Thread: Buying 15" MacBook Pro, upgrade from 2.4 i5 to 2.66 i7 worth the $200?    

As the title states, I'm buying a 15" MBP this fall to completely replace my desktop as my main computer. I will use it for school, all leisurely activities, and watching TV and movie content (up to 1080p). Specced out how I want it, there is a $200 difference from the baseline 2.4 GHz Core i5 processor to the top-end 2.66 GHz Core i7 processor. Is the upgrade worth the money for what I'm using it for? I have vetoed the 2.53 GHz i5, as it doesn't give me anywhere near the bang/buck as either the i5 or the i7 would, comparatively.

On one hand, one could argue that if you're buying a machine that's already sitting at $2300, then what's another $200, but one could also argue that I'm not actually encoding any high definition media myself, and that I wouldn't utilize the full potential of the i7 to begin with, and I could save myself the money and buy something else with it.

As it stands right now, I'm honestly right on the fence, not siding with either. Thanks!

Since you are not planning to do anything CPU intensive and if don't do anything where the extra 256mb GFX ram would be used, only thing you're getting is a loss in battery life with the i7.

Originally Posted by Sieg

Since you are not planning to do anything CPU intensive and if don't do anything where the extra 256mb GFX ram would be used, only thing you're getting is a loss in battery life with the i7.

Maybe not CPU-intensive, but I will be hooking it up to 40"+ TVs to display movies on. Maybe that doesn't need a 512MB card, though...

The 256mb card will be fine for that. Only thing I can think of that you might do where it would come into play would be some heavy Photoshop work with OpenGL acceleration on.