MacBook Pro for gamer/student

[robersim]

Hi,
I am a high school student and have decided that i want a mac, but i was wondering if i could play some of the following games, and if so, what kinds of settings:

World of Warcraft
Fallen Earth
Crysis(Windows 7 Partition)
Halo Reach (Windows 7 Partition)
Call of Duty: Black Ops (Windows 7 Partition)

Here are the specs for two of my choices, i can't decide whether i want the 17" or the 15"(i would be getting the 27" cinema display for either)


15":
2.66GHz Intel Core i7
8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
512GB Solid State Drive
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
MacBook Pro 15-inch Hi-Res Glossy Widescreen Display
Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide
Microsoft Office Mac 2008 - Home and Student Edition
AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll



or



17":

2.66GHz Intel Core i7
8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB
512GB Solid State Drive
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
MacBook Pro 17-inch Hi-Resolution Glossy Widescreen Display
Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide
Microsoft Office Mac 2008 - Home and Student Edition



Thanks in advance to all of you people here at Macrumors.com.

 

[racedude]

It's really a matter of portability since the two computers have the same specs. Would you be willing to carry around the 17-inch? I personally think the 15" is a perfect size, especially considering that you are going to be using a Cinema display when at home (which I assume is where you will do all of your gaming).

Also, pretty sure Halo Reach isn't coming to the PC for a while if at all? Maybe I'm wrong though?

 

[robersim]

sorry my bad
halo reach isn't coming to pc


ok, so i have decided on the 15 inch, for portability reasons, but will a mbp run the other games at decent settings?

 

[racedude]

sorry my bad
halo reach isn't coming to pc


ok, so i have decided on the 15 inch, for portability reasons, but will a mbp run the other games at decent settings?

Absolutely, also I'd personally run WoW and Fallen Earth on the Windows side too, (pretty much any game). I play WoW quite a bit, and I notice about a 10 fps increase by just using it on my Windows partition with the same exact settings and the same exact hardware than on my OS X partition.

 

[robersim]

Absolutely, also I'd personally run WoW and Fallen Earth on the Windows side too, (pretty much any game). I play WoW quite a bit, and I notice about a 10 fps increase by just using it on my Windows partition with the same exact settings and the same exact hardware than on my OS X partition.

May i ask what framerate you are getting in WoW, one of the main cities such as dalaran

 

[neondrgns]

yeah I wouldnt listen to the absolutely guy right above me for running games

WoW runs great on pieces of crap, and is not indicative of anything, it is so low graphics and low power that you might as well say Warcraft II runs great as well

I am running the following on my i7 15" mbp

TF2 Medium Settings, Left 4 Dead 2 at medium to low settings, Fallout 3 on Low Settings, alien swarm is low medium settings (ridiculous)

Dont get a 512 SSD from apple, its way expensive for a crap samsung SSD

 

[robersim]

yeah I wouldnt listen to the absolutely guy right above me for running games

WoW runs great on pieces of crap, and is not indicative of anything, it is so low graphics and low power that you might as well say Warcraft II runs great as well

I am running the following on my i7 15" mbp

TF2 Medium Settings, Left 4 Dead 2 at medium to low settings, Fallout 3 on Low Settings, alien swarm is low medium settings (ridiculous)

Dont get a 512 SSD from apple, its way expensive for a crap samsung SSD

so the ssd isn't worth the extra dough, i didnt think so but the boot time is supposedly 12 seconds with the ssd.

 

[neondrgns]

so the ssd isn't worth the extra dough, i didnt think so but the boot time is supposedly 12 seconds with the ssd.

SSD is good, but not worth the $1300 price tag that apple charges. I am gonna get one soon, just dont buy it from apple. Hard Drives are user serviceable, and Intel is coming out with the 25nm Intel SSD drivers in Q4, and its supposed to drop the prices of SSDs, as well as being just a better drive. I plan on waiting and getting one of those myself.


Size wise I dont think that a 512 is necessary as well, just get an external hard drive, and you will save like $1000 getting a 160gb or 256gb

 

[robersim]

here are the revised specs for my MBP;

2.66GHz Intel Core i7
8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
MacBook Pro 15-inch Hi-Res Glossy Widescreen Display
Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide
Apple Remote
AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll
MobileMe

Total
$4,185.00

 

[Hellhammer]

My suggestion would be to get 13" MBP and build a PC for gaming. For 1000$, you can get a PC that outperforms any MBP in gaming. Seriously, you are paying over 3000$ for a laptop that is more or less bad for any serious gaming. It plays them okay now but wait few years and it will be obsolete. This won't happen with a desktop since you can upgrade the GPU and other components.

13" MBP and desktop PC gives you the best of both worlds. 13" is more portable than 15/17 inches are but PC offers a lot more power than any MBP does. I would also get a different monitor that has multiple inputs so you can easily switch between inputs rather than unplugging and re-plugging the cord when you want to switch between the machines.

Just my piece of advice but IMO it's ridiculous to drop $3k on a laptop that can barely play games at 2560x1440 with decent graphics and FPS.

 

[robersim]

My suggestion would be to get 13" MBP and build a PC for gaming. For 1000$, you can get a PC that outperforms any MBP in gaming. Seriously, you are paying over 3000$ for a laptop that is more or less bad for any serious gaming. It plays them okay now but wait few years and it will be obsolete. This won't happen with a desktop since you can upgrade the GPU and other components.

13" MBP and desktop PC gives you the best of both worlds. 13" is more portable than 15/17 inches are but PC offers a lot more power than any MBP does. I would also get a different monitor that has multiple inputs so you can easily switch between inputs rather than unplugging and re-plugging the cord when you want to switch between the machines.

Just my piece of advice but IMO it's ridiculous to drop $3k on a laptop that can barely play games at 2560x1440 with decent graphics and FPS.

I'm not a serious gamer, just on occasion i play a WoW, and want to start playing fallen earth, i have an xbox 360, so i can play anything that is playable on a console, but mmo's need to be playable on my laptop, as i am heading to college in a few years

 

[willieva]

Shoot, hellhammer beat me to it You could get an i7 hp laptop and 13" mbp for $2500. Add in $1k for the monitor and you're still many hundreds less than your original setup. A desktop would be even cheaper.

And since two of those 3 windoze games are actually on xbox you could do it even cheaper, unless you're opposed to xbox live.

 

[Bobomix]

My suggestion would be to get 13" MBP and build a PC for gaming. For 1000$, you can get a PC that outperforms any MBP in gaming. Seriously, you are paying over 3000$ for a laptop that is more or less bad for any serious gaming. It plays them okay now but wait few years and it will be obsolete. This won't happen with a desktop since you can upgrade the GPU and other components.

13" MBP and desktop PC gives you the best of both worlds. 13" is more portable than 15/17 inches are but PC offers a lot more power than any MBP does. I would also get a different monitor that has multiple inputs so you can easily switch between inputs rather than unplugging and re-plugging the cord when you want to switch between the machines.

Just my piece of advice but IMO it's ridiculous to drop $3k on a laptop that can barely play games at 2560x1440 with decent graphics and FPS.

Yes, so true. Especially with the new 27" LED Monitor running at native 2560x1440, you'll see some low FPS. Furthermore, the new 27" has a 12ms response time, which I do not think is good for gaming especially in shooters.

For what you need as a student, imo a 13 inch would be more than enough. You can spend the extra dough on a high-end gaming rig. Like the above poster stated, any $1k PC will be superior in gaming performance.

 

[Hellhammer]

I'm not a serious gamer, just on occasion i play a WoW, and want to start playing fallen earth, i have an xbox 360, so i can play anything that is playable on a console, but mmo's need to be playable on my laptop, as i am heading to college in a few years

I still wouldn't spent 3000$ on a laptop if its power is not needed for anything else but gaming. As you're in high school, I doubt you do video editing with Final Cut or anything like that. That's quite hefty price for web surfing machine. MMOs are usually playable with any computer so again, even 13" would be fine if it's only used for casual gaming. Then if you start to play more, you could think about buying a desktop PC

 

[robersim]

I still wouldn't spent 3000$ on a laptop if its power is not needed for anything else but gaming. As you're in high school, I doubt you do video editing with Final Cut or anything like that. That's quite hefty price for web surfing machine. MMOs are usually playable with any computer so again, even 13" would be fine if it's only used for casual gaming. Then if you start to play more, you could think about buying a desktop PC

Here are my two final choices:

The 15 inch MBP stated in a previous post

or


A gaming pc that i have been coveting for a long time

Corsair Obsidian Series 800D CC800DW Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case
ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution with NF200 3xPCIe true x16 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
3 EVGA 015-P3-1480-AR GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
CORSAIR Professional Series AX1200 1200W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 SLI Certified 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.33GHz LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7980X
Kingston SSDNow V Series SNV425-S2BN/128GB 2.5" Notebook Bundle 128GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMP12GX3M3A1600C9
Western Digital VelociRaptor WD4500HLHX 450GB 10000 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive


2 Seagate Constellation ES ST31000524NS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Asus VG236H 23" Full HD 120Hz 3D multimedia Height & Swivel Adjustbale WideScreen LCD Monitor w/nVidia 3D Vision Kit hard bundle
HP Black Blu-ray Burner SATA bd340i LightScribe Support
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders
Crysis Maximum Edition PC Game EA
Fallout: New Vegas PC Game Bethesda
Fallen Earth: Welcome to the Apocalypse PC Game SouthPeak
Thermaltake CL-W0121 2U Drive Bay Water Cooling System
Enzotech STEALTH Water Cooler CPU Water Block

Subtotal: $5,766.55

 

[Hellhammer]

Here are my two final choices:

The 15 inch MBP stated in a previous post

or


A gaming pc that i have been coveting for a long time

*snip*

You have no need for a PC with that much power.

I would get 13" MBP and a PC with following components:

Fractal Design Define R3 Black - 105$
ASUS P7P55D - 135$
Intel Core i5-760 - 209$
ATI 5870 - 350$
G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2x2GB) - 184$ (buy two of those kits to make it 8GB)
LG Blu-Ray Burner - 110$
OCZ Vertex 2 60GB - 138$
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - 88$ (get more than one if needed)
Corsair 650W - 80$

Total: 1399$ + monitor of your choice

Will run WoW with all settings maxed out without any hiccups. The PC you have listed is completely ridiculous as most games cannot take advantage of its power. Then get a 13" MBP, all this for less than 3000$.

 

[TopHatPlus]

Hey i have the 2.66 ghz i7 15" mbp, and i play SC2 and have everything on high and it runs smooth as butter! i do love my 15" mbp, it feels a lot bigger then it is, and it is unfathomably fast. Hell hammer is correct you can buy a slower macbook and build a pc. I am one of those people 1 computer that does everything, and i refuse to buy a pc, i hate windows... so i bought this computer after doing months of research and reading reviews and i am SO happy with it. I also do a lot of movie editing with final cut pro and it is just ridiculously fast. You cannot go wrong with 15" and the 17" if you want the extra screen space but being you mentioned getting a 27" apple display you really do not need it!!! and i would also love to get one! Let me knwo if you have any other questions but that computer will be absurdly fast!

 

[paintballswimgu]

My brother was recently in the same boat as you. He went with the basic aluminum 13 in mbp. And together we built a sweet gaming rig. See Sig

I suggest checking out microcenter, they have the best prices on cpus around. Pass on the SSD for now. and just get 2 samsung f3s in raid 0. They are some of the fastest desktop drives out.
Don't go with a P55 chipset, get an x58 chipset. Gigabyte has a good one for $200 with usb 3.0 and sata 6 built in.
Also, for gaming samsung makes a sweet 27 in 1200 x 1920 monitor with HD tv tuners built in. It runs around $300.
Don't do liquid cooling, Its over rated and a pain in the arse to deal with. Mainly because with college, you'll find yourself moving your computer somewhat regularly. Stick to air cooling. Much better off with that.

Also, the games that you play, would never be able to take advantage of 3x nvidia 480gtx's. Thats a waste of money. But a ati 5850 or 5870. And put a second one in next year, if you still think you need the graphics power. A single 5850 will run crysis or battlefield bad company 2 at full settings.


So, I would recommend currently.
i7 950
gigabyte x58 with sata 6.0 and usb 3.0
ati 5850 or ati 5870 or nvidia gtx 470 (very affordable currently)
2x samsung F3 (raid 0)
40 to 80 gb OWC SSD (if you can afford it)
windows 7 64 bit
6gb 1600 mhz ram
Samsung bluray reader drive (unless you need a burner)
Prolimatech CPU cooler (with 2 fans, one for pushing, one for pulling)
Artic Silver
750 to 800 watt power supply (IMO only buy a corsair, thermaltake, or OCZ power supply)

 

[HLdan]

here are the revised specs for my MBP;

2.66GHz Intel Core i7
8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
MacBook Pro 15-inch Hi-Res Glossy Widescreen Display
Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide
Apple Remote
AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll
MobileMe

Total
$4,185.00

Wow, that's quite a set up. May I ask how does a high school student afford a $4000+ Mac package? Must be nice to be you.

 

[neondrgns]

here are the revised specs for my MBP;

2.66GHz Intel Core i7
8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
MacBook Pro 15-inch Hi-Res Glossy Widescreen Display
Apple LED Cinema Display (27" flat panel)
Backlit Keyboard (English) & User's Guide
Apple Remote
AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro (w/or w/o Display) - Auto-enroll
MobileMe

Total
$4,185.00

if you are still going for this drop the 8 gigs of ram, buy and install your own, 8 gigs of ram is like $180 on newegg right now unlike the $400 apple charges.
Also I would drop the hi res glossy screen since you are using an external monitor is personal preference, but if you are gonna game using your laptop screen the higher the res the worse the performance.

I would also drop the 500 gig 7200 rpm drive as its gonna kill your battery faster, use that $50 and apply it to a smaller ssd
like I said wait for the 160gb intel 25nm ssd coming out in Q4 of this year its expected to be like $200-$300.

also heres a heads up, bootcamp using Win 7 64 bit is wonky still, a lot of games I tried installing won't play on it for some reason, I had to use win 7 32 bit and the 32 bit only recognizes like 3 gigs of ram...personally mine recognizes about ~2gigs of ram, but its fine for gaming

 

[MacMarf]

Wow, that's quite a set up. May I ask how does a high school student afford a $4000+ Mac package? Must be nice to be you.

Yo mom, I need a new laptop for school, they prefer macs over there.
- Sure tell me what you need, ill look into it.
* Discovers that a Laptop with 2GB ram and a 80GB harddisk is enough*
Yo mom, I need like 8GB of ram, since we do lots of powerpoint and stuff, also i need a solidstate drive of like 500GB, they told me those drives were needed for excel and stuffs, other drives cant handle the amount of cells etc. Total will be like 4K.

 

[neondrgns]

Yo mom, I need a new laptop for school, they prefer macs over there.
- Sure tell me what you need, ill look into it.
* Discovers that a Laptop with 2GB ram and a 80GB harddisk is enough*
Yo mom, I need like 8GB of ram, since we do lots of powerpoint and stuff, also i need a solidstate drive of like 500GB, they told me those drives were needed for excel and stuffs, other drives cant handle the amount of cells etc. Total will be like 4K.

=(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

thats how sad my face is

 

[ljx718]

tough. but i woul dget the 17 inch. for me its not that much bigger and the resolution is amazing

 

[wordoflife]

How does a high school student have so much money to spend on 'light' gaming? $5000 is a lot for light gaming and web browsing.

For $1200, you can get the specs of my PC (in my signature) and that computer definitely qualifies for light gaming.

You don't need the biggest, baddest specs to play world of warcraft

 

[ljx718]

How does a high school student have so much money to spend on 'light' gaming? $5000 is a lot for light gaming and web browsing.

For $1200, you can get the specs of my PC (in my signature) and that computer definitely qualifies for light gaming.

You don't need the biggest, baddest specs to play world of warcraft

some kids have parents with money. must be nice