Intel HD 4000 vs GeForce 9600M GT: Noticeable Drop?

[Kyahx]

My fiancé has a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro (4GB ram + SSD) currently and does some gaming (namely The Sims 3).

I am considering selling that machine and getting the entry level 13" MacBook Air. It seems like it should be comparable power-wise to the old Pro in every way except for GPU performance. She already has an SSD and the RAM is the same speed / size so I don't think she will notice much improvement on those fronts. I know the CPU will be faster but I'm not sure that is even noticeable to the average user anymore. I'm hoping that the 13" Air will be "just as good" as her current machine performance-wise, and an obvious upgrade portability wise.

My question: Has Intel's integrated graphics matured to the point of being as good as a 3 year-old dedicated chip? Or do you think there will be a noticeable drop in gaming performance?

[randomhkkid]

Originally Posted by Kyahx

My fiancé has a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro (4GB ram + SSD) currently and does some gaming (namely The Sims 3).

I am considering selling that machine and getting the entry level 13" MacBook Air. It seems like it should be comparable power-wise to the old Pro in every way except for GPU performance. She already has an SSD and the RAM is the same speed / size so I don't think she will notice much improvement on those fronts. I know the CPU will be faster but I'm not sure that is even noticeable to the average user anymore. I'm hoping that the 13" Air will be "just as good" as her current machine performance-wise, and an obvious upgrade portability wise.

My question: Has Intel's integrated graphics matured to the point of being as good as a 3 year-old dedicated chip? Or do you think there will be a noticeable drop in gaming performance?

I've also been wondering the same thing, from what I've found online the HD4000 seems comparable if not faster in some cases. Take a look here

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...GT.9449.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-H...0.69168.0.html

I'll do a full comparison on my blog when I get my new rMBP on the 11th

[CausticPuppy]

Based on my testing (cinebench OpenGL) the 9600gt is barely faster than even the hd3000. So the hd4000 should be a noticeable improvement.

[Kyahx]

Great to hear! I'll pick one up over lunch and surprise her with it tonight

[Dangerous Theory]

Originally Posted by Kyahx

Great to hear! I'll pick one up over lunch and surprise her with it tonight

Unless she reads these forums

[estrides]

I think you will see a difference. I have the exact same laptop, with the 9600...it runs great. But my brother has the HD3000 the difference is drastic in games that use the source engine...etc. It can barely play them on medium and low. just my own experience.

[randomhkkid]

Originally Posted by estrides

I think you will see a difference. I have the exact same laptop, with the 9600...it runs great. But my brother has the HD3000 the difference is drastic in games that use the source engine...etc. It can barely play them on medium and low. just my own experience.

I agree. I have tested the 9600m GT against a 410m and a 610m, it is pretty much equal to the 610m and is therefore faster than the HD3000.

[estrides]

I would say that the HD4000 is more powerful than the 9400...but not the 9600.

[SpyderBite]

I just picked up a 13" MBP & installed win 7 via boot camp in order to play swtor. My previous notebook had a nVida w/ 1gb on the gpu. Graphics quality is diminished on the MBP but performance is better.

In native OS X, games blaze. But they're not very demanding games. Torchlight, Diablo III, etc.

[randomhkkid]

Originally Posted by SpyderBite

I just picked up a 13" MBP & installed win 7 via boot camp in order to play swtor. My previous notebook had a nVida w/ 1gb on the gpu. Graphics quality is diminished on the MBP but performance is better.

In native OS X, games blaze. But they're not very demanding games. Torchlight, Diablo III, etc.

What do you mean by graphics quality is diminished?

[Kmistr01]

Originally Posted by SpyderBite

I just picked up a 13" MBP & installed win 7 via boot camp in order to play swtor. My previous notebook had a nVida w/ 1gb on the gpu. Graphics quality is diminished on the MBP but performance is better.

In native OS X, games blaze. But they're not very demanding games. Torchlight, Diablo III, etc.

Hi, I am just curious...how big was your bootcamp windows partition to play swtor? Can I get away with a 30 gig bootcamp partition to play?

Thanks

[randomhkkid]

Originally Posted by Kmistr01

Hi, I am just curious...how big was your bootcamp windows partition to play swtor? Can I get away with a 30 gig bootcamp partition to play?

Thanks

In my experience windows 7 takes around 15gb (For 32bit) or 20gb for 64bit. This is before you get disk space back by deleting the hibernation files. I suggest at least a 40gb partition as SWTOR takes up 15gb by itself.

[Kmistr01]

Originally Posted by randomhkkid

In my experience windows 7 takes around 15gb (For 32bit) or 20gb for 64bit. This is before you get disk space back by deleting the hibernation files. I suggest at least a 40gb partition as SWTOR takes up 15gb by itself.

Thanks bud for the heads up

[iPhonePunker]

Hi i had a 2008 unibody MBP it running core 2 duo 2.5Ghz Geforce 9600M GT Hybrid SLI with 9400M 256GB OCZ SSD 8GB ram DDR3 and it was quite a good gaming machine and when i had EVGA performance tool overclocking the GPU it was a lot more stable when gaming.
crysis = medium (bootcamp windows 7)
skyrim = medium custom to high (bootcamp windows 7)
star craft 2 =high (Mac osX Lion)
fallout New vegas = high (bootcamp windows 7)
SWTOR = high (bootcamp windows 7)
bioshock 2 = medium (bootcamp windows 7)
dirt 2 = low-custom to medium (Mac osX Lion)

so it proved my friends wrong that Macs where slow peace's of crap anyways it was stolen about 3 month ago hope how ever has it chocks on it but iv gotten a lend of a XPS M1710 off one of my friends but i have saved up enough for the newly announced Mac mini late 2012 running a dual core ivy-bridge with turbo boost from 2.5GHz to 3.5Ghz and hyper-threading i5, 4GB ram (will be upgradedto 8GB as soon as possable) 500GB HDD(with space for a second 2.5 HHDor SSD) and intel HD 4000 GPU now iv tried to stay away from integrated graphics for years but iv seen these videos and they look quite promising iv loads of PC games that i still need too complete and i think this will run them quite well
http://www.youtube.com/user/ThisisRends?feature=watch
also from experiences i would think the 9600GT is better than the HD 4000 but HD 4000 graphics support DirctX 11 which means more and newer games are supported and there is not much difference if u put ur shaders down to low or off so that's all i can say about the subject

[jbzcar]

Originally Posted by iPhonePunker

Hi i had a 2008 unibody MBP it running core 2 duo 2.5Ghz Geforce 9600M GT Hybrid SLI with 9400M 256GB OCZ SSD 8GB ram DDR3 and it was quite a good gaming machine and when i had EVGA performance tool overclocking the GPU it was a lot more stable when gaming.
crysis = medium (bootcamp windows 7)
skyrim = medium custom to high (bootcamp windows 7)
star craft 2 =high (Mac osX Lion)
fallout New vegas = high (bootcamp windows 7)
SWTOR = high (bootcamp windows 7)
bioshock 2 = medium (bootcamp windows 7)
dirt 2 = low-custom to medium (Mac osX Lion)

so it proved my friends wrong that Macs where slow peace's of crap anyways it was stolen about 3 month ago hope how ever has it chocks on it but iv gotten a lend of a XPS M1710 off one of my friends but i have saved up enough for the newly announced Mac mini late 2012 running a dual core ivy-bridge with turbo boost from 2.5GHz to 3.5Ghz and hyper-threading i5, 4GB ram (will be upgradedto 8GB as soon as possable) 500GB HDD(with space for a second 2.5 HHDor SSD) and intel HD 4000 GPU now iv tried to stay away from integrated graphics for years but iv seen these videos and they look quite promising iv loads of PC games that i still need too complete and i think this will run them quite well
http://www.youtube.com/user/ThisisRends?feature=watch
also from experiences i would think the 9600GT is better than the HD 4000 but HD 4000 graphics support DirctX 11 which means more and newer games are supported and there is not much difference if u put ur shaders down to low or off so that's all i can say about the subject

The 9400m and 9600m in that model do not run in any form of SLI, in Windows or OSX. On the OSX side it is an either/or affair, and under Bootcamp, only the 9600m is even visible to the OS.

[iPhonePunker]

Originally Posted by jbzcar

The 9400m and 9600m in that model do not run in any form of SLI, in Windows or OSX. On the OSX side it is an either/or affair, and under Bootcamp, only the 9600m is even visible to the OS.

I do now that but the configuration is called hybrid SLI which means the 9600mGT turns off when on battery mode and uses the 9400m to save energy and vice versa when on charge i was talking about just the 9600mGT vs the intel HD 4000 at the end of the comment so i thought that it was obvious but maybe not sorry about that. also i do refer to it at the start as "hybrid SLI" i wasn't saying at all the 2 GPU's run at the same time.

[leman]

Originally Posted by iPhonePunker

I do now that but the configuration is called hybrid SLI which means the 9600mGT turns off when on battery mode and uses the 9400m to save energy and vice versa when on charge i was talking about just the 9600mGT vs the intel HD 4000 at the end of the comment so i thought that it was obvious but maybe not sorry about that. also i do refer to it at the start as "hybrid SLI" i wasn't saying at all the 2 GPU's run at the same time.

It not hybrid SLI. This is hybrid SLI: http://www.nvidia.com/object/hybrid_sli.html

In Bootcamp, the system is not even seeing the integrated GPU (as Mac uses a hardware multiplexing solution instead of a software one like hybrid SLI/Optimus etc.). And on OS X side, the OS has its own algorithms of managing the GPUs.

[throAU]

Originally Posted by iPhonePunker

also i do refer to it at the start as "hybrid SLI" i wasn't saying at all the 2 GPU's run at the same time.

You do know what SLI stands for?

Scan-line Interleave

As in, one card renders even scanlines, the other card renders odd ones.


GPU switching is NOTHING to do with SLI.

[iPhonePunker]

Originally Posted by leman

It not hybrid SLI. This is hybrid SLI: http://www.nvidia.com/object/hybrid_sli.html

In Bootcamp, the system is not even seeing the integrated GPU (as Mac uses a hardware multiplexing solution instead of a software one like hybrid SLI/Optimus etc.). And on OS X side, the OS has its own algorithms of managing the GPUs.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/note...force-9600m-gt
http://www.nvidia.com/object/hybridsli_notebook.html

back when i first got it in early 2009 it was advertised as "core 2 duo Nvidea 9600mGT hybrid SLI 9400m 4gb ram and 300GB HDD" in my local Harvey Normans shop so that's what I considered it was and when i checked on the net it was on the list of GPUs that supported hybrid SLI on Nvidea's website so i assumed that's what the system was called that switched the GPUs anyways really i couldn't give a crap what it was called it just worked. but i still didn't mention anything about the 2 GPU's running at the same time like on true SLI i was only talking about the 9600gt vs intel HD 4000 so cam down people it was just a mistake getting attacked from all sides over something like this is stupid. i was only given what i got from gaming on my Late 2008 15" MBP and a link to a youtube page to a guy gaming on the new base model late 2012 Mac mini using HD 4000 IGPU your welcome

[leman]

Originally Posted by iPhonePunker

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/note...force-9600m-gt
http://www.nvidia.com/object/hybridsli_notebook.html

back when i first got it in early 2009 it was advertised as "core 2 duo Nvidea 9600mGT hybrid SLI 9400m 4gb ram and 300GB HDD" in my local Harvey Normans shop so that's what I considered it was and when i checked on the net it was on the list of GPUs that supported hybrid SLI on Nvidea's website so i assumed that's what the system was called that switched the GPUs anyways really i couldn't give a crap what it was called it just worked. but i still didn't mention anything about the 2 GPU's running at the same time like on true SLI i was only talking about the 9600gt vs intel HD 4000 so cam down people it was just a mistake getting attacked from all sides over something like this is stupid. i was only given what i got from gaming on my Late 2008 15" MBP and a link to a youtube page to a guy gaming on the new base model late 2012 Mac mini using HD 4000 IGPU your welcome

I am afraid my parsing algorithm broke down on this chunk. I have to retreat and debug for now...

[iPhonePunker]

videos of the full gaming capability of the base i5 mac mini http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...VRAcCWIo5OhWRl