Is getting the high-end 15" worth $300?

[poozer115]

Hiya. I'm pretty sure I'll get the 15" sooner or later (probably before the school year). I use photoshop and indesign, and well as logic. I also play some games such as COD4, Sims 3, and Starcraft 2 (soon). Provided this is what I would use the 15" for, is it worth it to wait 6-7 extra months to buy a high end 15", or will the 9400m sufficiently meet the needs I stated? Keep in mind time isn't really an obstacle. There's an iMac at home, and Powermacs on campus when the school year starts. But is the high end better enough to justify a pretty long wait for me? Thanks a lot!

 

[QCassidy352]

if you do a significant amount of gaming then the MBP with the 9600 is worth it.

 

[poozer115]

Well that's the thing, I don't. I'm not one of those people that needs to play Crysis in native res with 8x aa. I just want to know that in some way or form (regardless of if details and resolution are low), I can play those three games with 20+ fps. I think the 9400m would be fine for my music and photo editing though.

 

[geoffreak]

It may help in Snow Leopard, but we won't know until later.

 

[poozer115]

It may help in Snow Leopard, but we won't know until later.

That's a very good point, thanks for the reply I guess I'll wait for it to be released, then look up benchmarks under the new OS. If Snow Leapord improves performance, I think the 15" low end is great for me. Thanks again!

 

[ColinEC]

The 9400M is good enough to run those games, especially since you don't want to bump up the details as far as they can go.

Snow Leopard may benefit from the 9600M, but it seems fast enough that a 9400M will do just fine (plus, you could always upgrade to an SSD if you want to make the computer faster in the future).

With the help of the 2.53GHz processor that the computer has, there shouldn't be much of a problem with running those games.

I'd suspect you'd be able to play at around 30FPS with low-medium settings, at an average resolution (around 1024x768).


I believe that the 9400M is about as fast as the card I have in my old iMac, the Radeon x1600 256MB (I think the 9400M even scored better on benchmarks than my card).

I'm able to run The Sims 3 at around 1024x768 on mixed low-medium settings at a perfectly playable speed, about 30 - 45FPS. Call of Duty 4 ran well at 1024x768 (also at low-medium settings) at 30FPS.

However, you could always save up over the summer and purchase the MBP with the 9600M (if you're in no rush).