Macbook Pro - Is the 2.3ghz worth the extra $250?

[Brandon Fraley]

Im ready to pull the trigger on a new laptop and I'm trying to figure if it's a good idea to spend the extra $250 the .1ghz in speed.

Any thoughts?

THANKS!

-B

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

No.

It's less than a 1% performance improvement.

It's also hotter than the 2.2GHz, so I would recommend against it - even if it were free.

If you need more performance than the 2.2GHz MBP 17" , then I imagine that, like me, you'll just get a new MBP when the next model comes out.

 

[Stephen Lovett]

Hi Brandon,

I'd spend the extra money on ram and a faster hard drive first before opting for this upgrade.

That said, it's likely to be a higher percentage increase than Alexander describes, as the faster cpu has additional cache as well.

I've got the 2.3.

If you end up with the 2.2 we can do a side by side when we work together next.

Best

Steve

 

[keith morton]

Pimp'n ur MacBook Pro

Pimp'n ur MacBook Pro

save that $250 and check out OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/1333DDR3S16P/
and also check this out:http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/drive_bracket/datadoubler/

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Hi Brandon,

I'd spend the extra money on ram and a faster hard drive first before opting for this upgrade.

That said, it's likely to be a higher percentage increase than Alexander describes, as the faster cpu has additional cache as well.

I've got the 2.3.

If you end up with the 2.2 we can do a side by side when we work together next.

Best

Steve

Sorry, Stephen is right, its 1.36% faster than the 2.2GHz MBP 17"

http://www.primatelabs.ca/blog/2011/02/macbookpro-benchmarks-early-2011/

And, that's Geekbench, which, like most synthetic benchmarks is biased towards improvements in CPU performance like more or faster cache or memory controller. Cinebench is a better estimate for out work, but I haven't found any Cinebench results for the 2.3GHz 2011 MBP.

The gross clock speed would indicate a max theoretical increase of 4.3%.

The discrepancy is probably down to increased failures in branch prediction.

Sorry for the sloppy number earlier, but I stand by my advice.

I also agree with Stephen and Keith ... more RAM and an SSD will do more for performance than this clock speed bump.

 

[Brandon Fraley]

Awesome. Thanks guys

-B