Macbook Pro 32 or 64bit AND video editing

MartyM

Hi Guys

I'm considering buying a 17" Macbook Pro and running Windows 7 via Bootcamp, but I'm new to the Mac world and have a couple of Qs! :-o

Do Macs come in 32bit and 64bit operating systems? I'm asking for a couple of reasons:

* Need to know if I should buy Windows 7 32bit or 64bit?
* For Windows, people say that a 32bit system cannot fully utilise 4Gb (or higher) of memory. If the Macbook Pro only comes in 32bit, is there any point getting it with 4Gb or 8Gb?
* How much RAM would you allocate to Windows? Not even sure this type of dedicated memory allocation is possible actually!

I'm purchasing it mainly for video editing. Have an SD camcorder at the mo, but may in time go for a HD version!

* Would it have a good video editor built-in or would I need to purchase "Final Cut Express 4"?
* Alternative is to use Adobe Premier Elements 8 via Windows, in which case I'd probably need to dedicate more RAM to Windows??

* Is paying 270 Euro worth it to go from 2.8 to 3.06 GHz?
* Is paying 540 Euro worth it to go from 4Gb to 8Gb?
* Are solid-state drives faster and more reliable?
* Will apple move to i5 or i7 processors or stick with C2D for the Macbooks?

Apologies for all the Qs but any feedback would be great!

Thanks!

Elessar

Are you purchasing this machine to mainly just use Windows 7 on it? If so, don't bother with Apple, get a much better specced machine from another manufacturer and get value for money.

The macbooks can run Windows 7 64 bit. Snow Leopard is 64 bit IIRC.

If it's mainly for video editing, and you really want a mac, get yourself a copy of Final Cut or Final Cut express - having used them they are superb and you can keep your entire experience to OSX without having to worry about windows at all.

No, 270 euro is not worth it to upgrade for the sake of 200MHz. Save that money and buy yourself an SSD drive from Intel or OCZ. THAT will make your MBP fly, trust me, I have one. Also DON'T buy RAM from Apple, they fleece you. 4Gb is plenty for SD video editing, and probably HD aswell. I've run pro-level editing on an iBook G4 in the past, without any problems!!

Yes, Apple will move their notebook line to Core i5/i7 shortly. They are expected any week now. I would wait, at least until the end of this month.

EDIT: What type of video editing? Home camcorder stuff or hobby/college/pro level? I ask because Final Cut Express does have some limitations in the finer details of editing, so you would be wise to get a copy of the full Final Cut (ebay for cheap) if you are doing anything more than editing your grandma's last trip to Lourdes.

Sad Professor

* How much RAM would you allocate to Windows? Not even sure this type of dedicated memory allocation is possible actually!

This is only an issue if you are using VMWare or Parallels. But if you intend to boot into Windows using Bootcamp then memory allocation isn't an issue.

* Would it have a good video editor built-in or would I need to purchase "Final Cut Express 4"?

It will come with iMovie - which is good but certainly not suitable for professional video editing.

* Is paying 540 Euro worth it to go from 4Gb to 8Gb?

No. Wait until it comes down in price. And as said don't buy from Apple.

* Are solid-state drives faster and more reliable?

VERY fast. I assume they are reliable, but I haven't read any reports yet. They can't be any less reliable than HDDs tbh.

* Will apple move to i5 or i7 processors or stick with C2D for the Macbooks?

I'd say so. Probably in the next update, which is due shortly.

MartyM

Elessar wrote: »

Are you purchasing this machine to mainly just use Windows 7 on it? If so, don't bother with Apple, get a much better specced machine from another manufacturer and get value for money.

The macbooks can run Windows 7 64 bit. Snow Leopard is 64 bit IIRC.

If it's mainly for video editing, and you really want a mac, get yourself a copy of Final Cut or Final Cut express - having used them they are superb and you can keep your entire experience to OSX without having to worry about windows at all.

No, 270 euro is not worth it to upgrade for the sake of 200MHz. Save that money and buy yourself an SSD drive from Intel or OCZ. THAT will make your MBP fly, trust me, I have one. Also DON'T buy RAM from Apple, they fleece you. 4Gb is plenty for SD video editing, and probably HD aswell. I've run pro-level editing on an iBook G4 in the past, without any problems!!

Yes, Apple will move their notebook line to Core i5/i7 shortly. They are expected any week now. I would wait, at least until the end of this month.

EDIT: What type of video editing? Home camcorder stuff or hobby/college/pro level? I ask because Final Cut Express does have some limitations in the finer details of editing, so you would be wise to get a copy of the full Final Cut (ebay for cheap) if you are doing anything more than editing your grandma's last trip to Lourdes.

Hey Elessar, thanks for your reply!

Elessar wrote: »

Are you purchasing this machine to mainly just use Windows 7 on it?

No, I'm considering a Mac for the video editing and security features, i.e. lack of viruses. However, all I know is Windows, so I would like to have it on-hand if required for certain applications, etc.

Elessar wrote: »

No, 270 euro is not worth it to upgrade for the sake of 200MHz. Save that money and buy yourself an SSD drive from Intel or OCZ. THAT will make your MBP fly, trust me, I have one. Also DON'T buy RAM from Apple, they fleece you. 4Gb is plenty for SD video editing, and probably HD aswell. I've run pro-level editing on an iBook G4 in the past, without any problems!!

Great, thats good to know. My temptation is to always go for the higher spec!...based on no sound technical reasoning! I will only be editing family videos, etc...nothing too fancy!

From the Apple website, they only give the option of 4Gb or 8Gb, can I purchase a Macbook Pro with less memory than this and then add my own?

An SSD drive from Intel or OCZ?? Do you mean purchase the Macbook Pro with a "500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm" and then add my own SSD? OR is the Apple SSD Intel based?

MBP?...Not sure what that is? Motherboard?? :-o

MartyM

Sad Professor wrote: »

This is only an issue if you are using VMWare or Parallels. But if you intend to boot into Windows using Bootcamp then memory allocation isn't an issue.


It will come with iMovie - which is good but certainly not suitable for professional video editing.


No. Wait until it comes down in price. And as said don't buy from Apple.


VERY fast. I assume they are reliable, but I haven't read any reports yet. They can't be any less reliable than HDDs tbh.


I'd say so. Probably in the next update, which is due shortly.

Excellent, thanks for the info! Also sounds like iMovie will do the trick!

Sad Professor

From the sounds of it, I'd say 4GB will be plenty for you. If you decide to upgrade to 8GB in the future, buy the RAM from Crucial or somewhere and replace the two installed Apple chips.

MBP?...Not sure what that is? Motherboard?? :-o

MBP = Macbook Pro.

Talisman

Sad Professor wrote: »

From the sounds of it, I'd say 4GB will be plenty for you. If you decide to upgrade to 8GB in the future, buy the RAM from Crucial or somewhere and replace the two installed Apple chips.

Crucial are becoming more expensive for RAM and there have been reports of their 8GB RAM kits not working with Apple computers. I know an idiot who went for the 8GB RAM upgrade from Apple and it turned out to be Kingston RAM. He was well pissed off when I showed him how much he could have saved.

Talisman

MartyM wrote: »

* Will apple move to i5 or i7 processors or stick with C2D for the Macbooks?

Apple are currently dumping the MacBook Pro stock through their Refurbished store. If you want to buy the system now that's where to get it but in a few weeks I would expect to see the models available with current generation CPUs.

Refurbished store: http://store.apple.com/ie/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbook_pro

MartyM

Talisman wrote: »

Crucial are becoming more expensive for RAM and there have been reports of their 8GB RAM kits not working with Apple computers. I know an idiot who went for the 8GB RAM upgrade from Apple and it turned out to be Kingston RAM. He was well pissed off when I showed him how much he could have saved.

If not crucial, who would you recommend for RAM? And is there any particular make that you would suggest?

alexlyons

Get ram from elara.ie or komplett.ie if you aren't using crucial. Ebay is another good place if your comfortable using it and know exactly what your looking for.

SSD's are only faster when the computer is accessing the drive. the 2 main times they are better than HD's are startup and the first launch of applications. Once the application is launched on a HD, memory is cached so it opens faster than the first time, however if you frequently open and close many applications, and your HD doesn't have a large cache, the ssd would be faster throughout your usage. IMO they're not worth it yet due to high prices for smaller space. You'll need plenty of space for video, even if the drives are external. SSD's are more reliable than HD's due to no moving parts etc, but not many people use them for anything but boot drives due to the price:capacity ratio.

You asked about allocating ram to windows. If you use bootcamp, then it will utilise the full amount that is there. If you use something like VMWare or Parallels, then you must allocate ram, but I would use these if your doing more than Microsoft office, which is available on mac anyway.

In terms of the the extra processing power, the best way is this: You will be getting an extra 9.3% raw power for an 11.7% increase in price. That's pretty good in relation to other mac's and processor upgrades, but I still don't think you should do it unless time is money and you will really benefit from a real world speed increase of about 6-7%. As mentioned, you should wait until they are upgraded in the coming days/weeks. Your question the should be i5 or i7, in which case depending on the price, i7 is a no brainer.

I would try iMovie if I were you, its good for a lot of stuff but does lack a lot of advanced features, especially if your used to premiere. But for family stuff like you mentioned, it should be more than enough.

MartyM

alexlyons wrote: »

Get ram from elara.ie or komplett.ie if you aren't using crucial. Ebay is another good place if your comfortable using it and know exactly what your looking for.

SSD's are only faster when the computer is accessing the drive. the 2 main times they are better than HD's are startup and the first launch of applications. Once the application is launched on a HD, memory is cached so it opens faster than the first time, however if you frequently open and close many applications, and your HD doesn't have a large cache, the ssd would be faster throughout your usage. IMO they're not worth it yet due to high prices for smaller space. You'll need plenty of space for video, even if the drives are external. SSD's are more reliable than HD's due to no moving parts etc, but not many people use them for anything but boot drives due to the price:capacity ratio.

You asked about allocating ram to windows. If you use bootcamp, then it will utilise the full amount that is there. If you use something like VMWare or Parallels, then you must allocate ram, but I would use these if your doing more than Microsoft office, which is available on mac anyway.

In terms of the the extra processing power, the best way is this: You will be getting an extra 9.3% raw power for an 11.7% increase in price. That's pretty good in relation to other mac's and processor upgrades, but I still don't think you should do it unless time is money and you will really benefit from a real world speed increase of about 6-7%. As mentioned, you should wait until they are upgraded in the coming days/weeks. Your question the should be i5 or i7, in which case depending on the price, i7 is a no brainer.

I would try iMovie if I were you, its good for a lot of stuff but does lack a lot of advanced features, especially if your used to premiere. But for family stuff like you mentioned, it should be more than enough.

Great post, thanks! Can I just clarify one thing regarding your comment:

alexlyons wrote: »

You asked about allocating ram to windows. If you use bootcamp, then it will utilise the full amount that is there. If you use something like VMWare or Parallels, then you must allocate ram, but I would use these if your doing more than Microsoft office, which is available on mac anyway.

Are you saying you would use VMWare or Parallels instead of Bootcamp if you needed to run more intensive Windows applications?

I would have thought Bootcamp makes it act like a standlone Windows laptop, which would be better than VMWare? I dont know Parallels, so can't comment...

alexlyons

MartyM wrote: »

Great post, thanks! Can I just clarify one thing regarding your comment:



Are you saying you would use VMWare or Parallels instead of Bootcamp if you needed to run more intensive Windows applications?

I would have thought Bootcamp makes it act like a standlone Windows laptop, which would be better than VMWare? I dont know Parallels, so can't comment...

sorry that was meant to say I would not use these if you are doing more than office etc. Parallels is the same as VMWare. You are correct in saying bootcamp would make it act as a standalone laptop running windows, which would indeed be better for intensive applications. Apologies for the mix up.

Talisman

MartyM wrote: »

If not crucial, who would you recommend for RAM? And is there any particular make that you would suggest?

I'd recommend Samsung memory chips above others, it's not a consumer brand like Crucial / Kingston. Kingston has better compatibility than Crucial however Kingston are experiencing manufacturing difficulties and so there are long lead times for some of their products such as KTA-MB1066K2/8G which is their 8GB memory kit for the MacBook Pro.