Gaming on 15" MBP i5 or i7 with GT 330M good enough?

[green86]

That is a similar build to one I'm interested in. With some of the settings turned down, is STO smooth and fluid?

I'm curious if you think the HiRes display was worth the cash? Did you get it for gaming alone? And the 1 TB hard drive? wow....

Yes, absolutely the HiRes screen is worth it. And don't let anyone talk you out of the i7 either, it is worth the premium over the i5. The little extra cache, Mhz and the higher turbo boost do add up, unlike others are advocating (not to mention the 256 Mb of VRAM you get).

I got it with doing some gaming in mind, although I'm using this as my main computer as well. Having PPC macs since 1997 I was left out of the gaming world until this machine, so I had some catching up to do. And I recommend buying windows and using bootcamp over buying the mac versions of games any day.

Just lowering a few settings makes STO smooth as butter, and the performance is so good that I feel that all that is need is some updated (Windows) drivers to make it perfect.

I got the 1 TB drive as my itunes library is quite large as I watch almost all my TV and movies from my mac. Turns out it's too small anyway especially with bootcamp installed.

The even bigger issue with the 1 TB drive is that it only has a 5200 RPM spin speed. I thought the increased density of the platter would negate most of the negative effects of having such a slow RPM, but I was wrong. Most things launch faster on my Power Mac (although the drives I have installed in it are on the speedier side).

I ordered a 500GB Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive which has been getting great reviews. Its has the best performance/storage/price balance of any drive in existence in my opinion. If you want a MacBook Pro for gaming that won't cost 3k, I think this is the drive you should get. I feel like SSDs are way over priced, and you can replace your hard drive at anytime... so why not put the money into the things you CAN'T upgrade down the line when you buy your computer? That's my reasoning anyway. The Momentus has been getting benchmarks on par with a velociraptor in some tests, which is quite impressive. You can find it here.

 

[CaoCao]

Apple calls them notebooks for a reason... Though they are perfect laptops on cold days

 

[mikeo007]

Apple calls them notebooks for a reason... Though they are perfect laptops on cold days

Doesn't IBM hold a copyright on the word "laptop" anyway? I remember some sort of lawsuits about that years ago.

 

[DarwinOSX]

Barefeats.com has excellent benchmarks on the various games with different Mac Books. One of the things they found is that 256MB to 512 MB vid card makes little difference. You also won't see a major difference between the various i5 and i7 procs not matter what people would like to think.

http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp21.html
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp22.html
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp25.html
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp24.html

They also didn't think much of the Momentus hybrid drive unlike what people who bought them want to think as seen in some user reviews on New Egg.

http://www.barefeats.com/hard134.html

Personally I prever the standard display because at 50 my eyes are not what they used to be.

 

[JasonH42]

I get fantastic gaming performance from a 256MB 2.66GHz C2D MBP (bootcamp, windows 7, overclocked to the max) so you'll be fine with a 256MB i5. Spend the money saved from not getting i7/512MB/hi-res on a SSD (Solid State Drive) to replace the hard drive. A hi-res screen will drag your gaming performance right down as it has so many extra pixels to push around.

 

[CaoCao]

I get fantastic gaming performance from a 256MB 2.66GHz C2D MBP (bootcamp, windows 7, overclocked to the max) so you'll be fine with a 256MB i5. Spend the money saved from not getting i7/512MB/hi-res on a SSD (Solid State Drive) to replace the hard drive. A hi-res screen will drag your gaming performance right down as it has so many extra pixels to push around.

You can't upgrade the VRAM/CPU/Monitor after you buy it, OTOH you can easily upgrade the HDD to SSD when prices come down

 

[pandamonia]

I get fantastic gaming performance from a 256MB 2.66GHz C2D MBP (bootcamp, windows 7, overclocked to the max) so you'll be fine with a 256MB i5. Spend the money saved from not getting i7/512MB/hi-res on a SSD (Solid State Drive) to replace the hard drive. A hi-res screen will drag your gaming performance right down as it has so many extra pixels to push around.

Dont listen to this guy.

512mb all the way! 1GB is becoming standard and you dont want to be sitting there with 256mb when that happens.

Also i overclocked my 330GT to 700mhz! from 475mhz and i got 35% performance increase in the FFXIV benchmark! not to hot and no problems.

 

[bluetick]

15" i5 here. Tried WOW, Half-Life 2 and Counter Strike: Source under Mac OS X. All three ran pretty smooth, and the FPS became even better after graphics update.

So, if you aren't a hardcore gamer but rather a casual counterstriker like me, it'll suite your gaming needs. Otherwise you'd better off selling your soul to Dell and Windoze

 

[mulo]

15" i5 here. Tried WOW, Half-Life 2 and Counter Strike: Source under Mac OS X. All three ran pretty smooth, and the FPS became even better after graphics update.

So, if you aren't a hardcore gamer but rather a casual counterstriker like me, it'll suite your gaming needs. Otherwise you'd better off selling your soul to Dell and Windoze

that would be like selling your soul to the devil.. buy the mac, install bootcamp, but only install games on it....
that just makes you a sinner! ;P

 

[Nipz]

Dont listen to this guy.

512mb all the way! 1GB is becoming standard and you dont want to be sitting there with 256mb when that happens.

Also i overclocked my 330GT to 700mhz! from 475mhz and i got 35% performance increase in the FFXIV benchmark! not to hot and no problems.

My thoughts exactly!

The higher the number the better it is

 

[NateEssex]

2.33 C2D MBP with RadeonX1600 256 MB

I get fantastic gaming performance from a 256MB 2.66GHz C2D MBP (bootcamp, windows 7, overclocked to the max) so you'll be fine with a 256MB i5. Spend the money saved from not getting i7/512MB/hi-res on a SSD (Solid State Drive) to replace the hard drive. A hi-res screen will drag your gaming performance right down as it has so many extra pixels to push around.

Hey, what games are you running? I have the 2.33 C2D MBP with RadeonX1600 256 MB, but not using bootcamp. I used it to play WoW, but want to play other MMORPGs on my laptop. My HD is almost full(only 160 Gigs). Do I have a little more life left in this old girl?

 

[pandamonia]

Hey, what games are you running? I have the 2.33 C2D MBP with RadeonX1600 256 MB, but not using bootcamp. I used it to play WoW, but want to play other MMORPGs on my laptop. My HD is almost full(only 160 Gigs). Do I have a little more life left in this old girl?

doubt it

 

[Str8edgepunker]

I get fantastic gaming performance from a 256MB 2.66GHz C2D MBP (bootcamp, windows 7, overclocked to the max) so you'll be fine with a 256MB i5. Spend the money saved from not getting i7/512MB/hi-res on a SSD (Solid State Drive) to replace the hard drive. A hi-res screen will drag your gaming performance right down as it has so many extra pixels to push around.

Only if you set it to the highest resolution. And this is a picture of the vram usage that I took while running Modern Warfare 2 in Boot Camp on the Museum Level:

 

[andrew086]

I can play Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 (Boot Camp) and Portal (mac) at medium-high settings and definitely playable. Left 4 Dead 1 and Portal I get a consistent 60 fps, and for Left 4 Dead 2 I get 30-60 fps.

this is with the 256 mb 330m on the base model for the 15"

 

[JasonH42]

Dont listen to this guy.

512mb all the way! 1GB is becoming standard and you dont want to be sitting there with 256mb when that happens.

Also i overclocked my 330GT to 700mhz! from 475mhz and i got 35% performance increase in the FFXIV benchmark! not to hot and no problems.

I think it depends on what games you play and what detail you'll accept. I only play MW2 and BFBC2 and 256MB is fine for medium textures.

 

[green86]

Barefeats.com has excellent benchmarks on the various games with different Mac Books. One of the things they found is that 256MB to 512 MB vid card makes little difference. You also won't see a major difference between the various i5 and i7 procs not matter what people would like to think.

http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp21.html
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp22.html
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp25.html
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp24.html

They also didn't think much of the Momentus hybrid drive unlike what people who bought them want to think as seen in some user reviews on New Egg.

http://www.barefeats.com/hard134.html

Personally I prever the standard display because at 50 my eyes are not what they used to be.

My my where do I start? Barefeats, although I do use them time to time aren't as professional as other hardware sites.

Let's start with VRAM. Here is a great article, explaining why you actually need more VRAM, and this is 4 years old.. so you can imagine how much more necessary 512MB is today:
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=33&page=6 (This is a link to the last page, where they give their recommendation)
I would like Barefeats to rerun the test in Windows... where the drivers are actually at least half good.

Now for the i7 vs. i5. Its very funny how you leave out the benchmarks from Barefeats that actually show the benefits of an i7 processor. Talk about having and agenda!
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp23.html
http://www.barefeats.com/mbpp20.html
Also, the i7 gets at least 400 points higher in Geekbench scores then the i5:
http://www.primatelabs.ca/blog/2010/04/macbookpro-benchmarks/
and you can see how significant this is compared with all other mac scores found here:
http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/mac-benchmarks/

Finally, you can't be more wrong about the the hybrid drive, and neither could Barefeats. Here are three good, separate articles/reviews/benchmarks of the new Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3734/seagates-momentus-xt-review-finally-a-good-hybrid-hdd
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent...ntus_xt_hybrid_should_be_your_next_drive.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/internal-hard-drives/seagate-momentus-xt-500gb/4505-9998_7-34109211.html
And there are even more positive (sometimes raving) reviews of the drive if you do a Google search.


So OP, to recap, you should put money into the things you can't upgrade down the line when you buy your MacBook Pro. The i7, more cache, higher turbo boost, and more VRAM are worth the premium. And so is the beautiful Hi-Res display, as long as your not 50

 

[green86]

I get fantastic gaming performance from a 256MB 2.66GHz C2D MBP (bootcamp, windows 7, overclocked to the max) so you'll be fine with a 256MB i5. Spend the money saved from not getting i7/512MB/hi-res on a SSD (Solid State Drive) to replace the hard drive. A hi-res screen will drag your gaming performance right down as it has so many extra pixels to push around.

I think its also important to point out that an SSD will never, ever do anything to boost a games FPS...

 

[hakuin]

Is there no way to overclock the gpu in OSX as it is in windows?

This may do something like that:

http://www.groths.org/?tag=zeus

 

[DesmoPilot]

Don't understand how you can take the barefeast test of 256MB vs 512 seriously. Halo? WoW? Even Quake Wars is decently old, when it was released 256MB was pretty much the high of the high end of graphics cards.

 

[bluetick]

that would be like selling your soul to the devil.. buy the mac, install bootcamp, but only install games on it....
that just makes you a sinner! ;P

I think you're getting it wrong, all these games have OS X native versions.

 

[mark28]

Dont listen to this guy.

512mb all the way! 1GB is becoming standard and you dont want to be sitting there with 256mb when that happens.

Also i overclocked my 330GT to 700mhz! from 475mhz and i got 35% performance increase in the FFXIV benchmark! not to hot and no problems.

I run Crysis at 1680 x 1050 with everything on medium and it runs extremely smooth with the 256 mb 330m. The 330M with 1 GB is too weak to run Crysis on high anyway, so it performs the same as the 256 mb version. Crysis is still one of the most demanding game despite being so old.

 

[Solid Raven]

My my where do I start? Barefeats, although I do use them time to time aren't as professional as other hardware sites.

Let's start with VRAM. Here is a great article, explaining why you actually need more VRAM, and this is 4 years old.. so you can imagine how much more necessary 512MB is today:
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=33&page=6 (This is a link to the last page, where they give their recommendation)
I would like Barefeats to rerun the test in Windows... where the drivers are actually at least half good.

The article is about the 7800 GT. That is a desktop class GPU with a 256 bit memory bus width. The 330M GT still is 128 bit. iirc, 128 bit GPUs cannot address more than 256 mb VRAM efficiently. Maybe on high resolutions you will see a slight difference; but if the card itself isn't fast enough, the extra VRAM won't matter. It's a common marketing technique.

 

[green86]

The article is about the 7800 GT. That is a desktop class GPU with a 256 bit memory bus width. The 330M GT still is 128 bit. iirc, 128 bit GPUs cannot address more than 256 mb VRAM efficiently. Maybe on high resolutions you will see a slight difference; but if the card itself isn't fast enough, the extra VRAM won't matter. It's a common marketing technique.

This is untrue. Where would you come up with this? Memory bus width has to deal with how quickly information is moved between the GPU and memory; having 512 MB has no impact on the efficency in which it's addressed.

It's also a four year old card.. I have no idea why your pointing out its a desktop class card as if desktops can only use more VRAM? That article CLEARLY points out the benefits of having more VRAM. You can't seriously say it's a marketing technique.

 

[anthony10292]

I play Starcraft 2 on high on my MBP13 so Im sure the i5 or i7 is plenty.

 

[Solid Raven]

This is untrue. Where would you come up with this? Memory bus width has to deal with how quickly information is moved between the GPU and memory; having 512 MB has no impact on the efficency in which it's addressed.

It's also a four year old card.. I have no idea why your pointing out its a desktop class card as if desktops can only use more VRAM? That article CLEARLY points out the benefits of having more VRAM. You can't seriously say it's a marketing technique.

I think I read somewhere that memory is constantly processed in the VRAM through the bus. It goes in and out. So if it's not fast enough, it doesn't really matter how much you have of it. I believe an analogy was made somewhere on this forum, where the VRAM resembled a parking space with, for example, a two lane way in and out. Cars go in and out at a particular speed (128 bit e.g.) so no matter how much parking space you add, they still couldn't enter or leave any faster. But maybe I'm missing some vital part of how a GPU works. Is the memory processed constantly (i.e. enters and leaves), or can it load entire data into its VRAM and then address it at will (i.e. "park" data in advance). If a GPU can indeed load alot of data beforehand and then address it at will, I can see how more memory could help, even with a slower card.

I was pointing it out as a desktop class card just because of the bigger bus width. That's the idea. Indeed, a 9600M GT with 1GB makes almost no difference to the 512 model. There are small differences with the 256 model, but not like it would be half the performance of the 512 model.

A 128 bus CAN address the 512 mb I presume, but not as good as a 256 bit bus. Of course it's a marketing technique. One of my friends bought a "good" laptop once because it had an nvidia with 1GB memory! Too bad it was some ****** integrated card. You can't seriously say 512 VRAM makes that card (I believe it was a 9300 or something) any better. GPUs are about speed.