Buying a new Laptop

Finally the new macbook pro's came out, which is what i was waiting for, however looking at the model difference in the 15in, the Graphic card is the main difference in my main. Is this worth 300$ more? Am i really going to miss having the power from a 256mb to a 1gb? What your guys thought?
I'm just working with Raws and on site quick edits to upload.
Besides that maybe some editing work with 720, or atleast be able to play them.

Whats your thoughts?
at 2300$ with Tax its already high, i really don't wanna commit anymore money. But i would hate to regret it.

Since the title of the thread is "Buying a new Laptop" not "Buying a new Mac" I'm going to go ahead and suggest that if money is a concern... you don't buy a Mac. ... You can buy a much much faster PC for less $$.

I've got a laptop with 17" screen, i7 processor, 1GB Graphics, 6GB RAM, and dual HDD's for less than $1200

Depends on what you're doing. I'm not aware that photo apps (perhaps counter intuitively) actually demand a lot from graphics cards, they use RAM and CPU. I'd put the $300 into something else personally.

Ya but would video or video editing be dependent on the graphics card?
As well for not going with another brand is for a few reasons, maybe quote me wrong on this but, how long is the battery life on say a dell? And more so how is it in 2 years. My buddy has a macbook from two years and still runs at 2 hours to 2.5 hours. My laptop on the other hand was 3.5 hours and now i get an hour tops!

I would like to say buying a mac... but i may go with the advice and go with the lower card.

Again video editing and transcoding/encoding uses CPU.

Playonpics.com wrote in post #11951051
Ya but would video or video editing be dependent on the graphics card?
As well for not going with another brand is for a few reasons, maybe quote me wrong on this but, how long is the battery life on say a dell? And more so how is it in 2 years. My buddy has a macbook from two years and still runs at 2 hours to 2.5 hours. My laptop on the other hand was 3.5 hours and now i get an hour tops!

I would like to say buying a mac... but i may go with the advice and go with the lower card.

If you get 8GB of RAM you should be OK with the weaker video card. If you plan on doing a lot of 3d work or gaming then get the bigger card.

I will never again get any computer without a decent graphics chip. I posted before about how many unexpected things sped up when I lately upgraded graphics cards, including pure 2D without any decoding/encoding/GPU computation.

Now, $300 for this piece of junk graphics chip (worth a $30 desktop equivalent) is a joke but if it makes a $2000 notebook more useful?

Playonpics.com wrote in post #11950910
...looking at the model difference in the 15in, the Graphic card is the main difference in my main. Is this worth 300$ more? Am i really going to miss having the power from a 256mb to a 1gb? What your guys thought?

If you plan to use Aperture, Pixelmator or the next iteration of Final Cut Pro (the rumour is it uses the gpu for h.264 encoding and Open CL, and has been called "jaw-dropping" by pros who've used the beta) the graphics card (better gpu and more vRAM) may well be worth the extra amount. Even Adobe is getting on the gpu bandwagon as evidenced by their Pixel Bender plug-in (which is way cool, btw). Thunderbolt would also give you the best performance for NL video editing when those devices (card readers, hard drives, etc.) become available in the next few months.

Those WinPCs that are substantially less expensive have poorer parts, engineering and features. My advice is to stay away from them.

imahawki wrote in post #11950980
Depends on what you're doing. I'm not aware that photo apps (perhaps counter intuitively) actually demand a lot from graphics cards, they use RAM and CPU. I'd put the $300 into something else personally.

Both Aperture and Pixelmator use the gpu. Pixelmator is the fastest image editor available (it smokes PSCS5), but is only for OS X.

imahawki wrote in post #11951061
Again video editing and transcoding/encoding uses CPU.

See rumor note above about Final Cut Pro.