Jip van Kuijk

Today I’m writing about my new MacBook Pro and how I configured it at the Apple online store.

I bought my previous MacBook Pro early 2009 (MacBook Pro 15″ Late 2008 model), it had a Core 2 Duo which began to be too slow for me. At first I thought I would just sell my old MacBook Pro and buy a MacBook Air since these now have build in SSD’s and fairly fast intel i5 / i7 processors. They are lighter then the MacBook Pro’s so that would make them more mobile. But, after seeing the new specs of the new MacBook Pro I felt I couldn’t just step away from the ‘Pro line’ and go and continue on the ‘Air line’.

I started doing some research on the new MacBook Pro, obvious was that I would buy the more expensive model, with the more powerful graphical processing card, the AMD Radeon HD 6770 with 1 GB of GDDR5. But on the Apple website you can also customize your Mac to your liking, like more ram, a better Hard Disk Drive (HDD), or even a Solid State Drive (SSD).

Of course the question is, what do you want to add and what not. Well here I am going to tell you what I got and why I chose to get it that way or why not. (All prices stated are from the US online Apple store unless stated otherwise)

This is the standard configuration for the most expensive MacBook Pro 15″
You can add several components or swap them for better ones, here comes the list and why I did or did not add them to my MacBook Pro while ordering at the Apple online store.
The first thing you can upgrade on your MacBook Pro is the Core Processing Unit (CPU).

It will take the standard 2.4 GHz intel Core i7 2760QM out and replace it with the 2.5 GHz intel Core i7 2860QM. This small jump in clock frequency is not the only difference between these processors. The 2.5 GHz 2860QM also has a difference in the L3 cache, while the 2.4 GHz 2760QM has 6MB shared L3 cache the 2.5 GHz 2860QM has 8MB of shared L3 cache.

I went to the intel ark website to see if there were more differences than the clock speed and cache size, but these were the only differences. Now I know this is faster but how much faster is this actually, this little difference in clock speed and 2MB more shared L3 cache. I went to the GeekBench website to see some benchmarks people had uploaded. The difference in the score was 380 points, out of 10511 for the 2.4GHz 2760QM and 10891 for the 2.5GHz 2860QM as far as I can tell you will never notice this difference.

Now the price of this upgrade at apple’s online stores costs 250 US dollars, is this worth it? In my opinion it is NOT worth the money.

The second thing you can upgrade on your MacBook Pro is the RAM.

The standard amount of RAM in the 15″ MacBook Pro is 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz this in my opinion is already not that much these days. 4GB might be enough for the MacBook Air but it is not enough for a ‘Pro line’ machine! Now I wanted more than the 4GB of ram in my new MacBook Pro but when I saw what Apple is charging for a simple RAM upgrade I knew I would do this myself.

Apple charges 200 US dollars so they will take out the 4GB of ram and put in 8GB of ram. I can do the exact same thing for 35 euro the upside of that is that I save allot of money and I get to keep the 4GB which I get anyway.

So is this upgrade worth the money, NO it is not if you can do a simple RAM upgrade yourself, YES it is if you just count the performance boost in Photoshop and other RAM consuming software.
I eventually ordered my RAM on Alternate.nl for around 35 euro.

The third thing you can upgrade on your MacBook Pro is the Hard Drive.

Now I already had plans on doing some surgery on my MacBook Pro but let’s first take a look at what Apple has to offer us.

Standard configuration has a 750GB 5400RPM Hard Disk Drive.
Now Apple gives us a few upgrade possibilities.

750GB 7200RPM for 50 US dollars. This is just a regular HDD but it should be slightly faster than the 5400RPM version. (note this drive will also make more noise since the drives are spinning at a higher speed)

128GB 256GB and 512GB Solid State Drives
These drives will make no noise at all since they have no moving parts, its based on flash and is way faster then a regular HDD. They do come with a fairly high price tag. 100, 500 or 1100 US dollars respectively.

Now what I did is take out the SuperDrive (DVD burner) and put the standard 750GB 5400RPM HDD on that location inside a ‘converter’ so it fits on the location where the SuperDrive was. Then there was a empty spot where the HDD was this is where I placed the 120GB Agility 3 SSD I ordered on Alternate.nl Pictures are on the bottom of this entry. You can order the converter here: http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

Now are these upgrades worth it?
Depending on what you need they could be all worth it, but the 50 US dollars upgrade for the bit faster HDD is worth it in my opinion especially if you aren’t gonna get a SSD. If you ask me Apple doesn’t give me enough information about their SSDs to make me decide to buy at their store. The speed differences are huge between SSDs so I would not recommend ordering an SSD in your MacBook Pro at the Apple online store since they don’t give speed indications. Unless you have no clue how to install one yourself. (it’s not that hard)

The fourth thing you can upgrade on your MacBook Pro is the screen.

The MacBook Pro comes with a Glossy widescreen display with a pixel resolution of  1440*900 This is what I had on my old MacBook Pro, but allot of times I didn’t feel like it was enough. So I knew I wanted one of the High resolution screens Apple offers as a upgrade.

Option one is a ‘Hi-Res Glossy Widescreen Display’ for 100 US dollars. This will keep the same feeling to your screen but with more pixels 1680*1050 instead of the 1440*900. This is great if you just want the extra pixels so there is more that fits on your screen.

Option two is a ‘Hi-Res Antiglare Widescreen Display’ for 150 US dollars. This screen has the same resolution as ‘Option one’ but it is matte instead of glossy. This makes it more usable when you are sitting in the sun, or with direct light falling on your screen, since it doesn’t reflect everything like a mirror.

Are these options worth it? YES THEY ARE! for just 100 dollars you get 36 percent MORE pixels on your screen so if you just wanna keep the standard screen you sure have to get upgrade ‘Option one’.
If you work a lot with photoshop you will enjoy this screen more than the standard screen or the ‘Option one’ upgrade. I personally chose for ‘Option two’ since I don’t really like the glossy effect of the standard screens.

Down here you can see some images I took while unpacking the MacBook Pro at arrival and how I replaced the RAM and fitted the SSD in and the HDD where the SuperDrive was. Also note the anti-glare matte high-res screen. Click on them for a larger version.

In the box

Here is the MacBook Pro opened up with the factory default components.

Taken out the SuperDrive and the Hard Disk Drive, note the HDD and SSD on the top right corner the new ram at the top and the superdrive on the top left corner. The factory default memory is still installed in the MacBook Pro at this photo.

Here the SSD the new RAM and the optibay with in there the 750GB HDD are installed on their place. (bit blurry image)

Surgery is done, as you can see the screen is matte and doesn't have the usual BLACK border. It kinda looks like the MacBook Air