Ableton Forum

Hey Guys, I'm shopping around for a new Macbook Pro and I want to get one of the new processors. I'm currently thinking about getting a 15 Inch Macbook Pro with an I7 Processor and a 7200 RPM HD. However, I have been talking with a few people and have heard that the difference between the I5 and the I7 is minimal and it would be better to invest in a solid state drive and an I5 instead of an I7. What do you guys think about this?

The reason I need to get a new computer is because I currently have a macbook pro with Core Duo and a 7200 RPM HD with as much ram as it can hold. Basically my computer is maxed out and Live is still glitching out on me. When I play live my CPU usage spikes to 80% when I launch scenes. I've tried storing clips to RAM, unwarping and cropping clips, and have exported all the clips with their automation to try and reduce CPU usage as much as possible but I just need a new rig!

Please let me know what you guys think about the differences between the I5 and I7 processors and solid state HDs! Thanks guys, peace, love.

i7
no SSD

Why no SSD?

I've been hearing that it's not that good of an idea for music apps, but I haven't been able to find out why. It seems like it'd be a better idea, since the seek times are probably faster, and I imagine the throughput is too.

thanks for the responses, anyone out there been able to tell the diff between the i5 and i7 and whether it would be better to get an i5 with an sshd than an i7 with a 7200 rpm hd?

I just got the i5 15" non-glare with the 7200 500gb drive. The difference between spending $200 more for the i7 didn't seem justified to me. I also looked into SSD, but that also didn't make any sense financially.

I haven't really gotten to fully test out this machine yet. I'm still moving in, consolidating the data from my G5 tower and PowerBook G4. Honestly though, it seems like you need to scale back your Live set a bit. Less may be more.

also if you are running a core duo, i mean that is not really ancient now, is it? you might want to try reinstalling OS X to see if Live performs better ..... mac users don't have to do this very often but a while ago my macbook pro core 2 duo was acting up in all kinds of ways. a reinstall of Leopard got it back on track. do you have lots of free space on your hard disk?

that said, i got to use my friends i7 mbp and it is VERY snappy! was loading lots of vsts and plugins and no hiccups. this was the stock speed hard drive, so can't vouch for the benefit of a ssd.

Thanks for all of the feedback. I really don't think reinstalling Live would make the difference. I do have about 30 free gigs on my HD.

In my Live set I have over 1,000 clips... It's just getting way too big and I've tried everything to reduce CPU Usage but still can't seem to get it low enough to not glitch out on my when I play to 16th quantization...

the i7 is an a bit faster i5, it has nothing more or special. in the desktops, the i7 is a quadcore while the i5 is a dualcore. in the macbooks, all are "just" dualcores, the i7 being a bit faster.

the ssd on the other hand will make a world of difference in performance, and make you suddenly not care that much about your laptop anymore. it can fall down while on stage, doesn't matter, as long as the soundcard is still plugged in to the pa.

I heard rumors that the ssds will go down in price in the near to mid future. Go figure...

there are always those rumours. but fact is, new ssds from intel will come in.. q4 i think? maybe they show up in q3?. and, as everytime, they will reshuffle the market. so prices will go down by then, indeed.

ajargy wrote:Hey Guys, I'm shopping around for a new Macbook Pro and I want to get one of the new processors. I'm currently thinking about getting a 15 Inch Macbook Pro with an I7 Processor and a 7200 RPM HD. However, I have been talking with a few people and have heard that the difference between the I5 and the I7 is minimal and it would be better to invest in a solid state drive and an I5 instead of an I7. What do you guys think about this?

The reason I need to get a new computer is because I currently have a macbook pro with Core Duo and a 7200 RPM HD with as much ram as it can hold. Basically my computer is maxed out and Live is still glitching out on me. When I play live my CPU usage spikes to 80% when I launch scenes. I've tried storing clips to RAM, unwarping and cropping clips, and have exported all the clips with their automation to try and reduce CPU usage as much as possible but I just need a new rig!

Please let me know what you guys think about the differences between the I5 and I7 processors and solid state HDs! Thanks guys, peace, love.

I ordered the i7 7200rpm High Res screen 2 and a half weeks ago, still no sign of it, apparnetly it'll be here maybe by Friday, Anyhow...I felt getting the best 'Out of box' or at least near enough (with the slight upgrade to 7200 and the high res) would mean for any major RAM upgrades and eventually an SSD drive would be well serviced by the Best processor i can buy now. Just my thoughts anyway. its only an extra £40 to get the 7200 but a good £3/400 plus to get an SSD. So Hold on for a year or two and when they drop in price, I'll stick an SSD and 8GB Ram in it and Will wipe the floor with an entry level MacPro in 2012.

^^
same here except that I went for the 8gig ram muahaha

but, "Lieferbar voraussichtl. ab 20.05.2010", updated from the 14th of may

UPDATE:
Ihre Lieferung ist im STORE Dresden eingetroffen!


Ok sorry for threadjacking. Going to get it.

shame Live isn't 64-bit then

Yeah, you will only be able to use a couple of gigs of that RAm for live.

I got 14 gigs in my machine and it crashes on using more than 2.25 / 2.5 gigs of ram for live