Upgrade Mid 2009 MBP or buy new?

[suklee]

I have a mid-2009 13" MBP as well, with 8GB RAM, 120GB Intel SSD & 1TB in the drive bay. It does feel sluggish whenever I use it (on Yosemite beta), but I think it's because I have accumulated too much 'crap' from 5 years of usage. Once Yosemite final comes out I'm gonna wipe everything and do a clean install, not even gonna restore from Time Machine backup.

 

[Koing]

The SSD and Ram upgrades are well worth it IMO.

It kept my 2008 white C2D going until about March 2014. Originally it was 120GB with 512MB or 1GB of ram. I put in a 256GB SSD Samsung 830 Pro and 4GB of ram. Yes the my system was maxed at SATA1 speeds but it felt SO much more responsive.

I'm on a rMBP 2.6 8GB 512GB now . Should have upgraded to 16GB though

Koing

 

[Eug]

Yeah that kitchen MacBook I mentioned is a 2008 white. It's fine... until I play HD video. It works but the fan ramps up and if I do anything else besides watching the video, the video will stutter. All CPU. None of this is an issue with the 2009 MacBook Pro.

Mind you, I bought the white MacBook not too long ago used for cheap so I can't complain.

I'm curious, what usage makes you feel you need 16 GB? I'm still on 12 on my Core i7 iMac and haven't felt the need to upgrade to 16. I'm thinking 8 GB might have been a bit limiting, but I multitask on that 27" screen much more than I would on a MacBook. That said, it's nice just leaving applications loaded without having to worry about memory.

 

[Koing]

Yeah that kitchen MacBook I mentioned is a 2008 white. It's fine... until I play HD video. It works but the fan ramps up and if I do anything else besides watching the video, the video will stutter. All CPU. None of this is an issue with the 2009 MacBook Pro.

Mind you, I bought the white MacBook not too long ago used for cheap so I can't complain.

I'm curious, what usage makes you feel you need 16 GB? I'm still on 12 on my Core i7 iMac and haven't felt the need to upgrade to 16. I'm thinking 8 GB might have been a bit limiting, but I multitask on that 27" screen much more than I would on a MacBook. That said, it's nice just leaving applications loaded without having to worry about memory.

I think my White C2D is an older gen than yours. Mine would lag on youtube . I paid £699or £799 for mine from a department store as it included an extra warranty.

8GB is not enough for me. I thought it would be but it's not. I do a lot of multi tasking and it's my main machine.

itunes
mail
safari - 9 tabs opened
open office - spreadsheets, not overly complicated, word,
vuze
vlc

Maybe I should restart my machine more often? I rarely restart and have it in sleep most of the time.

Every so often I'll purge memory from the terminal and it drops it a bit. System is now at 7.99GB memory used.

But yeah there is no way you'd think I'm using this much memory?!

Koing

 

[Eug]

I think my White C2D is an older gen than yours. Mine would lag on youtube . I paid £699or £799 for mine from a department store as it included an extra warranty.

Mine is 2.4 GHz, which is what Apple considers the bare minimum for unassisted 1080p H.264 playback for iTunes content.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3209

Mac system requirements for HD 1080p1 content

Mac OS X v10.5 or later
iTunes 10.6 or later
2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo or faster processor
At least 2 GB of RAM
A display that supports HDCP with a screen resolution of 1280 x 800 or higher

Note though that the 2008 white MacBook also came in a 2.1 GHz version, so if you had that one you'd be SOL for 1080p H.264.

I do agree that even with a 2.4 GHz though, YouTube H.264 can sometimes lag more than iTunes, but I find that if I launch a 1080p HD video in YouTube and then leave it alone, it will usually play cleanly after a few seconds of settling in.

That said, for YouTube I just stick to 720p (or less) because the screen is only 1280x800 anyway, and 720p stresses out the computer less.

Mac system requirements for HD 720p content

Mac OS X v10.5 or later
iTunes 10 or later
2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo or faster processor
At least 1 GB of RAM
A display that supports HDCP with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher

The above specs are completely irrelevant for the 2009 MBP though, as previously mentioned, because of the hardware H.264 assist it has.

8GB is not enough for me. I thought it would be but it's not. I do a lot of multi tasking and it's my main machine.

itunes
mail
safari - 9 tabs opened
open office - spreadsheets, not overly complicated, word,
vuze
vlc

Maybe I should restart my machine more often? I rarely restart and have it in sleep most of the time.

Every so often I'll purge memory from the terminal and it drops it a bit. System is now at 7.99GB memory used.

But yeah there is no way you'd think I'm using this much memory?!

OK that makes sense. Your Safari usage alone probably eats up a few GBs. However, I wonder what the benefit of manually purging memory is, vs. just closing applications when not in use.

 

[Koing]

Mine is 2.4 GHz, which is what Apple considers the bare minimum for unassisted 1080p H.264 playback for iTunes content.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3209

Note though that the 2008 white MacBook also came in a 2.1 GHz version, so if you had that one you'd be SOL for 1080p H.264.

I do agree that even with a 2.4 GHz though, YouTube H.264 can sometimes lag more than iTunes, but I find that if I launch a 1080p HD video in YouTube and then leave it alone, it will usually play cleanly after a few seconds of settling in.

That said, for YouTube I just stick to 720p (or less) because the screen is only 1280x800 anyway, and 720p stresses out the computer less.

The above specs are completely irrelevant for the 2009 MBP though, as previously mentioned, because of the hardware H.264 assist it has.


OK that makes sense. Your Safari usage alone probably eats up a few GBs. However, I wonder what the benefit of manually purging memory is, vs. just closing applications when not in use.

I have the 2.1GHz white Macbook. It felt crazy slow when I used it a few months ago compared to the rMBP. But before I had the rMBP it felt pretty dam fast overall on the internet. Only when doing more heavy video editing, GIMP or watching videos it would lag out. Watching films when it just pauses for a few seconds is not fun.

purge is very temporary and the ram usage quickly fills back up depending on what I'm doing, but it is noticeable if I use the command. It's 2014 and you'd think 8GB would be enough?!

I haven't restarted in 13 days.

Maybe I'll upgrade next year and sell this machine and take a bit of a loss. I should have gotten the 16GB but wanted to save the £160 on top of the already expensive 512GB upgrade. The battery life is amazing.

Koing

 

[Koing]

Just did a restart.

Straight back up to 7.99GB ram usage.

3.77GB app memory
3.40GB file cache
800MB wired memory

I suppose I'm not fussed how much ram is being used, as long as when I boot up a programme the system will free some ram up and let me use the programme properly.

Koing

 

[Childs]

A year ago at work I made some crack about not being able to do something because I didn't have a laptop. My manager said he'd hook me up, and instead of a recent retina MBP I got a 2011 MBP 2Ghz i7 with like 4GB RAM and whatever 5400 RPM hard drive was in there. No one wanted it because it had a ding or two and it wasn't retina. I found a deal on 16GB so I bought it, then added an old 256GB 840 Pro that I wasn't using, and now the thing is a beast. Since then he actually offered me newer, but slower MBPs and I tell him to keep it. No need to go to the back of the queue when new stuff comes in. Paid off...first in my group to get the new Mac Pro! But anyways, those 2010+ MBP are pretty good once you upgrade the RAM and HD. I'm kinda looking for a used one for my own use. I already have the parts to upgrade it. :biggrin:

 

[Eug]

New Mac Pro? Nice.

 

[Koing]

New Mac Pro? Nice.

rMBP is connected to my 23" Sony LCD bought in 2002 (cost me a ridiculus £2.1k at the time! wtf?!) and makes working in spreadsheets much easier. I have a Dell 24" that is just sitting in my lounge as well. I was tempted by the thunderbolt Apple displays but I don't quite need anything that major.

I do wish I had the Dell connected at times though.

Koing

 

[Dexion]

SSD is a huge upgrade for those older MacBooks. Though you'll probably have to manually add TRIM support, which requires farting around with the terminal. It's not hard though.

What I did with mine as upgrade to a 120GB SSD and installed OSX on that. Then I removed the optical drive and installed one of those second hard drive caddies in it's place. So I still have the HDD for archival storage.

As for the upgrade, I second upgrading the MacBook with an SSD. It would be the most dramatic upgrade to any computer system as the Hard Disk has always been the slowest piece of equipment in any computer.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Depending on RAM prices, if you can get 4GB cheap, then that's a fine upgrade rather than 8GB.

I also second upgrading the RAM and getting an SSD, though. I'm also currently writing this on a mid-2009 Macbook Pro (13") that's upgraded with a 120GB SSD - just an Agility 3 but it flies!

Make sure to get TRIM enabler!

 

[Excelsior]

Late 2008/Early 2009 Unibody Macbook Pro who is also getting by with 8GB of ram and an SSD. Currently just using an Intel 80GB and I feel like I could already upgrade to something much larger. I did get rid of my optical drive which had died anyway, and I'm using that bay for a regular HD.

 

[Imported]

I did the TRIM enabler app thing. I'm real happy with this MBP for internet usage and light office work. Feels a million times better than before. Great use of $170 ($100 MX100 256GB and $70 for the 8GB of ram).

 

[manly]

8GB is not enough for me. I thought it would be but it's not. I do a lot of multi tasking and it's my main machine.

itunes
mail
safari - 9 tabs opened
open office - spreadsheets, not overly complicated, word,
vuze
vlc

Maybe I should restart my machine more often? I rarely restart and have it in sleep most of the time.

Every so often I'll purge memory from the terminal and it drops it a bit. System is now at 7.99GB memory used.

But yeah there is no way you'd think I'm using this much memory?!

OK that makes sense. Your Safari usage alone probably eats up a few GBs. However, I wonder what the benefit of manually purging memory is, vs. just closing applications when not in use.

Just 9 Safari tabs eats up a few GBs, and that's normal? OK, I know Safari is a problem since v5.1 which is why I stopped using it on my RAM-constrained MBP. This was the first version of Safari that had WebKit in a different process and it was notorious for causing the spinning beach ball. The behavior was quite obvious, the WebKit process (in Activity Monitor, Safari Web Content) would keep ballooning in real RAM used and never give any back to the OS. I'm stuck on Lion, so I don't know if Apple ever fixed it.

With Chrome, I'm often over 50 tabs open. While this uses a lot of RAM, OS X will page out to swap whenever necessary.

Based on what Koing is running, 8 GB should be fine. In theory, rebooting shouldn't matter because that's what virtual memory and swap are designed for. In practice, rebooting is a temporary fix until Safari's RAM use starts to grow.

One workaround is to force quit the Safari Web Content process. The browser doesn't quit, just all the tabs are cleared. At least in Safari 5.1, only the "foreground" tab in each window is reloaded/rendered. So this is a quick and easy way to release all the RAM Safari is using, but technically the URL for each tab is still there. You just have to Reload that tab.

My current uptime is 103 days. I'm waiting for Broadwell to re-join modern computing.

 

[Eug]

Safari 5.1 is a very old version, no longer supported, even for security updates. The current version of Safari for that MacBook Pro model is 7.

 

[manly]

Apple's Safari page claims v7 is about 30% more RAM efficient than the 2 major competitors. That sounds interesting, but doesn't specifically confirm whether Safari gracefully gives back memory when the OS needs it for other apps. My main point was that Safari with 9 tabs should absolutely not be gobbling up gigs of RAM.

I should update to v6.1 anyway but I hardly use Safari and it doesn't have any tangible benefits under Lion except for fewer exploits.

Chrome will finally be 64-bit on OS X in 2 months.

 

[Eug]

Actually, I don't use Safari 6 much either. It's all that my 10.7 MacBook will support, but there are occasional issues with YouTube etc. with that. On that machine it's Chrome and Firefox, since there is no Safari 7 support.

However, the mid-2009 MacBook Pro supports Safari 7, and I use it on that machine.