What kind of performance increase could I expect from a MacBook Pro w/ Core 2 Duo and faster RAM?
I'm not a gamer, but I do like to use Windows XP under VMware Fusion, and tend to have a lot of apps/Firefox tabs open at once.
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M$2 Answers
Any speed increase that you notice is going to be marginal, but you will see that if you run the same load as you do with your current machine, it should run a little bit cooler, lower utilization, etc.
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M$While I'm not on OSX, I an tell you that the difference between my 3Ghz core 2 duo /4GB desktop and my 1.83Ghz Core Duo/2GB laptop is negligible for normal tasks in Vista. There is a significant, but not massive difference in photoshop, but the only area where it is night and day is playing games, and that is more because of the video card in the PC than the CPU.
IMO, just upgrade to 4GB of RAM. It'll make the computer snappier, and you really don't need a new one so soon.
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M$
Oh. I messed up from your question. I thought you had the older macbook pro and were looking at getting a new macbook pro.
Unless you're playing games, you won't be able to tell the difference. If you are, the Macbook Pro will be a bit faster. The different kinds of memory won't really affect performance. The CPUs are almost exactly the same, the Core 2 Duo may be 10-15% faster, but it depends on which versions of the CPUs were used... and a 10% difference is negligible, really.
So, if you're looking for something smaller with comparable performance, it will meet your needs, but if you want something faster, it won't do anything for you at all.
