Upgrade or eBay?

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Level 1

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Upgrade or eBay?

Hi everyone.

So I have a MBP and it's pretty old now. I got Snow Leopard with a Mac Mini and thought I would upgrade the OS on my MBP but found that the computer didn't meet the system requirements, as Snow Leopard requires 2GB RAM.

I'm not really all that great with computers and just wondered what opinions people might have about whether it is worth me upgrading the RAM on my MBP so that I can keep my MBP up to date for longer? If I upgrade the RAM am I likely to find myself in the same position again when Lion is release next Summer or will I be relatively future proof? Also, am I correct in thinking that the RAM is the only thing that I would need to upgrade?

It's an Intel Core Duo. Here's the spec of my MBP from System Profiler:

Model Name: MacBook Pro 15"
Model Identifier: MacBookPro1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 1.83 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 2 MB
Memory: 512 MB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP11.0055.B08
SMC Version: 1.2f10
Serial Number: W86 **9VJ0
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

<Edited by Host>

macbook pro, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Oct 22, 2010 5:07 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Allan Jones

Level 9

68,690 points

Oct 22, 2010 5:22 PM in response to snoke

In the US, maxing your RAM to 2G would cost about USD44-50, where a new equivalent MBP would cost around USD1800. I know RAM is relatively more expensive in the UK and there seem to be fewer vendors, but I'd think that adding RAM would be worthwhile even if being able to run Snow Leopard gained you only a year of service.

I've not seen the sysreqs for Lion yet (has anybody?), so can't speculate on whether it will obsolete your MBP.

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Answer 2

snoke Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 22, 2010 6:55 PM in response to Allan Jones

Cheers Allan,

I can get hold of the two Samsung 1 GB RAM modules for £40 (+ postage) and according to vids on youtube it looks like child play to fit it yourself. I suppose your right, even if Lion does make it obsolete in terms of keeping it up to date, it should still be a viable laptop for a while.

Can you give me any advice as to whether all I would need to upgrade to run snow leopard is the RAM?

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Answer 3

snoke Author

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Oct 29, 2010 5:06 PM in response to snoke

Just thought I'd post an update encase anyone else reading this thread has a similar question.

I took my spec into an Apple store and they confirmed that the only thing I would need to do to run Snow Leopard would be to upgrade the RAM to 1GB or more. The most I can goto with my model is 2GB and at the price I may as well get the lot!

The Apple dude recommended getting my RAM from crucial and showed me which set I needed on their UK website.

I asked about Lion and obviously he wasn't prepared to give any guarantees as he didn't know the system requirements yet. But he was prepared to say that in his humble opinion, an upgrade to 2GB would probably see me able to run Lion just fine, as to be honest, the sneak peak given by Apple has only shown tweaking and refinements (nice as they are) to the OS and not any kind of revolutionary full blown revision to Snow Leopard that would massively increase the RAM requirements. At least hopefully not by more than 1GB of RAM!

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Answer 4

Allan Jones

Level 9

68,690 points

Oct 30, 2010 10:05 AM in response to snoke

Thanks for the follow-up.

The Apple guy is right--even they don't now what the final sysreqs will be.

There are some facts we know:

1) the Core Duo processor in your MBP is a 32-bit processor.

2) the Core 2 Duo processors in later MBPs are 64-bit.

3) Snow Leopard 10.6 adds many 64-bit components not seen in Leopard 10.5.

As speculation is not allowed here, I'll go no farther. I think you can see a logical progression growing from these three known facts about existing products.

As for the RAM, that fits for what most people are saying about UK vendors--Crucial is the best option.

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Answer 5

snoke Author

Level 1

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Nov 6, 2010 6:36 AM in response to Allan Jones

Yes I can see where you're going! I'm not very optimistic as I think Apple stopped selling 32-bit machines in 2006/07? 5-6 years seems like a length of time where they can justify forcing hardwear upgrades on people.

Oh well (if that is the case), at least my MBP is now faster and running Snow Leopard and it will still be a viable computer for some time!

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