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Hello, I need help with purchase of a MacBook pro

V

Volker

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 4, 2012
22
0
Hello, I'm thinking of getting the mbp and I was looking at getting the 13" 2011 version off the apple refurbished spot on apple.com, but should I get the i5 or i7 this one has the intel hd 300 in it, or would it be better to get the old 2010 version with with nvidia 320m. I'm going to college in a few weeks, and I like to game a little the game I play all the time is league of legends, star craft 2 and runescape. And I wanted to know what would be best I'm on a budget so that is why I'm staying with the refurbished ones.

Thanks for all the help sorry for the short story I wrote. Oh and I don't plan to run star craft 2 on max just like med with some low.
 
And how big of a difference is. There between the intel hd 3000 vs intel hd 4000, and the nvidia 320m
 
Volker said:
And how big of a difference is. There between the intel hd 3000 vs intel hd 4000, and the nvidia 320m
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The 320m is the worst, hd3000 is slightly better than the 320m, and hd4000 is about 30 to 40% better than hd3000. But they are all integrated graphics card so they will not handle most modern games well.
 
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Yes I understand that it's not good for gaming but I just plan to use it to play basic gaming like StarCraft 2 on low and med settings
 
Volker said:
Yes I understand that it's not good for gaming but I just plan to use it to play basic gaming like StarCraft 2 on low and med settings
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If I were I would buy the bottom end new Macbook Pro with the student discount it will be a hundred dollars less and you will get a hundred dollars toward software you will probably need.
 
Laco said:
The 320m is the worst, hd3000 is slightly better than the 320m, and hd4000 is about 30 to 40% better than hd3000. But they are all integrated graphics card so they will not handle most modern games well.
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Are you sure about this? In my experience and if I recall correctly from my research a year ago, the 320m runs games better.


I had the 2010 and the 2011 and the difference isn't THAT noticeable, I didn't game much but both can play Diablo 3, Starcraft 2. Might have to run it in Bootcamp though.

If youre heavy into gaming though, desktop or gaming laptop is better but the Macbook's graphics is sufficient for low setting games here and there.


2010 had better battery life, 2011 was faster for processing.
 
Why do u have to use boot camp when both game run on mac
 
Volker said:
Why do u have to use boot camp when both game run on mac
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Games in general run better on Windows OS. Bootcamp will do more frames per second than in OSX.

But just to add, I hate Windows lol. I've made a temporary change to play Diablo 3 but once this game is over, Windows is over for me.
 
I would definitely say if you are planning on getting a 13" MBP....DON'T!!! Get a 13" MBA! It will run a LOT better and faster. They both use the same onboard graphics, but the MBA weighs half as much and uses solid state storage...therefore the entire experience is elevated! I game on my 11" MBA all the time. It runs new games like Deus Ex - Human Revolution, and Mass Effect 3, and Skyrim just fine. The games you mentioned will run wonderfully on the HD3000 and even better on the new hd4000. The 13" MBP is just more expensive, slower and way heavier....not a good buy in my opinion!

BTW, to the person that asked why game in windows rather than OSX.....you have obviously never actually gamed in OSX vs Windows....it is night and day! The same games will run twice as well on Windows...simply because they use Direct X and were developed for the Windows OS.....Mac ports are just ports. And they tend to be horribly optimized! Borderlands is the best Mac port I've played and it still pales in comparison to its original PC counterpart.
 
gentlefury said:
I would definitely say if you are planning on getting a 13" MBP....DON'T!!! Get a 13" MBA! It will run a LOT better and faster. They both use the same onboard graphics, but the MBA weighs half as much and uses solid state storage...therefore the entire experience is elevated! I game on my 11" MBA all the time. It runs new games like Deus Ex - Human Revolution, and Mass Effect 3, and Skyrim just fine. The games you mentioned will run wonderfully on the HD3000 and even better on the new hd4000. The 13" MBP is just more expensive, slower and way heavier....not a good buy in my opinion!

BTW, to the person that asked why game in windows rather than OSX.....you have obviously never actually gamed in OSX vs Windows....it is night and day! The same games will run twice as well on Windows...simply because they use Direct X and were developed for the Windows OS.....Mac ports are just ports. And they tend to be horribly optimized! Borderlands is the best Mac port I've played and it still pales in comparison to its original PC counterpart.
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It's very easy to replace both RAM and storage on the MBP, and if one is so inclined they can easily go two-drive on it. Good luck doing any of that on the MBA.

Getting the 512GB SSD option on the newest MBA costs $500. A regular 512GB SSD costs south of $400, TRIM can be enabled after the fact, and you still have the HDD for other uses.
 
But how hot does the MBA get compared to the mbp when gaming? Plus does the mbp have a faster CPU
 
Volker said:
But how hot does the MBA get compared to the mbp when gaming? Plus does the mbp have a faster CPU
Click to expand...


As someone mentioned earlier, try get the base model 2012 13" Macbook Pro.

The Intel HD 4000 will be far better suited for games.
Don't worry about the i7, an Ivy Bridge i5 will be fine for what you are after. The limiting factor in your games performance will be the integrated graphics, not the CPU, thus an i7 would be a waste.

A MBA is going to be much slower in terms of CPU performance compared to the pro.

And remember, even with the HD 4000 graphics, you aren't going to get amazing performance. It would probably be more than adequate for your needs though.
 
pragmatous said:
You can't game on a MBA
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Anything to back that up? The MBA has the same graphics power as the 13" MBP. The CPU speed is a bit slower, but I doubt that will make a big difference in the games that run well on an integrated GPU.
 
I advise to get the 2012 MBP as I have had both the 2011 and 2012 13in in front of me playing Diablo 3 and the 2012 version runs Diablo a lot better then the 2011 version. The HD4000 is a lot better then the 3000.
 
Ok, what settings do u think I can play sc2 on? And does the card apple gives to college students good for in the Mac store to buy games, or only good in iTunes for music
 
Volker said:
Ok, what settings do u think I can play sc2 on? And does the card apple gives to college students good for in the Mac store to buy games, or only good in iTunes for music
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the 2012 version should be fine to play it at low and medium. And the 100$ gift card can be used on the APP store for mac, or the iPhone, or iTunes. It is a universal card.
 
Laco said:
The 320m is the worst, hd3000 is slightly better than the 320m, and hd4000 is about 30 to 40% better than hd3000. But they are all integrated graphics card so they will not handle most modern games well.
Click to expand...

HD4000 > 320M > 3000. I consistently got poorer FPS on my 13" HD3000/i7 equipped Pro vs my 11" 320M/C2D Air.

pragmatous said:
You can't game on a MBA
Click to expand...

Is that just a really poor assumption?

Volker said:
Ok, what settings do u think I can play sc2 on? And does the card apple gives to college students good for in the Mac store to buy games, or only good in iTunes for music
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You can buy music, movies or games off the app store. The only thing you can't buy are physical products off the Apple Store.
 
Laco said:
There has been a great deal of debate which is better the 320m or hd3000. For example, https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1102927/

Some people think the 320m is better from "personal experience", from the benchmarks I've seen it is seems to me that hd3000 is better.
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The 320M has much better drivers so it results in better gaming performance. Benchmark wise yes the HD3000 is better, but in actual usage it's either worse on only on-par.
 
TheMacBookPro said:
The 320M has much better drivers so it results in better gaming performance. Benchmark wise yes the HD3000 is better, but in actual usage it's either worse on only on-par.
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I also had both the 2010 and 2011 and the 320m was better for gaming. It was noticeable. Nothing drastic it's not like the 2010 could play games that the 2011 couldn't run, but for SC II I ran most low-medium settings on 2010 and the 2011 I had to go all low or the FPS was worse.
 
Can't speak for the other games, but RS runs on high detail (with a few unnecessary extras off) at a very playable FPS. It's usually around 30 but in quiet areas it'll hit 50 (which I think is the max). Lower detail it will pretty much run perfectly thoroughout. I agree with the above poster who suggested the student discount on the new model though, if it isn't much more expensive than a refurb 2011.

I would steer clear of the 2010. The (very comparable to 2011) graphics aside, they've got an aging C2D and 1067MHz RAM (not sure what this can be upgraded to) and on a SATA 2 link if you ever wanted to upgrade to an SSD. By no means are they useless, as we have one in the household that doesn't give us problems, but my mother has very basic uses so it's not stretched.
 
Well today is it in going to buy my Mac, I will tell u which one I get when I get back, and now I know if I ever have any problems that I can come here since everyone here is so helpful

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Thanks again, I will keep reading the post up intill I buy to see which one I want to get
 
Look at the CPU that's in it also :)

1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor - These are ultra book processors. :D

Stetrain said:
Anything to back that up? The MBA has the same graphics power as the 13" MBP. The CPU speed is a bit slower, but I doubt that will make a big difference in the games that run well on an integrated GPU.
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