Advice on GPUs in MacBook Pros?

mtmbpmtmbp
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
So I've been saving for a MBP for a while now, and before the refresh, I was looking at the 15" 2.4ghz i5. A couple of weeks ago it became clear to me that I was never going to get to the $2000 AUD I needed (hey, I'm in year 12), and so I lowered my sights to the 13". But I wasn't altogether happy with this, since they had Core 2 Duo processors and integrated graphics (though at least they had the 320m).

Hearing about the refresh, I thought that it would be okay since Apple would fix both my worries about the 13". Well...

They fixed one. It's now got an i5, but the graphics have gone backwards. Then, today, I looked at the refurb store, and whaddya know, the 15" I wanted before the refresh is there for a little more than the lowest 13".

So, my question is, which would I be better off getting?

I know Macs aren't for gaming, but I still want to play the occasional game such as CoD and DiRT 2. And from what I've heard, the Intel graphics, are, to put it bluntly, crap.

I'm leaning towards the 15". What do you think?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    audiopollutionaudiopollution Posts: 3,226member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MTMBP View Post


    So I've been saving for a MBP for a while now, and before the refresh, I was looking at the 15" 2.4ghz i5. A couple of weeks ago it became clear to me that I was never going to get to the $2000 AUD I needed (hey, I'm in year 12), and so I lowered my sights to the 13". But I wasn't altogether happy with this, since they had Core 2 Duo processors and integrated graphics (though at least they had the 320m).

    Hearing about the refresh, I thought that it would be okay since Apple would fix both my worries about the 13". Well...

    They fixed one. It's now got an i5, but the graphics have gone backwards. Then, today, I looked at the refurb store, and whaddya know, the 15" I wanted before the refresh is there for a little more than the lowest 13".

    So, my question is, which would I be better off getting?

    I know Macs aren't for gaming, but I still want to play the occasional game such as CoD and DiRT 2. And from what I've heard, the Intel graphics, are, to put it bluntly, crap.

    I'm leaning towards the 15". What do you think?



    Get the refurb.
  • Reply 2 of 2
    infinitespecterinfinitespecter Posts: 284member
    I've been reading up on the Intel HD 3000 graphics all day, and from what I've read, the graphics aren't half bad. They are about halfway between the old NVidia 9400M used a couple generations ago and the last gen Nvidia 320M, still used in the Macbook. Here's a great article detailing the cards performance, and it actually ranks it compared to other mobile graphics cards.



    http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-H...0.37948.0.html





    You'll also note that the "high end" Radeon 6490 and 6750 cards offered in the 15 and 17 are at best a midrange. There's nothing high end about them.
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