17" MacBook Pro vs 15": A field photographers dilema

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koffiejunkie

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bwana said:
since my acquisition of the canon 7D, I'm adding video to my repertoire. :eek:
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Not to mention CR2 files that are almost double the size. Believe me, you can feel the difference.

bwana said:
How well does Aperture 3, in particular the video editing, run on it?

By it I mean the 15" with the 9400M - 13" is too small for editing photos.
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Forget it. I tried it. The difference is enormous. Unless Aperture 3 does some OpenCL magic, and I don't get the impression that it is, the 9400M is no better for aperture than the older MacBook's Intel graphics.
 
bwana

bwana

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koffiejunkie said:
Not to mention CR2 files that are almost double the size. Believe me, you can feel the difference.



Forget it. I tried it. The difference is enormous. Unless Aperture 3 does some OpenCL magic, and I don't get the impression that it is, the 9400M is no better for aperture than the older MacBook's Intel graphics.
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According to apple support discussions it does make use of OpenCL.

Anyway - considering that my laptops need to be good enough for a three year cycle I'm not skimping on CPU and or GPU now. The only consideration for me is 15 vs 17 with otherwise almost identical specs.
 
bwana

bwana

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koffiejunkie said:
I'm curious to know for exactly what it uses it. I have not seen any dramatic speed-ups anywhere. Certainly nothing as dramatic as when I enabled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU"]VDPAU on my media box for video playback. QuicktimeX is also supposed to use OpenCL, and I just don't see it.
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Maybe it makes a more noticeable difference when doing larger batches? When I'm importing its usually thousands at a time. Who knows. Maybe the difference will be more pronounced with 10.7?

Unless someone can tell me having just the 9400M is better for me than having the 9400M as well as the 512mb 9600M GT?
 
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Synaesthesia

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You won't really see the difference in photo editing software. But for gaming & video it is worth it to get a better GPU.
 
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koffiejunkie

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Synaesthesia said:
You won't really see the difference in photo editing software. But for gaming & video it is worth it to get a better GPU.
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Why do you think that? As I've mentioned, video is exactly the one aspect where I have *not* seen any difference at all.

And for Aperture, you *will* see a difference, because of the way it uses the GPU directly (as it did well before OpenCL was around). Believe me, the difference between the 9400M and the more powerful ones are quite apparent with Aperture.
 
bwana

bwana

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Well the insurance company approved my claim but now the question is do I grab one in the UK or wait for the supposedly just around the corner updates to the line? (Days Since Update 359 (Avg = 236))
 
bwana

bwana

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koffiejunkie said:
I suppose that depends on how long you can go without one.
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Yes it does rather, doesnt it.

I'm thinking I might get the 13" now and give it to the missus when they release the new ones.
 
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