Core 2 Duo bump for MacBooks

Apple today released a revised MacBook range that now features Core 2 Duo processors.

Prices and processor speeds remain the same – 1.83Ghz for the base white, and then 2Ghz white or black. Both the 2Ghz machines have 1Gb of RAM and a faster Superdrive than before. The base machine retains a 60Gb hard drive, while the 2Ghz white now has an 80Gb unit and the black machine ships with 120gb drive. Cases, screens and other specs remain the same – including the graphics processor.

Apple has stratified the product line a bit more with the increase in RAM and hard drive sizes on the faster machines. I am not sure that the sweet spot has shifted from the base machine, though. 2Ghz White gives you a Superdrive and 80Gb for the extra spend, but you are still probably going to want to pull the 1Gb of ram and go to 2Gb, and I bet the 1Gb ships as a pair of 512Mb SODIMMS so you’ll have to pull them both.

Interestingly, Apple are saying that these machines support 2Gb of RAM maximum, despite the Core 2 Duo iMac and MacBook Pros supporting 3Gb. I suspect the new MacBooks will take 3Gb, but that the use of size mismatched SODIMMs compromises the integrated graphics performance, so they don’t want to encourage it.

The word from the MacBook Pro speed bump is that Core 2 Duo delivers an extra 10% performance increase in the real world clock for clock – not worth switching an older machine for, IMHO. As always, good savings in the refurb store are to be had on the older models – 17% when I looked just now.