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Macbook Pro vs Dell Laptop

T

tomoisyourgod

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 3, 2007
239
0
Liverpool, UK
Top of the range Dell laptop - XCS or what ever they call it... well my bro is thinking of that or a MBP 17" with all the bells and whistles...

He asked my advice on what to get, obviously I said the Mac, as we all know they are better machines, however he pointed out he can get a 512MB graphics card, and the MBP comes with 256MB...

He wants it for gaming, but he's p*ssed off with windows and is coming around to the idea of switching to OS X, and using Parallels/Boot Camp he can run windows and play games, and have the luxury of OS X and all it's merits...

What do you think?
 
tomoisyourgod said:
He wants it for gaming, but he's p*ssed off with windows and is coming around to the idea of switching to OS X, and using Parallels/Boot Camp he can run windows and play games, and have the luxury of OS X and all it's merits...
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan, at least you would have the graphical grunt to play the latest Windows games if you want to and still use OSX for everything else.
 
The 7950 and the 8600 cards arent on the same level as one another.

My vote's for a MacBook Pro. Looking at the prices, a MBP is ~$1000 cheaper then a Dell XPS of similar specs. :rolleyes: You could probably get a similar spec'd Inspiron for a similar price as a MBP though. No idea why XPS is so much more *shrugs
 
NoOneButMe said:
The 7950 and the 8600 cards arent on the same level as one another.

My vote's for a MacBook Pro. Looking at the prices, a MBP is ~$1000 cheaper then a Dell XPS of similar specs. :rolleyes: You could probably get a similar spec'd Inspiron for a similar price as a MBP though. No idea why XPS is so much more *shrugs
Click to expand...

You do realize you picked the blu-ray edition right? Way to be fair.... :rolleyes:
 
If you're looking for a bunch of people to tell you that a MBP is as good a gaming rig as you'll find, you've come to the right place.:)
 
Eidorian said:
The amount of video RAM isn't as important when you go beyond 256 MB.

Which XPS model?
Click to expand...

i would have to disagree with this.

If one wants to play games causally, ie... not at the highest resolution, not with all the bells and whistles... then yes, 256MB should be enough.

But when one wants all that on today's latest games, 512 does help.

More importantly, however; is the chipset itself. The nvidia 79xx doesn't have Direct X 10 capabilities, where the 8xxx does.
 
mgargan1 said:
i would have to disagree with this.

If one wants to play games causally, ie... not at the highest resolution, not with all the bells and whistles... then yes, 256MB should be enough.

But when one wants all that on today's latest games, 512 does help.

More importantly, however; is the chipset itself. The nvidia 79xx doesn't have Direct X 10 capabilities, where the 8xxx does.
Click to expand...
Then again 512 MB of GDDR2 sounds wonderful doesn't it?

You need the pipelines to push the textures at high resolutions and then you're going to need beyond 256 MB. :rolleyes:
 
Dell vs MBP

Just my two cents but if your bro is really into gaming he should stick with Windows and look around with Asus, Toshiba or alienware, they will offer for a few hundred $$$ less or the same price a laptop that will be better for games. The NVIDIA has the GeForce 8700M GT that is better than the 8600.

If gaming is not too important then indeed go with the MBP.
 
Dell XPs

Forgot to add but he may want to wait for the DELL XPS 1730. It is rumored to be coming out on the 27th of August. From a gaming perspective it'll beat the MBP though price may be steep.
 
Oh and of course you can't rule out the awesomeness of VMWare virtualization solutions, where you can run windows apps directly and seamlessly on OS X. That should make the transition a more easy and comfortable for your bro. :eek:
 
NoOneButMe said:
I was looking at the processors when i selected it - 2.16 vs 2.33 vs 2.4 :rolleyes:

But if you want, This XPS System still comes out to ~$1000 more when the spec's are raised to be similar to MBP's :)
Click to expand...

You shouldn't roll your eyes at me when you made the mistake.

There is a lower end one, which you can upgrade and it isn't $1000 more. Also, finding a 20-40% off coupon is not unheard of. Which should also be taken in to consideration.

If you want to game, you aren't gonna beat a PC. There is no arguing there. Although, the Dell doesn't currently have an 8 series GPU, meaning no DX10.

You can configure the Inspiron to match MBP and beat it in price. (beat is being nice) http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DNCWMA1&s=dhs&sm=2

Jet Black
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7700 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
High Resolution, glossy widescreen 17.0 inch display (1920 x 1200)
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
FREE! 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
FREE! 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-Card
Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
High Definition Audio 2.0

$2084
$300 off coupon: VH508C1F12HNSN
$1784

Better value than the XPS. Oh my, is that $10000 less :D .You could also take it up to 4GB of RAM and be well under the MBP
 
mgargan1 said:
According to the websites you're right. However, they're the same chipset, and I doubt that the memory would play that much of a role in FPS.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you edited your post.

Secondly, I've seen differences of ~80 fps for GDDR2 to ~120 for GDDR3 before on Source engine games. Not to mention every review site telling consumers to watch out for current GDDR2 based cards.
 
suneohair said:
You shouldn't roll your eyes at me when you made the mistake.

There is a lower end one, which you can upgrade and it isn't $1000 more. Also, finding a 20-40% off coupon is not unheard of. Which should also be taken in to consideration.

If you want to game, you aren't gonna beat a PC. There is no arguing there. Although, the Dell doesn't currently have an 8 series GPU, meaning no DX10.

You can configure the Inspiron to match MBP and beat it in price. (beat is being nice) http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&oc=DNCWMA1&s=dhs&sm=2

Jet Black
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7700 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
High Resolution, glossy widescreen 17.0 inch display (1920 x 1200)
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
FREE! 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
FREE! 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-Card
Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
85Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)
High Definition Audio 2.0

$2084
$300 off coupon: VH508C1F12HNSN
$1784

Better value than the XPS. Oh my, is that $10000 less :D .You could also take it up to 4GB of RAM and be well under the MBP
Click to expand...
I'm going by sticker price, not with coupons, etc. Else i'd have added the ADC discount in as well when mentioning the MBP :p And he mentioned XPS, not Inspiron. And if you read my post as well, you'd notice i said he could get an Inspiron for same / less price :)

And i never said $10k. Only $1000. Which, for the XPS Series - the series he was looking at - it's true.
 
NoOneButMe said:
I'm going by sticker price, not with coupons, etc. Else i'd have added the ADC discount in as well when mentioning the MBP :p And he mentioned XPS, not Inspiron. And if you read my post as well, you'd notice i said he could get an Inspiron for same / less price :)

And i never said $10k. Only $1000. Which, for the XPS Series - the series he was looking at - it's true.
Click to expand...

ADC requires you to be a student (for the $99 membership). Which we don't know if the OP is. Not everyone can get the discounts Apple offers, which means unless we know the specifics of his situation, we have to go on sticker for Apple, Dell coupons are available to everyone and thus can be figured into the price IMO. Look at it how you would like. But it is not fair to factor in discounts when we don't know if the person is eligible. If he is, sure ADC is an option.

The 10k was a typo on my part. However, it is also true that the Inspiron matches the MBP and is $1000 less. Just because he came in with the idea of an XPS, doesn't mean we can't explain the lack value in that and offer alternatives.

The XPS, as I noted is more, but not $1000 more if you upgrade the one that is $2299 on their site. I also noted that the value isn't there just as you did.

Yes, you did mention the Inspiron. I took it a step further and showed the pricing, i never said you didn't mention it.
 
if he is a gamer, loves latest games, you should not be recommending macs for him. its about what he needs, not about what you want him to use.
 
Here we go again with the Dell BS...

Forget Dell, plus maybe you'll do better to ask on a PC gaming site.

I bought a Dell laptop for "gaming" a years back. Dells, as buku cheap as they are, use cheap copies of Nvidia and ATI chips. My laptop said "ATI with 128 Megs RAM" but when I went to ATI to get drivers, the installer said I had to use the "laptop manufacturer's drivers" instead.

I went to Dell and downloaded the latest drivers, but still wouldn't work with 1/2 my games as my Dell didn't have the latest graphic drivers.

Not to mention, the computer locked up when you tried to plug something in the USB port.

I ended up giving it to my friend's daughter for e-mails, writing papers, and chatting.

Get a real computer, not a Dell...

http://www.ihatedell.net
 
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