Hey, all
I’m extremely anxious to get a mac dedicated for dj use.
I know most people aren’t using machines with Core Duos anymore…but I know a guy who is willing to sell me his old macbook pro for pretty cheap. It’s a few years old, but in excellent shape…here are the specs:
2.0GHz Core Duo
Mac OS X 10.4, Tiger
320G HD
2G Ram
Is it worth buying this just to be used with Traktor Pro? Or should I drop the extra money to go with a newer Core 2 Duo machine? Can i still rock a long ass set with these specs and use hella effects & 4 decks? Assuming that I “streamline” this machine just for dj use as recommended by mikecharles @ DJTT…
i’m running 2.4ghz/2gb ram with no hiccups/crashes while running multiple DAWs (Traktor + Ableton + Nicecast - could even add Logic to the mix). not sure what difference the 400mhz will make, but i can imagine it’s not much.
if you bought a new one it would probably be a unibody, and i haven’t heard great things about them (not enough ports, if the screen cracks you have to replace the entire machine, etc).
afaik the original core duo only went to 2.33 ghz .. so you might be running a core 2 duo and not a core duo (talk about confusing names). aside from the processor differences, todays macbooks (unibody or not) also run with a much much faster embedded graphic card. they also have a bit more L2 cache. i havent been following things in the entire cpu area enough to really tell the performance difference.
but this is technology from 3 years ago. so not ancient, but i would expect a very nice deal on this if i were to buy it. upping the memory to 4GB might also give the system a nice boost.
dont trip, get the mac, its a core duo you can only go up to 3 gb (2 gb + 1 gb stick) Man, Im still trying to get my hands on a old school 17" Powerbook 1.67 ghz G4, those things are a work horse, but are hard to come by.
well that was the case with the original core 2 duo, but the current models do have more L2 cache, they also use energy etc .. but yeah .. its not too big a deal and so i after some more reading, it does seem like the biggest difference will be on the graphic card, but that shouldnt matter unless you are VJing.
What would be the main use for one of these ?? Are you trying to get your hands on one of those just because they’d be cheap since they’re older or something ?? I dont fully understand the logic behind this other than the big screen
Its a subtle point that only a gear head would really care about, but, core 2 duo’s are internally 64-bit, and have some problems that core 2 had with cache invalidation fixed and that’s a good thing because it was causing some “wastage” on the front-side bus in particular.
Check out the store, you can score an aluminum macbook 13" for 899$:
…and you can even get the brandy-new gen with SD-slot for 1299$.
To me, bus speed seems to have been the amazing factor over my mac experience. I had a PB17 with 100MHz and it was cool for somethings, doggy for video/sound/photoshop. Next was macbook (core solo), macbook (core duo) and now a MBP17 2.4. There was a HUGE jump going from PB17->Macbook(solo) that was astounding…and then another pretty damned big jump from the Macbook(duo) to this awesome MBP17. I bought the MBP model that is immediately pre-unibody, with 4Gig for 1800$ off the refurb store, and man, that’s pretty damned elite.
I am a programmer, a power user, and a total idiot all in one, and so I have a lot of programs running…and never any troubles…its amazing, suspicious, and I’m waiting for the hammer to fall, but it hasn’t.
I heartily recommend the refurb machines all the way.
happy to report that after WEEKS of painful troubleshooting with a Dell 1737, I’ve purchased the said Mac and given all hardware/software a trial run…SUCH A RELIEF. Audio 8, VCI SE, & Traktor Pro all running smooth with low latency! Only given it an hour test run so far though. Tonight I sleep and tomorrow I FINALLY get to spend some time mixing, setting grids and cue points, and experimenting with effects instead of pulling my hair out over my digital transition. Thanks for your help everyone. This site is amazing!
The fucked up thing is I have the SAME EXACT DELL - the studio 1737 and i’m doing the same - i’m selling this fucker and going for a MAC , I’m sick of troubleshooting. Best of luck and please report back with your success’
