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Tbdbuckeyeitl

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 25, 2012
199
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I have a 2011 late 15 inch MacBook pro. It has a 2.2 ghz quad core i7. My question is with most big games in the app store requires a 2.4 ghz or 2.6. Will my computer run these games??? The games are civilization 5 call of duty star wars etc. please help on the ghz ???
 
I have a 2011 late 15 inch MacBook pro. It has a 2.2 ghz quad core i7. My question is with most big games in the app store requires a 2.4 ghz or 2.6. Will my computer run these games??? The games are civilization 5 call of duty star wars etc. please help on the ghz ???

I just checked Civilization 5, and it requires a 2.4GHz Core2 Duo or better. Your quad core i7 is in the "or better" category.

GHz isn't a very good speed measurement unless you're comparing two processors from the same family. In the case of your quad 2.2GHz i7, it is much much faster than a dual 2.4GHz Core2 Duo.
 
Where did you check besides app store? So should this computer run most games for a few years???
 
I have a 2011 late 15 inch MacBook pro. It has a 2.2 ghz quad core i7. My question is with most big games in the app store requires a 2.4 ghz or 2.6. Will my computer run these games??? The games are civilization 5 call of duty star wars etc. please help on the ghz ???

Your 2.2GHz i7 can up-clock itself in most games and really be a 3.1GHz- 3.3GHz Core 2 Duo + some. You can run everything.

2.6GHz Core 2 Duo: 3322
2.2GHz Core i7: 10,006

I'd say it was a (little) faster. 3x faster. Put it this way, your Macbook is on par with a 3.2GHz Mac Pro Quad core tower. At least for short bursts. Your GPU is another story... Pay more attention to the graphic card requirements.
 
Quad-core processors will meet the System Requirements for basically any game, you are mainly going to want to focus on the GPU or graphics card in order to determine whether or not you will have a smooth experience.
 
Quad-core processors will meet the System Requirements for basically any game, you are mainly going to want to focus on the GPU or graphics card in order to determine whether or not you will have a smooth experience.

This. Ghz isn't really as important as it used to be, the architecture of the chip is much more important, e.g. cores and cache.

Pay attention to your GPU. If it's the ATI then again, your macbook will run anything currently out.

I've got the same (i7 with ATI 6750) and I can run very punishing games on it, even games like The Witcher 2 and Metro 2033, which are notorious system hogs, run well in high detail at 1440x900.
 
I just checked Civilization 5, and it requires a 2.4GHz Core2 Duo or better. Your quad core i7 is in the "or better" category.

GHz isn't a very good speed measurement unless you're comparing two processors from the same family. In the case of your quad 2.2GHz i7, it is much much faster than a dual 2.4GHz Core2 Duo.
^ This. Don't fixate just on clock speed.
 
Does anyone know if my graphics card in the 2011 Mbp is still good. Will it play most games?
 
Does anyone know if my graphics card in the 2011 Mbp is still good. Will it play most games?

It will play any game that currently exists. The most super demanding of modern games will run at low-medium, but the vast majority of moderately demanding games, or games that are a few years old, will run medium-high. The vast majority of games, including almost everything likely to be on the Mac App Store, will run with all graphics settings maxed. As will anything that was made for XBOX or PS3, and wasn't completely redone.

The 6770M is very good. (At least for a mobile graphics card for a thin and light notebook)
 
The GPU spec is most important for games. Usually you can just go by that. If you have the 6750 or 6770 GPU, you're set for a while.
 
I have an intel hd 3000 and a 6750m is this a dedicated graphics card? Is this good or bad.
Also I am thinking of getting a 27 inch iMac it had a 670 or a 680 graphics card are these good? Are they better than mine now.
 
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An integrated graphics chip (iGPU) uses a portion of main system memory to store the data it needs to do its calculations. A discrete graphics chip or card (dGPU) contains its own memory, or Video RAM, which is generally a lot faster than main system RAM.

As main system RAM (eg DDR3) is quite slow compared to normal VRAM (eg. GDDR5) iGPUs are generally slow, as anything faster would be bottlenecked by memory bandwidth. As dGPUs don't have this problem, they are generally faster. Much, much faster, and use a lot more power.

On the other hand, the bandwidth between an iGPU and the CPU will be higher than that between CPU and dGPU, so some simple calculations will perform better on an iGPU, increasing the benefits of having both iGPU and dGPU in the one computer.

EDIT: A 670M or 680M in the iMac will be far faster than the 6750M in your MBP. My guess would be around 3 times as fast. If you do not require portability, there is no reason to get a MBP over an iMac. If you do require portability, the iMac is not an option.
 
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