Performance difference with my MBP 15" 2010 and the new 2011 one(gaming?)

[Exana]

MacBook Pro 15" 2010 is powerful enough to play Portal 2 and WoW in very good conditions. Best is to wait for next update. My MacBook Pro 15" 2011 was about 2 times more powerful than my 2010 unit. But also much more noisier.

I will try again with Ivy Bridge and 28 nm Radeon (if Apple use it).

 

[aoaaron]

this is probably going to have been the biggest hardware jump ever for MBPs in a long time and maybe for a long time. for me its the only semi-justifiable time to consider upgrading from a model from the year before.

SSD vs. HD debate. get an SSD if one of the following applies to you:
a) you don't mind voiding your warantee and installing an optibay
b) you don't store a lot of stuff on your laptop (music etc.) so you're going to be fine with 120GB of space or so
c) you're very rich and can afford a big capacity SSD drive
d) you dont move your laptop about much so you can keep it connected to an external harddrive or you dont mind having to carry the external with you (and you also have faith in external storage not failing [/bad experiences]).

SSDs are phenomenal and as i listed above, there are plenty of work arounds. for me personally, i went for the HDD because i dont need the 18 second bootup speed or the instantenous 50 app opening etc. i'm fine waiting the extra second(s) if i can have all my stuff in one place (for now).

 

[Kaidao]

OP, I think you should install Bootcamp on your current laptop first and see if the problem gets sorted out. I used to play HoN on my 2010 15" i5 2.4ghz, and it would get stuttery at times too, especially in large battles. My FPS would take a huge drop when there a bunch of things going on, which is similar to what you're describing.

Then I learned about Bootcamp, so I put off 80gb for a Win7 partition, and I put all my games on there. I currently play HoN, TF2, (and also tried WoW). All the settings were on high, and each game ran incredibly smooth. Bootcamp really boosts your FPS in games.

The GT330M (I have the 256 version too) is plenty powerful, at least to me. Try boot camp out first and see if you're ok with it. If not, well, it's your budget.

 

[APAV]

So I just got an offer on craigslist for $1300 quick cash in hand for my model, should I take that offer or hold for a while and see if I can find a better one?

 

[ibebyi]

First of all, I have the same laptop as OP. 15" 2010 2.66 i7 (1599$ refurb!!! great deal )

Bootcamp adds a very noticeable boost in framerate. Plus, if you want to overclock your card, you can increase your fps by another ~10fps with minimal temperature increases (YMMV of course). I have some overclocked examples below:

My GTA IV benchmark with all settings on high, shadows very high, and textures medium (for some reason I couldn't bump this up) @ 1400x900 ran at 23 fps prior to overclocking, and 32 fps after overclocking (XBox avg 30fps/PS3 avg 26fps). GTA IV, of course, is a bad example for fps, since it was known to be a pretty badly optimized port.

Crysis (also another known CPU/GPU killer) runs smoothly on all High settings (albeit at 1200x800 res). I wish I had a fps for you but I dont :/

Mass effect 2 runs amazingly well @ 1400x900/highest settings w/anti-aliasing 4x.

I'm guessing that with WoW/SC2 graphics settings close to maxed out, you'll have a completely playable experience
Of course for SC2 I've read that it can red line both GPU/CPU temps. Which leads to my next point...

With Lubbo's Fan Control (for Windows), my Macbook hovers around a comfortable 72C/ (GPU Temp) for most games. Crysis pushes it to 76C (but that is still completely reasonable and not even close to the i7's rated Tjunction). This is about 3-4C hotter than stock GPU clock temperatures. I know I probably sound like I'm trying to sell OC'ing the 330m, so I feel obligated to say to use caution when messing with clock speeds.


There are plenty of guides around for overclocking the 330m, or if you'd like feel free to shoot me a PM and I'll try to get back to you asap with full on instructions

Trust me when I say you'll want to look into it.

Your 2010 is going to hold its ground for a while.

A quick question for others w/2011 MBP. Can you overclock the 2011 base 15" (6490) with Rivatuner/MSI/nvidia inspector?

OH also, on youtube check out Dwizard07's 15" Overclocked 330m videos (just type Dwizard07 in youtube search bar). He has TONS of videos of modern games running on the lower end 2010 15" mbp he was my inspiration haha

 

[Leslie Tan]

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I have the high end 2010 15 inch model and i recently upgraded to high end 2011 15 model with ssd. Yes, i noticed a performance boost in wow and i am able to set my wow graphics higher. Not by much though but definitely no stuttering effects after a long play. Plus it consumes more power to run it if you set high graphics in wow.

Hope it helps. For glossy and anti glare, my new anti glare looks good on wow too compare to my old glossy.

 

[APAV]

First of all, I have the same laptop as OP. 15" 2010 2.66 i7 (1599$ refurb!!! great deal )

Bootcamp adds a very noticeable boost in framerate. Plus, if you want to overclock your card, you can increase your fps by another ~10fps with minimal temperature increases (YMMV of course). I have some overclocked examples below:

My GTA IV benchmark with all settings on high, shadows very high, and textures medium (for some reason I couldn't bump this up) @ 1400x900 ran at 23 fps prior to overclocking, and 32 fps after overclocking (XBox avg 30fps/PS3 avg 26fps). GTA IV, of course, is a bad example for fps, since it was known to be a pretty badly optimized port.

Crysis (also another known CPU/GPU killer) runs smoothly on all High settings (albeit at 1200x800 res). I wish I had a fps for you but I dont :/

Mass effect 2 runs amazingly well @ 1400x900/highest settings w/anti-aliasing 4x.

I'm guessing that with WoW/SC2 graphics settings close to maxed out, you'll have a completely playable experience
Of course for SC2 I've read that it can red line both GPU/CPU temps. Which leads to my next point...

With Lubbo's Fan Control (for Windows), my Macbook hovers around a comfortable 72C/ (GPU Temp) for most games. Crysis pushes it to 76C (but that is still completely reasonable and not even close to the i7's rated Tjunction). This is about 3-4C hotter than stock GPU clock temperatures. I know I probably sound like I'm trying to sell OC'ing the 330m, so I feel obligated to say to use caution when messing with clock speeds.


There are plenty of guides around for overclocking the 330m, or if you'd like feel free to shoot me a PM and I'll try to get back to you asap with full on instructions

Trust me when I say you'll want to look into it.

Your 2010 is going to hold its ground for a while.

A quick question for others w/2011 MBP. Can you overclock the 2011 base 15" (6490) with Rivatuner/MSI/nvidia inspector?

OH also, on youtube check out Dwizard07's 15" Overclocked 330m videos (just type Dwizard07 in youtube search bar). He has TONS of videos of modern games running on the lower end 2010 15" mbp he was my inspiration haha

Bump for good measures is this the better option or should I still go with the newer model?

 

[Leslie Tan]

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Go ahead n buy if you want higher wow settings with decent fps but if you are not concern with so much graphic on it, stay with current ones. Difference is not much if same wow settings.

 

[Killery96]

Is it worth getting the 128 SSD over the 750 HD? Its $90 more, and I'm not sure such a huge downgrade of space is worth it, but I don't know much about SSD's.... Please explain why is it worth to wait till June to wait to get a external HD?

Also is the HD glossy screen worth it as well? And should I really get it with 4GB Ram and upgrade to 8 later? Is 8 much that really of a performance boost?

Thanks for the info! I would like to know.

Edit: I would be gaming on windows 7 64 bit via bootcamp so I am wondering if the upgrade in Ram is worth it, like the game can utilize all 8 gigs.

People who think FPS rates will be improved by SSD's are wrong. While SSD's will increase boot up speed and the accessibility of the Hard drive, they will not increase your GPU's performance and 'benchmark capability'. I would take the space rather than the SSD... Just think about it and it's practicality... If you want the HDD essentially of a macbook air, that's the idea.

For image quality, I think the higher resolution is worth it, and the glossy screen will give a nicer, deeper color than the AG Hi-res screen. It is definately worth it for <100 dollars, trust me.

Now. For apple price, 8 gigs of RAM is bogus unecessary for gaming, unless you plan to use many other applications. RAM is for multiple applications and handling programs that need to run a lot of stuff to load and process things, like photoshop and Imovie and what not. 4 gigs is perfectly fine for gaming, but people like to have 8 of whatever they can rather than 4. In 64 bit, however, you can take advantage . Only in 32 bit are you restricted, I believe.