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General discussion

Mac Pro or MBP 17"?

Jun 15, 2007 3:17AM PDT

I'm a webmaster currently running a PowerBook G4 (1.67GHz with 2GB RAM). I'm going to upgrade very soon, but need the best for all the applications I'm running. I use CS3, usually with at least 4 of the apps running simultaneously, plus Firefox, Entourage, and iChat. I will also be adding Final Cut Studio to the mix.

Will the MBP with 4GB RAM be enough or should I go for the Mac Pro where upgrades and more RAM are possible? Also, is anyone running those same programs on a MBP? Any issues?

Thanx!

Discussion is locked

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I'll be blunt.
Jun 15, 2007 10:07PM PDT

1GB does most of what anyone does well. 2GB is heavy users. Beyond that is bragging rights. That's TODAY!!!

Yes, I did some benchmarks on video rendering with 512M, 1GB, 2GB and the payoff beyond 1GB was all of 5 minutes on a 6 hour job. So don't look to big gains past 2GB.

Bob

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storage, not ram
Jun 22, 2007 3:24PM PDT

for video editing the biggest thing the Mac Pro has over the MBP is additional internal hard drives. Read from one, write to the other is more than 2X as fast as both operations to the same HD.
Then again, you could add a FireWire 800 external HD to the MBP.

Unless you do 3-D rendering, MBP.