You can get 8GB on a MBP...

Post #323,147 by malraux 3/20/10 9:16:27 AM Reply	You can get 8GB on a MBP... On all of the models. It's $600 extra, but if you can find a full 8G for cheaper than that (Apple fills all of the slots so you have to replace them all if you want to upgrade, bah) you could go the the BIY route. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #323,149 by Another Scott 3/20/10 9:33:34 AM Reply	Yup. It's tempting. But that's only a dual core. ;-) Yeah, Apple really gets you on branded memory, but PC vendors do lots of squeezing there too. I honestly doubt that Apple will have a 3+ GHz 13" quad core MBP in the next refresh. It would probably grab too much of their desktop business. If they do make such a beast, I expect it'll be one of the 17" machines that cost over $3k and I'm not going there (and only as a desktop replacement) unless I win the lottery. A $1k 2.53 GHz 4 GB dual core 13" MBP would be very tempting in the meantime. I doubt Apple will take $400 off the current models when they introduce the next refresh, though. We'll see. Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #323,154 by folkert 3/20/10 11:44:58 AM Reply	Intel's next round of pricing is coming soon. You might consider that in the BIY arena for a desktop. Recently spent a better part of a day putting together a estimate for a friend. He wanted to see everything from a Single Processor quad core AMD, Dual Processor Quad core AMD (and 6 core versions) with upto 4 Video Cards and lotsa storage. And Intel Processor versions. By and Large the AMD versions were 20-30% cheaper for equivalent hardware specs (1-2 ticks off fastest available) Egads Dual Processor Quad Core Intel machines... do you want a second job with that loan? Intel Xeon X5550 Nehalem 2.66Ghz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 95W Quad-Core, with 12GB memory and 2 dual DVI video cards, 2 - 2TB Drive, DVD-RW DL, Nice case etc... $3699 AMD Opteron 2382 Shanghai 2.6Ghz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket F 75W Quad-Core, with 16GB memory and 2 dual DVI video cards, 2 - 2TB Drive, DVD-RW DL, Nice case etc... $2225 Of course these were back in December. but prices have not really come down since then.
Post #323,155 by Another Scott 3/20/10 12:56:24 PM Reply	Yup. It's astounding how much cheaper AMD's stuff is now. And you can get a 3.4 GHz quad core AMD CPU (Phenom II x4 965, 125W - $185 boxed) while Intel doesn't even offer one clocked that high. E.g. a Core i7 950 3.06 GHz 130W - $570. (The Intel box will benchmark higher, and may have lower power consumption in some situations, but you'll pay a lot more for the privilege (3-way RAM, etc.).) I really wish someone would make a reasonably cheap dual- or quad-socket AMD Phenom II motherboard. $300 for a Tyan S4985G3NR is superficially reasonable, but the cheapest Socket F quad core Opteron chip is $260 each and it's only clocked at 2.0 GHz. Yeah, I know that's a server board and CPU. But AMD would do well to attack markets that Intel isn't concentrating on, and inexpensive super desktops would be one of those. Maybe Bulldozer will make that approach moot, but mid-2011 is a long way off - http://www.anandtech...owdoc.aspx?i=3674 Cheers, Scott.
Post #323,156 by SpiceWare 3/20/10 1:00:21 PM Reply	$360 at OWC Other World Computing specializes in Mac upgrades. I've bought quite a bit from them over the years. http://eshop.macsale...ing/8566DDR3S8GP/
Post #323,157 by Another Scott 3/20/10 1:04:39 PM Reply	Good price. Seem to have good policies too. Thanks.

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