How much more HP in a MBP vs MB (Oct '08)?

[geneman]

Hi,

My employer is buying a new laptop for me, I can pretty much pick and choose. As I've been doing more processor (and RAM) intensive stuff lately I'm leaning towards the MBP, but I'm kind of curious to know just how much more power it'll have. For very demanding tasks I use various servers/workstations, but some analyses are nice to run locally (or apps aren't available for Linux).

I'm currently using a June '06 MB, but it's getting slow. I love the size of my MB hence my question, will the extra L2 cache, freed up RAM (when using GPU), few Mhz and speedier disk (7200rpm) mean all that much?

(based on 2.4Ghz MB 4GB RAM vs. 2.53Ghz MBP with 7200rpm disk)

I will need a laptop, as I move between labs/offices every so often, but since my old MB will stay at home I won't need to carry the new comp with me to and from work too much.

Thoughts?

TIA

[PB PM]

There is maybe 2-3% speed bump, certainly not a noticeable amount. Having more L2 cache and RAM will help, and have a 7200RPM drive will make a slight difference if you are using apps the write or read from the disk often.

That's one reason I want to upgrade my MBP or at least get a faster, bigger HDD.

[geneman]

Thanks for the input, I went with the 2.8Ghz version... so hopefully it'll fly, cause it's expensive :)

[curiousuburb]

AI (http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/10/24/apples_unibody_macbook_pro_an_in_depth_review_with _video.html&page=5#performance) had a comparison recently, and Ars (http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/2008-macbookpro-review-2.ars) and/or barefeats (http://barefeats.com/) may have some relevant benchmarks.

Will glossy be a dealbreaker? if matte matters you're stuck with a 17CTO