Which Mac book pro?

[CandyApple]

I am going to buy a mbox 2 Pro. I am a solo musician and typical projects will be 16 tracks or less with generous use of plugins at 96kz.

The 17" MacBookPro has TWO firewire ports (FW400, FW800), whereas the 15" MBP has ONE firewire 800 port.

The 17" MBP has a 2.6Ghx CPU, the 15" MBP has a 2.8Ghz CPU.

The 17" MBP has 4gig of 667Mhz DDR2 memory, the 15" MBP has 4gig of 1066Mhz DDR3 SDRAM.

The 17" MBP has 800Mhz frontside bus, the 15" MBP has 1066Mhz frontside bus.

The 17" MBP has NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor, the 15" MBP has a 9600M GT processor.

So, the 17" has wider screen and two FW ports, but the 15" seems a bit faster.

Does the better 15" MBP speed specs amount to a noticeable advantage in terms of supportable PT tracks/etc or overall PT performance?

Will either MBP support my more modest needs (< 16 tracks at 96kz)?

Are both off-the-shelf MBP's typically compatible with PT?

Which MBP would you choose and why?

Thanks so much in advance

[DigiTechSupt]

The best advice Digidesign can give you is to refer to the Mbox 2 Pro Compatibility pages:
http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...d=100&eid=2724

The newest MacBook and MacBook Pro models have not been tested or qualified by Digidesign yet.

[CME]

The 15" is a new model, while the 17" is a carryover of the previous generation. The new models also have a new chipset, which may or may not cause issues, as it has yet to be approved. As far as performance goes I'd think both would be similar, but if you're using 96khz, you might need all the power you can get.

[maharzan]

When is DigiDesign going to test and give us the result?? Its already 2 months past the New MacBook Pros are here..

I am still stuck with whether to buy the new macbook pro..

Share your experiences..

[LittleBirdie]

I am also eager to hear people's answer to this, as I'm looking at buying a macbook pro too, and want the best one for my pro tools /mbox 2 pro.

The difficult thing is that some of the older (compatible with digidesign) macbook pro models are sold out, while the new ones haven't been tested yet for compatibility with digidesign's stuff...so, it looks like we're in macbook pro limbo for a little while....

[thewiz]

I bought the old 17" with 4gig ram, and 2.50duo. Highly recommended.

[bvcreative]

I bought the old 15" with 4gig ram and 2.5 duo. Highly recommended as well!

[EvilElfBoy]

I have one of the new macbook pro's and it's working just fine with PT 8. I have the lowest line of the pro's the 15", 2.4 core 2 duo, 2 gigs of ram.

Processing anything at 96k is asking your computer to do A LOT. I don't think the computer could handle processing 16 tracks at 96k.

I have done various testing with plugin configurations with just a 24 mono track 48k session that with just simple configurations of eq and compression, it takes a pretty decent amount of cpu power to process at lower to mid buffer settings. I can't check 96k settings on my micro, it only supports up to 48k.

Honestly, depending on the type of music you are recording, 88.2 and 96k aren't really needed. Most music is all compressed to where you would lose all the dynamic range that you would capture at 96k. I think really the only exception to this is Classical and Jazz. Which are the best candidates for higer sample rates IMOHO. I always use 44.1, 24 bit for all my sessions. Even when using my HD rig. You be really surprised at how fast you can tap out an HD 3 accel. Time based effects are murder on those cards!

I hope this helps! :) Best of luck!

[cfb25]

Heres a question.. I got a new 15in MBP as a christmas present... I have an 002r... Problem is, no firewire 400!!! WTF? How am I supposed to hook up my 002, or my dv camcorder? I'm confused...

CB

[The Dougfather]

Two choices:

1) FW800 > FW400 cable, this will bring the bus down to FW400.

2) SIIG FW400 xpress card.