Right i’m in the market for a new laptop and will deffo be going for a mac.
From what i’ve read here people suggest a 15 inch screen to aid song selection etc.
I’m looking at the range of macbook pros and is it worth paying a bit extra for the version with the gt graphics, will it aid traktors performance? I rarely play any graphic intensive games so i guess there is not much point in forking out the extra for this?
I just don’t really know what model to go for. I get discount 17% discount rate being a student .
Getting the GT card will not improve Traktors performance at all mate.
From what i can see the option for a GT card is the 2.66ghz model which is $300 more than the 2.53ghz. If your gonna spend extra id get the 2.53 and upgrade the hard drive to 500gig and still have $100 change to spend on crack, guns and hookers !!!
Karlos, you are right for the moment. However Snow Leopard will add Grand Central, which is essentially a framework that will make it very easy for developers to use all sorts of chips, mainly the graphic cards, to help in CPU tasks. This is probably one of the main reasons why the new MBP 15"/17" come with both an integrated and a dedicated graphic chip. I think we will quickly see audio and many other processor intensive apps making use of this. Expect that within 1 year most OS X apps will have been released with Snow Leopard optimized versions.
Now that i didnt know.
Still not sure about the expense the OP will have to incur or whether Traktor will benefit currently but its certainly something ill consider when i start looking at another Mac. As you say programmers will start to take this in consideration. Maybe with Traktor Pro 2 Ableton 9
Im actually still on 10.4.11 and intend to go straight to Snow Leopard in September.
Yeah the benefits and adoption rate is obviously still in the crystal balls, but with apple usually developers follow apple’s commands. Then again Adobe took ages to port their apps to the new UI toolkit for ages and therefore wasnt able to use a lot of the 64bit power for a few years. So you never know.
I’m been using Traktor for four years on a (old) 15" MacBook Pro and for a couple month ago I bought the new 13" Macbook Pro. And I love the smaller size. So much easier when you travel and to place in the DJ booth. I use two different layouts on Traktor, one for browsing and one for playing, so I dont miss the bigger screen at all.
Im keen for the 13" due to portability etc and as you say its easy to switch to browser only mode real quick.
However, the 13" versions only have a 5400rpm harddrive and a smaller size with that. Will this make much difference?
On the note of the GT graphics lsmith would you recommend getting this version for future compatibility with other non-NI programs ??
I’m not sure if its worth me spending the extra money
Right now with education pricing the top-end 13" is £987.85 and the mid range 15" £1,274.20
its not really about compatibility. i was just saying that the additional dedicated graphic card will eventually effect performance. but i doubt that any apps are going to require a spare graphic card to run in the near future.
I wouldnt sweat the 5400 HD either. I know, i know 7200 is faster but ive had both in 2 different Macs and i see no noticeable advantage of 7200.
Im not running Ableton at the same time, maybe you will but …
Dont sweat it. Im running TSP on a MBP 2.16 / 3gb with timecode and controllers and hammering the living shit out of it 4 nites a week and i have not noticed any performance dip since i replaced the 7200 with a drive twice the size that is 5400.
On a similar note, I’m looking to buy a Macbook as well but as of now I am completely broke. Buying a new one isn’t an option so I’m browsing used units, would there be any versions or models that are more recommended than others?
Someone’s selling a Macbook 13" with only an 80gb harddrive for ~765 USD, is that the price they usually go for? I think I’d need a few hundred gbs at least for my music collection so what models would be viable options?
White Macbook or Aluminum Macbook ?
Big difference is that some of the aluminium ones dont have a FireWire port so you only have 2 USB slots which can be a pain if you want to use an ext HD and midi controllers.
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Ableton 9