No kidding, this guy has some ax to grind with the 13" Macbook Pro. Who wouldn't give a little in the graphics department for a substantial CPU increase? My only grievance with the 13" is the resolution and the fact that you have no option for more pixels. That said, I still think it's the best 13" notebook on the market.
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Intel Graphics HD3000 vs NVIDIA GeForce 320M/330M GT - Real Benchmarks and Comparison
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No kidding, this guy has some ax to grind with the 13" Macbook Pro. Who wouldn't give a little in the graphics department for a substantial CPU increase? My only grievance with the 13" is the resolution and the fact that you have no option for more pixels. That said, I still think it's the best 13" notebook on the market.
So the HD3000 is not a great gaming gpu. Nobody said it was. Basically a sidegrade to the 320. 6490M basically a sidegrade to the 330M. I like that description. Gaming laptops are a niche market and Apple doesn't do niche products. After many years of gaming PC's (starting with the very first gaming cards), buying new and better hardware, tweaking Windows, I finally bought a PS 3 and never looked back. Well once I got use to the controllers. The only game I still play on a Mac is Counterstrike Source and almost anything will run that.
Interesting to note that COD 4 ran better on the 13" MBA than the 13" MBP. Thats the difference SSD makes, even in games.
Interesting to note that COD 4 ran better on the 13" MBA than the 13" MBP. Thats the difference SSD makes, even in games.
Potentially communism can work...
The *only* decent Intel graphics I've even seen was the i740, and that would have been released over 12 years ago.
nVidia and ATi are far better, the drivers are generally better furthermore specifically games have been written to be optimissed unlike Intel graphics.
IMHO Intel HD3000 was a very poor choice...
It wasn't really a choice. Intel blocked Nvidia from offering integrated graphics chipsets using Intel's latest processors -- a decision which brought them to court. The terms of the settlement had Nvidia agree to leave the chipset business, forcing any company using Intel's newer chips to turn to Intel for integrated graphics. Apple avoided having any machine rely solely on Intel integrated graphics for a long period of time by continuing to use the older Core 2 Duo chips, which could still be paired with superior NVidia integrated graphics. I think, however, that if Apple continued using the Core 2 Duo in the new Macbook Pro 13" model they would have been laughed out of town, so they didn't have much of a choice but to use Intel's integrated graphics.
Really the only alternative they reasonably had would be to switch to using AMD CPUs along with integrated AMD graphics on the low end models. I'm not sure they were prepared to do that.
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Status quo
Yeah, I think that is the real story here. I don't mind a company that is a monopoly, as long as they don't act like a monopoly...Intel shut Nvidia out of the market, using its massive power, and we are the poorer for it.
Eventually (hopefully next generation) we will see faster frame rates that are a real improvement over the previous generation. As it is, this iteration is what somebody termed a "side-grade." Not really an improvement, but not really better. For the money, I think we could have expected more.
Yeah, I think that is the real story here. I don't mind a company that is a monopoly, as long as they don't act like a monopoly...Intel shut Nvidia out of the market, using its massive power, and we are the poorer for it.
Eventually (hopefully next generation) we will see faster frame rates that are a real improvement over the previous generation. As it is, this iteration is what somebody termed a "side-grade." Not really an improvement, but not really better. For the money, I think we could have expected more.
Indeed, unless the guy's technical claims about the inferiority of the Intel graphics processor integrated with its i series chips are more credible than either his social skills or writing ability seem to warrant, it's probably a good idea to ignore him. That's what I'm doing.
I think eventually we'll see AMD in the Macbook, cheap low end
Again, I would much prefer more GPU and less CPU... But I doubt that will happen with Apple
I think eventually we'll see AMD in the Macbook, cheap low end
Again, I would much prefer more GPU and less CPU... But I doubt that will happen with Apple
I think that Apple probably shares your vision of a more balanced system. It's certainly evident in the Macbook Air. Since Apple is one of the main proponents of OpenCL I think it really pained them to have to produce a computer that does not support OpenCL on the GPU. Will Apple ever use AMD processors? That I don't know.
Black Ops and Left for Dead benchmarks based on a couple of results.
Doom 3 and Crysis benchmarks based on more than three hundred.
P.S. I do not have a 13" 2011. Nor I am going to buy one.
The problem with the benchmarks you supplied (from notebookcheck.net) is that they are composites. You can look at individual details for some of the benchmarks (click the + next to xx Benchmarks and Specifications), notice that the 13" 2010 is one of the systems in the 320M results here. They are running on very old driver versions, and it appears that the MacBook Air has double the performance (the SSD maybe?).
Now look at the Intel results here. Using the same method, you can see that (for example), the 3dMark06 is being run on 2500K, 2600K, 2820QM and 2720QM, which are is 2 i7 quad core mobile CPUs, an i5 at 3+ Ghz and an i7 at 3+ Ghz, so, of course, the benchmark is going to appear much faster.
The intel results do not give an impression of how the HD graphics will perform in a MacBook 13" and I suspect it will be considerably worse than the notebookcheck.net benchmarks show.
I was looking at getting either the i5 or the 2.66 C2D 13" - in the end I went for the 2.66 Ghz C2D/320M on refurb - the intel seems to have roughly the same or worse performance, and at a price premium of £130 extra for the i5, it wasn't worth it for me.
Lets hope it's enough faster than my uMB when it arrives - hopefully I can play starcraft 2 without boot camp now
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The problem with the benchmarks you supplied (from notebookcheck.net) is that they are composites. You can look at individual details for some of the benchmarks (click the + next to xx Benchmarks and Specifications), notice that the 13" 2010 is one of the systems in the 320M results here. They are running on very old driver versions, and it appears that the MacBook Air has double the performance (the SSD maybe?).
Now look at the Intel results here. Using the same method, you can see that (for example), the 3dMark06 is being run on 2500K, 2600K, 2820QM and 2720QM, which are is 2 i7 quad core mobile CPUs, an i5 at 3+ Ghz and an i7 at 3+ Ghz, so, of course, the benchmark is going to appear much faster.
The intel results do not give an impression of how the HD graphics will perform in a MacBook 13" and I suspect it will be considerably worse than the notebookcheck.net benchmarks show.
I was looking at getting either the i5 or the 2.66 C2D 13" - in the end I went for the 2.66 Ghz C2D/320M on refurb - the intel seems to have roughly the same or worse performance, and at a price premium of 20% extra for the i5, it wasn't worth it for me.
Lets hope it's enough faster than my uMB when it arrives - hopefully I can play starcraft 2 without boot camp now
If you wanted to play SC2 w/o Bootcamp then the i5 would've done you better. I had both the 2010 and i7 2011 and SC2 performance under OSX is better with the i7 + HD3000. Minimum framerates are high (giving a less jerky game experience). This was big for me since I disliked booting into Bootcamp just to play at least on mediums which look SOOO much better than Low settings. The CPU does wonders for SC2 within bootcamp. My experience was backed up by some numbers on another thread.. that techyguy thread also noticed the same increased fps. But the big thing to me was the minimum FPS hardly dropped. I'll show you my SC2 video with the i7 within OSX.
4v4 medium shaders/shadows mix of lows/mediums and CPU settings are higher up thanks to the i7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJn_69xm1xc
Yeah, I have heard the same. Ascribed to better driver support for the IGP in OS X? Thanks for confirming this. Is that your fan running in the background, by the way?
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with the GPU being on the CPU die it's a much shorter path for the electrical signal to travel. with a regular GPU the data has to travel across the motherboard and back to the CPU
Well I remember the same argument with Intel, it happened. It wouldn't surprise me it Apple are testing the water with with the new AMD Radeons, if AMD perform well it wouldn't surprise me it more AMD chips end up in Apple devices.
A Mac Mini with a Phenon II would be awesome IMHO
Except the next 2 1/2 years, maybe more, will really bring out the shine for pcgaming. The performance gap between pc and console is so huge right now and consoles look they will be stuck on this generation until 2013 at the earliest.
Good time to get back into pcgaming.
Deceptive
Are you trying to be deliberately deceptive? Scroll down to the bottom of the GPU pages on the same site you quoted and you will see that the nVidia IGP coupled with an inferior C2D CPU outperforms the HD 3000 coupled with i5 and i7 CPUs by 20-50% - in many cases, the difference between "playable" and unplayable. The problem with the synthetic benchmarks is that they are a composite of disk performance, RAM performance, CPU performance and GPU performance and have little to do with real-world performance in gaming.
The only advantage the HD 3000 has over the nVidia piece is memory bandwidth. It has far fewer shaders than the nVidia piece (12 vs. 48, if my memory serves), albeit clocked a little higher. There is no amount of "tuning" that will bridge this kind of hardware gap. Yes, they are both low-end pieces, but the HD 3000 is definitely a step backward, compared with the nVidia piece. Corporations fight and the consumer loses. Too bad.
All the benchmarks were taken from www.notebookcheck.net.
The results are quite reliable, I have used this source for years.
According to benchmarks, HD3000 is BETTER than 320M !
Also, remember that 320M has 256MB of shared memory,
while HD3000 has 384MB - 1.5x more memory for game textures!
But it is worse than 330M GT, if don't count the Cinebench.
Hope this information will help you to make a right choice.
Are you trying to be deliberately deceptive? Scroll down to the bottom of the GPU pages on the same site you quoted and you will see that the nVidia IGP coupled with an inferior C2D CPU outperforms the HD 3000 coupled with i5 and i7 CPUs by 20-50% - in many cases, the difference between "playable" and unplayable. The problem with the synthetic benchmarks is that they are a composite of disk performance, RAM performance, CPU performance and GPU performance and have little to do with real-world performance in gaming.
The only advantage the HD 3000 has over the nVidia piece is memory bandwidth. It has far fewer shaders than the nVidia piece (12 vs. 48, if my memory serves), albeit clocked a little higher. There is no amount of "tuning" that will bridge this kind of hardware gap. Yes, they are both low-end pieces, but the HD 3000 is definitely a step backward, compared with the nVidia piece. Corporations fight and the consumer loses. Too bad.
I'm sure the Intel HD3000 or whatever you call it has plenty of time to grow in terms of driver updates. I'm sure there will be bigger performance gains once intel update the drivers.
Considering Nvidia has been in the business for so long I think Intel have done a decent job. Although it's not like people are purchasing the macbook solely to play games especially hardcore games.
I say give it time and there will be plenty of improvement.
Considering Nvidia has been in the business for so long I think Intel have done a decent job. Although it's not like people are purchasing the macbook solely to play games especially hardcore games.
I say give it time and there will be plenty of improvement.
Barefeats did the following comparison:
As the link suggests, the integrated GPU is not really suitable for gaming (by 'gaming' I mean 'capable of playing current 3D titles at desirable framerates') but the better integrated GPUs are good enough for someone who wants to play a few games occasionally, or plays older games.
This of course, is nothing new - if you want to play new games with good performance, avoid integrated GPUs. For most other tasks the integrated GPUs are just fine.
As the link suggests, the integrated GPU is not really suitable for gaming (by 'gaming' I mean 'capable of playing current 3D titles at desirable framerates') but the better integrated GPUs are good enough for someone who wants to play a few games occasionally, or plays older games.
This of course, is nothing new - if you want to play new games with good performance, avoid integrated GPUs. For most other tasks the integrated GPUs are just fine.
That is good info. I have a home built PC right now with an ATI 5570 HD card and an AMD x3 w/4GB ram. I would like to replace it with a Mac of some sort but not sure which.
I thought I would get an iMac 27 i5 with either the 5670 or 5750. But it would be nice to have portability once in a while. I have an iPad but no laptop right now.
My usage? General office and web, iPhoto, iMovie, DVD ripping and a decent amount of CS Source. I might play other games over the next few years but I doubt anything really intensive.
I would love to make due with a 13 inch but I am guessing I would need one of the two 15 inchers. Your comment makes me think it could be the entry model (which would free up some $ for an SSD).
Now if Intel had allowed nvidia to produces chipsets for the i-cpus, then you would have actually seen an improvement, even with the same 320M from the last generation. The fact that you see similar performance on a much faster cpu means the crappy ass gpu is holding it back.
Not to mention the fact that the nvidia chips support more features in hardware.
Nothing much Apple could o here though, this is all on Intel.
That being said, for many things it will still be plenty fast.
Like many other here I also moved to console gaming. I have a xbox 360 and only play that now. It was just too hard and expensive to keep up with hardware upgrades so that you could play the latest and greatest games. Therefore, the Intel HD3000 is perfect for me...I only play Counterstrike Source and that's probably twice a year.
People who already have enough CPU processing power for their needs, and would rather have the bump in graphics? I ultimately skipped the 2011 13" and bought a 2010 i5 15" for precisely this reason.
Anyway, it's funny to see people arguing over all these benchmarks, especially the OP, who has obviously cherry-picked all the benchmarks that favor the HD3000. Many reports and tests have shown that performance between these two solutions (and consequently, who "wins") varies wildly from game to game.
This will be an argument worth having when we have more mature drivers, and newer games that take advantage of the HD3000. Until then, this is very silly bickering.
Can you run GLView on the iGPU and see what it says? I wonder if Apple bothers to include OGL support on the systems that can switch graphics (which seems silly). Even though OGL is supposed to do CPU fallback if it doesn't work correctly...
Check the right side of my table.
There are benchmarks for two games.
They are NOT synthetic.
Thanks to Sandy Bridge CPU or not,
new Macbook Pro has a higher gaming performance than the old model (which you probably have)