New i5 Pro powerful enough?

**Buggington** · 19th February 2012, 07:46 AM

Hi

First post here! Thinking of getting my first Mac for my own use (Dad's had one before, but I didn't use it much). My budget is for the basic i5 MacBook with a 500GB HDD and the standard 4GB RAM. I do the occasional bit of Dreamweaver and Photoshop across the built in monitor and a 1080p Samsung.

I've got a first gen i3 and 512mb of dedicated VRAM in my HP, which has all the Windows junk on it. Should it be powerful enough to handle it without cooking it alive?

Also, are there any good audio/video editor/conversion programs I should get? I do a lot of that too.

Thanks

**grfxninja** · 19th February 2012, 06:58 PM

Not sure about the video editing stuff as I don’t do any of that, but I use an i5 MBP 15" (about 18 months old) running at 2.4GHz. Handles Photoshop easily (I use it every day for work). Admittedly I have upgraded the RAM to 8GB, but PS still ran nicely with the default 4GB config. I have also upgraded to an SSD drive (aftermarket) and this machine screams along now. Well worth it for my usage.

**Buggington** · 19th February 2012, 08:37 PM

Cheers

Is that with the integrated graphics? That's my concern, because I had an old Windows laptop without a dedicated GPU and sold it after six months because it didn't have the power.

**grfxninja** · 20th February 2012, 01:35 AM

No, this machine has the 2 GPU’s. Dedicated and Integrated and switches between them as required

**Buggington** · 20th February 2012, 04:56 AM

Hmmm... I was expecting one of those to be powerful enough. Can you choose which GPU yours runs on? I would like the power of the 15, but can't afford it.

**Buggington** · 20th February 2012, 04:56 AM

Sorry, just looked through and seen I didn't mention I was looking at the 13 inch model.

**rav3n** · 20th February 2012, 11:28 AM

13" only has integrated graphics. It will be fine if your only working on the laptop screen, but if you also using a 1920x1080 external screen you'll find it will lag a bit.