17in i7 quad core MacBook Pro & 6G SSDs - worth the upgrade from 3G?

[GrahamWelland]

I have a new 17in MBP being built for me at the moment and I'm wondering whether to upgrade from my current 240GB OWC 3G to a new 6G device, or for the almost the same outlay to get another 3G 480GB SSD instead.

Are you seeing significant speed improvements between the 3G drives vs 6G drives?

The other thought was to max the memory at 12GB (can't justify 16GB price at this time) instead of the 8GB I have being put in at the moment. I have to run windows VMs at times and with my current MBP with 6GB is barely enough. 8GB obviously will be better for this and PS/C1 Pro etc, 12GB presumably significantly so. Correct?

I didn't bother with the 2.3GHz CPU as it seems like poor value as an upgrade overall and most likely trumped by any SSD or extra memory for most tasks.

Current spec (unless I make a last second change):
2.2GHz MacBook Pro i7 Quad Core
Matte screen
8GB Ram
240 GB OWC 3G SSD (cuurent drive moved over)
MCE data doubler with 750GB 7200RPM HD

Other options - one of the following:
8GB -> 12GB
OWC 240 GB 3G SSD -> 6G 240 GB SSD boot drive
750GB HDD -> 480GB OWC 3G SSD for 2nd bay.

Thoughts on what would give The better performance difference and bang for the $$$?

Btw, I'm aware of the 17in MBP 6G SATA compatibility issues - hoping that since my box is the very latest build that I'm ok on the primary SATA interface at least.

 

[Bill_Green]

I have the same machine but 15". The 6G (SATA III) drive is twice as fast as 3G (yes I tested it), so if you do things that are drive intensive it will make a difference. I also have the factory 500gb HD in the optical drive bay with a data doubler. The optical bay is 3G (SATA II) so there is no benefit to putting a new SSD there. If you can live without the optical drive put your current SSD there, take the 500 GB drive that comes with the machine and put it in a thunderbolt enclosure as soon as they come out.

I would love to have 12GB RAM, but I don't know if it would make the machine enough faster to justify the cost. I work mostly in Lightroom and have never seen it max the ram. Photoshop seems to mostly be about processor speed.