memory performance has less of an impact than CPU, especially for anything that does not involve processing audio samples of mb large size. Most/All algorithms are gonna fit into the L2 cache anyway.

And compared to DDR2/3 memory bandwidth (several thousand mb/s) the size of audio streams is negible (0.25 mb/s for a stereo stream at 44.1k/24-bit).