2010 vs 2011 15" MBP

[iammike1]

I have a choice to make and I'd love to hear some inputs and ideas that I may not be considering in the comparison.

Would you buy a 2010 15" MBP with the i5 and GT330 brand new at the store for $1489 or would you order the 2011 15" MBP with the i7 and 6490M for $1789? Both prices are totals and include taxes.

Hard drive size difference is a non-issue as I would need to upgrade either one to replace my main system.

Also, both would be an upgrade to me as the fastest Apple I have right now is the 2010 27" with the i3 and the 5670.

EDIT: Wanted to add, the most intensive thing I probably ever do is World of Warcraft and that's pretty rare. I'm not going to max either of these systems much but wanted to be sure of what I might be missing out on by saving $300.

 

[Manacit]

Unfortunately, it appears as though the 330m is actually faster then the 6490M in gaming benchmarks, which means that you will actually have better WoW performance with the 2010 model. The 2011 will be vastly more powerful for anything that's not graphically intensive however.

 

[Mackilroy]

I would go with the 2011 MBP – the 6490M is about the same as the 330M from what I recall, and I would provide links but I've spent all day flying and so am quite tired. Perhaps tomorrow.

 

[dusk007]

The i3 in your 27" is a desktop i3 and thus faster than the i7 (2,66Ghz) of the 2010 models.
i3, i5, i7 mean something different on desktops and in mobile space.

I would ask myself if I need a quad core. Do you use some heavy lifting software often for video encoding, Audio editing or rendering? Or do you often run VMs and need heavy multitasking capabilities.
If you do mostly mainstream stuff like (word, iwork, iphoto, itunes, internet, movies, gaming ...) there is not much of a benefit in going with the new quad core.

The difference between the two GPUs so small that it shouldn't be a reason to choose either one.