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Buying a Macbook Pro 15" need advice on graphics card.

M

matanlevis

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I'm getting a macbook pro real soon and was thinking, and I'm buying it in Singapore.
The prices are: 15" 2.53ghz 9400m = 2788 SGD
or: 15" 2.66ghz 9400m + 9600m GT 256mb = 3288 SGD

Is that worth the cost difference ?

Thanks alot in advance.
 
It depends what do you do. If you play games or edit 3D stuff, then you'll notice difference but if you don't, you won't.
 
Well, I want to be able to do my music production and editing with the mac, though I like to do gaming and I guess the 9600m gt is enough for me but the 500 SGD difference seems abit high, correct me if you doubt my opinion.

Thanks in advance.
 
Well what games do you play and what kind of performance do you expect from them?

Music creation isn't going to tax the GPU at all, so your money could be spent more usefully elsewhere.
 
He could buy refurb and get a dedicated graphic card and save some money to upgrade the hard drive.
 
matanlevis said:
Well, I want to be able to do my music production and editing with the mac, though I like to do gaming and I guess the 9600m gt is enough for me but the 500 SGD difference seems abit high, correct me if you doubt my opinion.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

GPU has nothing to do with music production and unless you're professional HD video editor, you'll gain nothing from better GPU. Gaming wise, 9600GT is very nice extra because 9400M is intergraded and isn't gaming monster. If you'll be playing a lot new, GPU intensive games like Crysis, GTA IV.. go for 9600GT
 
Oh, I thought I need a good graphics card for the music creation that I've been doing for the last 5 years 😛
Anyways the last comment was useful, I would like to play up to date games. Say, do you know what I should use to play them on windows ? dual boot ? parallels ? bootcamp ?

Thanks alot, really helpful.
 
matanlevis said:
Oh, I thought I need a good graphics card for the music creation that I've been doing for the last 5 years 😛
Anyways the last comment was useful, I would like to play up to date games. Say, do you know what I should use to play them on windows ? dual boot ? parallels ? bootcamp ?

Thanks alot, really helpful.
Click to expand...

Windows through Bootcamp is best solution. Parallels isn't best for gaming because running two OSs at the same time really needs more power. I recommend XP or Windows 7 for gaming. 9600GT is a must for games, of course 9400M runs most games at low or med settings but 9600GT runs circles over 9400M
 
Thank you so much Hellhammer, youve been great help. Say, is the difference between the 9600m gt 256 and the 512 noticeable ? I mean would I get 10+ fps increase ?
 
matanlevis said:
Thank you so much Hellhammer, youve been great help. Say, is the difference between the 9600m gt 256 and the 512 noticeable ? I mean would I get 10+ fps increase ?
Click to expand...

You're welcome, mate. As exan said, there's no noticeable difference so 9600GT with 512MB isn't worth the extra money
 
My suggestion would be to get the lower end model for music production and then use the extra money to pick up an XBox 360 or PS3. PC gaming isn't really practical on a Mac laptop as you can't upgrade the GFX chip so you'll have trouble playing the latest games in a couple of years... maybe less.
 
Yea that's a good suggestion except I own an xbox 360 but I like computer gaming even if I have to play on low the next couple of years, it just feels better for me online, though I don't play as much as I make music, and I'll be joining the army in a couple of months so I'll probably drop the hardcore gaming by the next year or two. I think I'll just go for the 9600 gt 256 memory.

Then again, thanks for the great help, really respect that.
 
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