I’m currently on a mid 2009 Macbook Pro, 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3, and a 500GB HDD.
I know that I need to upgrade, because I’ve noticed apps starting to slow down, but what is a reasonable upgrade? Obviously, the ideal would be a top-spec brand new one, but I’m not sure how necessary that is. Also, I don’t quite understand what the difference between my processor, an i5, a different GHz rate, and a different MHZ rate for the RAM.
Basically, if anyone has generally advice/knowledge to impart about all the numbers and letters, that’d rock. Also, if anyone has any suggestions as to what a decent spec would be, that’ also be great. I’m focussed on staying 100% Apple at the moment.
For what its worth, no matter the specs, you can always push the cpu load meter into the red if u ( don’t) try hard enough. Then someone comes out with a new vst or u discover a software u want to add to a project or performance rig, and it lowers your ceiling from what you’re used to. With this in mind I usually try to get the most powerful machine available, that’s within my financial limits, since i will likely be using it for a long time to come.
Hardware is deep, and it’s a lot more than just the numbers, there’s things like threads on the processors as well which can add to a processors capabilities. GhZ is essentially how fast your CPU and finish calculations. The MHz of the RAM, that’s the clock speed. That’s how fast your CPU can add and remove data (the frequency it can connect to swap, higher the better) but there’s also a transfer rate and a few other timing related features.
Not only that, you can have a powerhouse of a computer but if your motherboards chip set is out of date you’ll find some applications just won’t run as efficiently as they should.
Since you’re buying a Mac though, there’s only one thing you need to know: Newer is better. Apple do all the hard work of ensuring their systems are smooth running and will last at least 4 years before they start to show signs of the times, and the next update is always better than the current.
I’m assuming off the bat that an Air isn’t really powerful enough for Logic, Traktor, FCP7, PSD, and such? More of a notebook is what I’ve been led to believe…
i have heard of people running all of those on an air, but running is a relative and subjective idea. again, more power , more better, for the overall utility. and yes mac makes it easy,just buy the most expensive one
trying to shop for a powerful windows machine is like walking into a labyrinth.
If you running osx maveriks or later try double ssd with raid0 setup. my mac with 2 ssd samsung 840 pro has 970 mb/s read and 900mb/s write that is more than the 13" retina… but my mac is a 13 late 2011 and has allmost the same benchmark of a mac 4 years younger !!!
[QUOTE]i have heard of people running all of those on an air, but running is a relative and subjective idea. again, more power , more better, for the overall utility. and yes mac makes it easy,just buy the most expensive one
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A 2011 i5 Air with HD5000 should run any app faster than any Core2Duo macbook pro.
Regarding the Air, I’ve been running one (actually on my third now) since 2011. All of them have been the i5 model and have all been up to the task of Traktor and relatively basic Ableton Suite and Maschine use. I started with the 13" for about 2 years, then wanted something smaller so picked up an 11" with 1.6GHz i5, it was the last of the USB2 like my 13" so I knew I wouldn’t have any of the USB3 issues that were happening at the time. Even though the 11" had a slightly slower processor I certainly didn’t notice the difference.
Due to my line of work I’ve had the ability to try Traktor on a number of MacBook Pro’s over the last 4 years, and purely for running Traktor the Air actually runs better than any of the Retina models when comparing how much CPU the Traktor process is using with the exact same OS version, Traktor version, settings, drivers and track list. The Air ran about 10% less CPU for the Traktor process, be it against a 2012 quad core 15" MacBook Pro Retina or the 2013 dual core 13" MacBook Pro Retina, and after everything is said and done I’d say the reason is the retina screen. Traktor is still not optimised for Retina and I think that makes a reasonable and measurable difference.
I’ve actually just picked up a very good condition 2013 MacBook Air 11" i5 with 256GB SSD for about US$440 in the last 2 weeks, and once again it runs extremely well. One of the guys I work with has an i7 MacBook Air 11" from last year and he edits multi-cam weddings and 40 min doco’s with ease on it including fairly intensive plugins, and that’s with footage from his Sony A7S cameras. Oh yeah, he also moved up to the Air from a similar MacBook Pro to what you have, and he went through the whole SSD thing with that and essentially its chalk and cheese the difference the Core-i series processors make, yes the SSD will make,the OS feel snappier but when it comes down to it your processor can’t do more than its already doing, hell even my 11" from 2011 has a more powerful processor than your C2D.
Anyhow, don’t count out the Air, the 13" with i7 upgrade, 8GB of RAM and 256BG SSD would be a very decent way to go. It has as much grunt as the 2.6GHz 13" Retina, will cost you US$50 less, it’s lighter to carry around and it has 1440x900 resolution compared to the 1280x800 Retina (that’s the res Traktor uses at default retina resolution, you can choose 1440x900 or 1680x1050 but things get blurry). The GPU actually runs quite well too because it’s not having to push out the retina number of pixels.
