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MBP 13 -high vs MBP 15 - low

K

kickin409

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 16, 2010
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I want to buy a MacBook pro and I see that nothing is different between the high end 13 inch vs the 15 inch beside the "AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR5 memory."

Iv googled this but I'm not sure if it's really necessary or not. Would this make a noticeable difference. I am not looking to play any games but I feel like the concerns with gaming could also carry over to other uses. Any advice on this? Thanks
 
I'm assuming the low end 15" MBP would provide for better graphics, but I don't know how much. I assume a 13" MBP with 8GB RAM gives the rough performance equivalent of a 512MB GPU while the low end 15" MBP with 8GB RAM would give the rough performance equivalent of a 768MB (256 discrete + 512 integrated) GPU. I could be wrong, but that's my understanding. I'm trying to figure out all the integrated versus discrete GPU nuances myself.
 
kickin409 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_8 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E401 Safari/6533.18.5)

I want to buy a MacBook pro and I see that nothing is different between the high end 13 inch vs the 15 inch beside the "AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics processor with 256MB of GDDR5 memory."

Iv googled this but I'm not sure if it's really necessary or not. Would this make a noticeable difference. I am not looking to play any games but I feel like the concerns with gaming could also carry over to other uses. Any advice on this? Thanks
Click to expand...

15" MBP will ALWAYS out perform the 13" MBP

(Quad Core vs. Dual Core)
 
Another big difference, the 13" has a dual core i7 and the 15" has a quad.
 
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Thanks guys. I didn't even notice the duel vs. Quad. Does that mean that the quad is still faster than the duel even if the duel says it runs 2.7 ghz vs the quads 2.0?
 
kickin409 said:
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Thanks guys. I didn't even notice the duel vs. Quad. Does that mean that the quad is still faster than the duel even if the duel says it runs 2.7 ghz vs the quads 2.0?
Click to expand...

It's faster, but only if you're doing something that requires a lot of processing power. If you have fairly basic needs, then you won't notice a performance difference, and my guess is that you won't notice a thing. I wouldn't get the 2.7 if you get the 13" either. It's overpriced for what you get.
 
Will you be doing anything like video editing or image processing? If none of these matter to you and your usage will relate to music, internet, word documents, and such, then you won't notice a difference. My suggestion would be to either get the low-end MBP 13" or MBP 15". The price difference between the high and low 13" is not worth it.
 
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I will be doing some video and image editing along with some audio software. And so I'm going to rule out the high end 13 because of what you guys are saying so, it comes between the base 13 and 15.

I guess my question really is just if the quality of the video/audio processing will be affected with the difference in power. Is it just speed or will the quality also be affected?
 
kickin409 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_8 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E401 Safari/6533.18.5)

I will be doing some video and image editing along with some audio software. And so I'm going to rule out the high end 13 because of what you guys are saying so, it comes between the base 13 and 15.

I guess my question really is just if the quality of the video/audio processing will be affected with the difference in power. Is it just speed or will the quality also be affected?
Click to expand...

1) You're right about the base 13 or base 15; either of the upgrades will be a) a waste of money or b) overpriced if done through Apple

2) The quality will be the same. If I install Vegas on my netbook and have it render an HD video, it will render the same video (if it can lol) as a MBP will, although it will either freeze up or take days to do it.

Generally speaking, with computers, it isn't like a... better, it's all the "same", just at what speeds you want to get from the machine.
 
15" MBP is much faster...

kickin409 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_8 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E401 Safari/6533.18.5)

I will be doing some video and image editing along with some audio software. And so I'm going to rule out the high end 13 because of what you guys are saying so, it comes between the base 13 and 15.

I guess my question really is just if the quality of the video/audio processing will be affected with the difference in power. Is it just speed or will the quality also be affected?
Click to expand...

Quality will not be affected, just processing speed, and you'll notice a significant speed increase (approx. 30%) using the base 15" MBP over the base 13" model; below are processing performance scores from Geekbench for reference:

8804 - MacBook Pro 15" (early 2011, Quad-Core i7 2.0 GHz)
5900 - MacBook Pro 13" (early 2011, Dual-Core i5 2.3 GHz)

Here's the source link for the above scores.

The only reason I believe you would get the 13" MBP is because 1) you want to save some money and 2) you're not going to render video and audio very often, just every now and then, nor will you game on it very much.

Otherwise, if you're already considering buying the 15" MBP base model then my personal advice to you is to go with this configuration, especially if you see yourself rendering video and gaming frequently. Not only will you get a better processor (Quad-core i7 over Dual-core i5) with a dedicated graphics CPU (which is not available in the 13" MBP), you'll also get a larger screen display of at least 1440x900 (the 1680x1050 is $150 more -- 13" only offers 1280x800 max) so that you have more screen real estate to utilize, which is especially useful while working within video, audio & photo software.
 
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