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thomasemery

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 15, 2008
6
0
My trusty old A1286 MacBookPro5,1 Late 2008 15" MBP 2.53GHz is on its last legs and now fails to turn on. It had a good innings of nearly 10 years without issue. I have upgraded to an SSD drive and it was last running on El Capitan.

I have the opportunity to acquire a free A1278 MacBookPro8,1 2011 13" MBP. I would look eventually swap out the HD for the aforementioned SSD.

Will I seem any performance improvement at all?
 

Glmnet1

macrumors 6502a
Oct 21, 2017
973
1,093
GPU: No dGPU on the 13" but the integrated one has similar performance.
CPU: Almost twice as fast which is great.

Yes, I think you'll see a performance improvement. Also it's free so definitely good :cool:
 

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
29,164
13,204
If you're going to spend money on a "used upgrade", I'd skip the 2011 -unless- you can get it for a VERY good price.

Instead, look for "at least" a 2012 -- they have USB3, a BIG "jump upwards".
 

thomasemery

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 15, 2008
6
0
If you're going to spend money on a "used upgrade", I'd skip the 2011 -unless- you can get it for a VERY good price.

Instead, look for "at least" a 2012 -- they have USB3, a BIG "jump upwards".

Is "free" a VERY good price? ;-)

Thank you for your comments so far. Sounds like I should see a small performance increase. Now I just need to figure out the best way to migrate from one unusable machine to the good one.
 

maerz001

macrumors 68030
Nov 2, 2010
2,528
2,434
Is "free" a VERY good price? ;-)

Thank you for your comments so far. Sounds like I should see a small performance increase. Now I just need to figure out the best way to migrate from one unusable machine to the good one.
Migrate Either from time machine backup or external USB cable/ enclosure for your old drive
 

Macbookprodude

Suspended
Jan 1, 2018
3,306
898
I have to agree with the op here. Free is good. For me, I have never had the GPU issue on my 2011 MBP, as I have had no reason to change, though I may get the 2012 non-retina as its the last upgradable MacBook Pro. The rest after 2012 plus retina are not upgradable. Given the problems with 2015-2017 in terms of keyboard, I am glad I don't have that one. Seems like all went to crap after the 2012 Retina. While i like Retina, i don't like the price esp if its a 2012. Is there a way to use retina on a 2011 by changing the screens ? I have upped my video to 1.5 similar to the Intel 4000 chip.
 
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