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Buying a laptop is always hard work and questions about specific models dont age well on forums. A popular dilema (especially with apple macbooks) is whether to spend more for a faster cpu and graphics card but settle for standard ram and hd OR drop down and spend the savings on more ram and a faster harddrive such as a ssd.

Im wondering for web development i.e. ide, unit tests, photoshop work and some user testing screen capturing now and again what would provide better performance. ( No games, music production or spielberg standard video editing.)

For examples sake the current apple lineup for their 15inch macbookpros. 

2.66 cpu
i7
4gb ram
5400rpm drive 4gig ram

vs

2.4 cpu
i5 
8gb ram
124gb sdd

roughly the same price.

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An SSD isn't a HDD, they're different things. Both data storage, but an SSDHD isn't a thing. – Phoshi Dec 30 '10 at 20:05
Shopping recommendations are off-topic for Super User, but for what it's worth, for web development I'd much sooner spend my money on upgrading to the high resolution screen option than a core i7 OR 8 gigs of RAM. More space is always valuable for web work. You'd be fine with all the other specs, save your money for something else. – nhinkle♦ Dec 30 '10 at 21:55
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closed as off topic by nhinkle♦, Diago Dec 30 '10 at 22:40

Questions on Super User are expected to generally relate to computer software or computer hardware, within the scope defined in the faq.

4 Answers

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the i7 is unquestionably better; you dont have to keep the same hard drive; you dont have to keep the same ram; only the cpu/logic board/mother board (i7 or i5) is not upgradable; video editing and gaming are what will tax the computer the most; i actually use photoshop cs5 on a 2gig ram, cpu= intel core2 duo, and the 5400 rpm HD and i have never had problems whatsoever; i even use Final cut pro for High def video on that machine! but i run into a lot of issues;

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For what you are doing, unless you are dealing with large images in photoshop, 4 GB ram is probably plenty. This would change if, for example, you want to use several virtual machines to test your code under different OS/browser combinations.

The most noticeable difference is probably the SSD hard drive. Booting, starting new applications, fast user switching all happen noticeably faster. I haven't tried compile code with it yet, but I would image that would be noticeably faster as well.

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With a SSD drive you'll notice the speed increase. But you give up size (for now). And they are still expensive. 124gig goes fast. You plan to maintain your itunes library on this machine?

If you go with the SSD option you best get a fast (firewire 800) portable drive (I like the G-Tech line myself). The bigger the better.

4 gigs of RAM is fine for web development. But if you can afford more, get it.

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Go with whatever option has a SSD, that's always the bottleneck in any computer. The performance increase, especially if you're just using it for web dev, is negligible between the core i5 and i7. As always, the more RAM the better, but 4GB should be plenty and if you do decide you want more, installing it shouldn't be much of a problem with an aftermarket upgrade unless you are going to be buying a MacBook Air, which has it soldered onboard.

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