Is new MacBook Pro fast enough?

[Aime]

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.

[Thomas Holm]

Go for it!

[Laszlo Nagy]

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.

[Dwight]

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.

[Brad Elliott]

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.

[Laszlo Nagy]

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.

[TomWaltz]

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

[Aime]

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.

[Dwight]

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.

[Thomas Holm]

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.