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How good is the 9400m?

Luis

Luis

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 19, 2006
1,227
0
Costa Rica
So after today's announcements I'm on the fence whether to go with the low-end MBP or the high end MacBook. The issue that's keeping me from getting the MacBook is whether the 9400m alone will be able to play the 2 games I play on my current MBP, Unreal Tournament 2004 and C&C3: Tiberium Wars (I don't need pure graphics power for anything else beside that, apart from casual photoshopping and sketchup)? Also, am I right in saying that the 9400m is waay better in performance than the ATIx1600 (128mb) present in the original CD MBP's (my current computer)?



PS. PLEASE leave the lack-of-firewire issue on the new MacBooks out of the thread. I don't care about it. Thanks.
 
It is about the same as the 8400m gt and won't be faster than the 8600m gt. It will be able to play games like cod4 with lower res and less details.
 
Hydroxs said:
It is about the same as the 8400m gt and won't be faster than the 8600m gt. It will be able to play games like cod4 with lower res and less details.
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So I will be able to run C&C3: Tiberium Wars better than I do now with my X1600?
 
i too have the same concern. rite now i am using the 20" iMac (late 2006) that has a 128MB ATI X1600 as well. currently, i run COD4, Team fortress 2, madden 08, unreal tournament 2008, ALL BEAUTIFULLY WELL, at more than just playable frame rates at pretty good resolutions (not all run on the native 1680x1050, but run close to it). i am very satisfied with the performance, but have to turn most settings to medium settings.

will i be able to run these games on a 9400 just as well, or better? i just really hope they dont run them WORSE. that woudl suck
 
The x1600 is a two generation old card. The 9400 should be able to beat it at any benchmark. If you could play a game at decent settings with your x1600, it'll only get better with the new macbooks.
 
I'm waiting until I see some hard benchmarks (FPS) as I'm worried about the gaming performance of a GPU using SHARED memory. Something tells me the 9400 in the MB will be slower than the current 8400's with dedicated memory and if thats the case I'm going to just have to put aside some extra cash toward a MBP even though I'd rather have the smaller sized MB. (I have a Vista desktop for gaming but I gotta feed the fix a little on the go :D )
 
powersurge said:
I'm waiting until I see some hard benchmarks (FPS) as I'm worried about the gaming performance of a GPU using SHARED memory. Something tells me the 9400 in the MB will be slower than the current 8400's with dedicated memory and if thats the case I'm going to just have to put aside some extra cash toward a MBP even though I'd rather have the smaller sized MB. (I have a Vista desktop for gaming but I gotta feed the fix a little on the go :D )
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From what I seen from notebookcheck and such they expect the 9400m to perform around what a ati x1400 does...
 
powersurge said:
I'm waiting until I see some hard benchmarks (FPS) as I'm worried about the gaming performance of a GPU using SHARED memory. Something tells me the 9400 in the MB will be slower than the current 8400's with dedicated memory and if thats the case I'm going to just have to put aside some extra cash toward a MBP even though I'd rather have the smaller sized MB. (I have a Vista desktop for gaming but I gotta feed the fix a little on the go :D )
Click to expand...

same thing here, I have a vista desktop for gaming but at college sometimes I will have a few hours between classes where it could be fun to play some TF2, CS:S and Left 4 Dead when it comes out.
 
powersurge said:
Something tells me the 9400 in the MB will be slower than the current 8400's with dedicated memory and if thats the case I'm going to just have to put aside some extra cash toward a MBP even though I'd rather have the smaller sized MB.
Click to expand...
Apple certainly suggests it is. See here. Much better than the old MB, but not anywhere near as good as the old MBP, and of course the difference with the new MB will be even bigger.
 
Wondering the same here... Im in exactly that position, I have a budget just over $2K (like Luis) but IF the 9400m proves to be rather good It'll better to get the 1.6K$ MacBook and other goodies (4GB RAM, Senn PXC450s, or like Luis a nice PS3), and not the $2K MBP. Im sure anyway I go will play my games (and be better than my current 2nd gen MB) but I want a substantial upgrade. BTW, me installing Spore today and not being able to play it just helped the situation at hand :p

Victor
 
Counter Strike Source, Left 4 Dead, and Team Fortress 2 are the only games im worried about running.
 
i too have an X1600 128mb in my Core Duo MBP. will the 9400m in the MB have better graphics performance? if so thatd be sweet! as i was going to accept having integrated graphics in the old MB anyway…
 
richthomas said:
i too have an X1600 128mb in my Core Duo MBP. will the 9400m in the MB have better graphics performance? if so thatd be sweet! as i was going to accept having integrated graphics in the old MB anyway…
Click to expand...

You're prolly set, lucky! Im on the process of selling my MacBook and my Bose QC2 headphones to a relative for 1100 (or 1000 if he's not looking too confident) and using some saved money and christmas money for the 2.4Ghz version with 4GB's of RAM. Im actually surprised with this release, did not see that coming, never thought I'd upgrade to a 'non-pro' machine.

Victor
 
yet another person in the same boat.... I have a c2d mbp rev C, but it's about time to sell it if I want to regain enough $$ to buy a new comp, let alone upgrade to a better mbp. If the 9400 is better than the 128 ded x1600, I'd probably jump on board! :D
 
9400m will be the same **** as x3100 was a year ago. You will be able to play new games that come out on low settings and like 640x resolution. It is still an integraded graphics card that is severely limited by the usage of system RAM for graphical memory.
 
Why are you only looking at the high end config of the Macbook Pro versus the high end Macbook?

If you're interested in games and need Apple, get the Macbook Pro. Ideally the high end config, but if you don't want to spend that much, the "low end config" still stomps all over the Macbook.
 
Wolfpup said:
Why are you only looking at the high end config of the Macbook Pro versus the high end Macbook?

If you're interested in games and need Apple, get the Macbook Pro. Ideally the high end config, but if you don't want to spend that much, the "low end config" still stomps all over the Macbook.
Click to expand...

I'm looking at the low end config of the MBP vs the high end config of the MB.

I know that I should get an MBP if I'm interested in games, that's not the point. The point is whether the 9400m present in the new MB's will surpass the x1600 in my current MBP (so as to run the only two games I already have, since I'm not planning on buying anymore because that's what the to-be-acquired PS3 is for).
 
No, it'll probably be much worse, going by a quick look at some benchmarks comparing the (awful) x1600 to the (even worse) 8400, which is better than the integrated version in the Macbook.
 
If you're playing games, get a PC. It's what I'll be most likely doing. For the price of the low-end MBP, you can get a boatload of specs. For the price of the $1299 MB, you can get a MBP's worth of specs.

Apple charges 1.5x the price for identical PC notebook hardware. Why buy a Mac if you're playing games?
 
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