topic Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough? in Installation & update

Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Aime — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:52:48 GMT

Please check this out
www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html
Will this be fast enough for AC 11 (AC 12) and Artlantis studio 2. I currently run AC 8.1 on a Toshiba laptop (or is that notebook?) P25-S609 and I want to make a switch to AC 11 on a 17" 2.6ghz MacBook pro. I would appreciate any advice thanks.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Thomas Holm — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:35:22 GMT

Go for it!

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Laszlo Nagy — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:16:35 GMT

I would put 4 GB of RAM into it so it will still be a good machine 2 years from now.
I would put a 200 GB, 7200 rpm (resolution per minute) hard drive, rather than a 250 GB, 5400 rpm drive. It is a bit less space, but much faster, which is more important.
I would also consider the optional 1920x1200 resolution display, althought 1680x1050 is also pretty good.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Dwight — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:13:28 GMT

laszlonagy wrote:
I would put 4 GB of RAM into it so it will still be a good machine 2 years from now.
I would put a 200 GB, 7200 rpm (resolution per minute) hard drive, rather than a 250 GB, 5400 rpm drive. It is a bit less space, but much faster, which is more important.
I would also consider the optional 1920x1200 resolution display, althought 1680x1050 is also pretty good.

Extra Ram never hurts because if there is not enough, you hit the ceiling at the most critical time...

My experience is the high speed drive is a battery charge eater. You'll want to use 2Gb of that 4Gb RAM as a RAM disk to save juice.

Paying extra for the high resolution depends upon your eye acuity.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Brad Elliott — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:18:39 GMT

I agree on the RAM there is plenty of horsepower in the chip but you'll hit a memory ceiling when you get busy. It sort of crept up on my but my iMac with 2 gig has started maxing out pretty regularly the last few weeks. PDF's open for review with a couple of open copies of ArchiCAD and I'm there. I'll be ordering more RAM right after someone pays me.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Laszlo Nagy — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:35:16 GMT

Dwight wrote:
My experience is the high speed drive is a battery charge eater. You'll want to use 2Gb of that 4Gb RAM as a RAM disk to save juice.

Then Solid State Disk drives are also an option. Too bad this MacBook does not offer them as an option.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

TomWaltz — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:39:18 GMT

Fast enough for what? The G4 PowerBook was fast enough for some people.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Aime — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:07:28 GMT

Thanks y'all for all the advice.
tom said:

Fast enough for what? The G4 PowerBook was fast enough for some people.

Fast enough to make AC a pleasure.
I just noticed that I couldn't use lightworks on my trial version of AC11 and artlantis studio 2 (demo) crashed each time I tried to boot. but it runs (art 2.0) on another system with 2.0gig ram. So I what I mean is that I want a system today that would not slow down my work and would certainly not crash when I load next year's software.
I have a concern with the MBP though with 4gig ram preinstalled I hit the performance ceiling and wouldn't be able juice it up further down the road.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Dwight — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:48:01 GMT

Aime wrote:
Fast enough to make AC a pleasure.

Everyday users need snappy OpenGL more than anything, so make sure you get a machine with superior video. If the thing renders a little slow, too bad,but since we all mainly spend time inputting and scrolling and zooming, that is where the frustration can be most acute.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Thomas Holm — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 22:22:00 GMT

laszlonagy wrote:
I would put a 200 GB, 7200 rpm (resolution per minute) hard drive, rather than a 250 GB, 5400 rpm drive. It is a bit less space, but much faster, which is more important.

I disagree. Besides Dwight's argument, the 7200 rpm drive runs quite a bit hotter (that's where the battery power goes). My Mac reseller recently sold me a 250 gig 5400 drive, despite that they make more money on the 7200 one. But I trust him. And when I put the MBP on my belly (like now) I thank him. The 5400 is hot enough.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Laszlo Nagy — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:56:08 GMT

Thomas wrote:
laszlonagy wrote:
I would put a 200 GB, 7200 rpm (resolution per minute) hard drive, rather than a 250 GB, 5400 rpm drive. It is a bit less space, but much faster, which is more important.
I disagree. Besides Dwight's argument, the 7200 rpm drive runs quite a bit hotter (that's where the battery power goes). My Mac reseller recently sold me a 250 gig 5400 drive, despite that they make more money on the 7200 one. But I trust him. And when I put the MBP on my belly (like now) I thank him. The 5400 is hot enough.

This is the nice thing about a user forum: everyone has a different viewpoint.
I need a fast hard drive (but not in the form of a RAM drive).
Dwight needs long battery.
You need cool hard drives.
And all this does not mean that anybody is wrong.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Dwight — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 05:02:11 GMT

I only say what i do because of a bad experience:

Nobody at Apple warns you that getting the fast drive will run half as long on a given battery charge. This is horrifying the first time you rely on their published battery times.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Chazz — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:24:07 GMT

Dwight wrote:
Nobody at Apple warns you that getting the fast drive will run half as long on a given battery charge. This is horrifying the first time you rely on their published battery times.

I actually asked about this and the business sales rep at Apple said "oh no, the faster drive actually uses less battery because it takes less time to access the data." Amazingly, I fell for it. I love almost everything about my MacBook Pro but the whole battery deal is the weakest link.

It is a source of some embarrassment when I go into the office and need to bring a charger for a 1.5 hour department meeting, while all the Dell people are untethered. 'Course their laptops are the size of volume "L" of the encyclopedia.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Dwight — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:45:37 GMT

Chazz wrote:
Dwight wrote:
Nobody at Apple warns you that getting the fast drive will run half as long on a given battery charge. This is horrifying the first time you rely on their published battery times.
I actually asked about this and the business sales rep at Apple said "oh no, the faster drive actually uses less battery because it takes less time to access the data." Amazingly, I fell for it. I love almost everything about my MacBook Pro but the whole battery deal is the weakest link.

It is a source of some embarrassment when I go into the office and need to bring a charger for a 1.5 hour department meeting, while all the Dell people are untethered. 'Course their laptops are the size of volume "L" of the encyclopedia.

"A car with a big motor uses less gas because you can drive there faster,"
haha. Idiots.

Tell them you come from France and have an old battery.
"Just have the new one on order."
They will understand.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

TomWaltz — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:13:59 GMT

Aime wrote:
TomWaltz said:
Fast enough for what? The G4 PowerBook was fast enough for some people.
Fast enough to make AC a pleasure

No computer on earth is fast enough for that.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Dwight — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:21:49 GMT

Take it from the old guy.
Even a slow Archicad beats pointy lead sticks scratching sheepskin.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Aime — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:12:34 GMT

I didn't know that the speed of the hard drive could seriously impact battery times. Battery performance is quite important to me so I think the slower drive would be best.
TomWaltz wrote:

No computer on earth is fast enough for that.

its either you didn't get me or you are currently residing in Pluto (the wanna be planet). Each version of AC has features that make it unique and a help to the design process. I know there are software issues (bugs) that may affect its use negatively. But I know that the hardware also has a way of negatively affecting its use. That is what I want to avoid as much as possible. My toshiba
runs AC8.1 with no complaints but when I try AC 11 (trial) and select Open GL it just crashes. I don't want to happen with a full license.

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Dwight — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:19:41 GMT

Well, your computer might lack the OpenGL support so essential to current Archicad operation. Have you reviewed Archicad's minimum specified hardware?

As for hard drive - i like the fast drive, but you should also consider getting extra RAM and establishing a RAM disk for your Archicad temporary files.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_disk

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Thomas Holm — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:10:25 GMT

You might take this into consideration too: MacOSX wants plenty of free space on the hard disk to run swiftly. With say 160 GB of data, a 250 G disk still has about 30% free space (it's about 232 gb formatted) and will run at what still feels like full speed. But with the same data on a 200GB disk, you'll have just above 10% free. It will be slooow, despite faster rpm!

Re: Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

Pete — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:28:50 GMT

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new MacBook Pro 2.4 Core2Duo with 2GB of the plain 667Mhz DDR2 RAM and 200GB drive. (OSX 10.5.2)

I have run AC11 and Artlantis Studio 2 all day long. Pure pleasure. Faster than my 1 year old desktop (Dell Core2Duo 2.4, 2GB Ram, WinXPpro). No crashes.

Since this is my 1st Mac, I am not used to the palettes and workspace differences but I am very satisfied and would recommend it highly.