Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Possible to buy a MBP that is great for gaming?

mikeo007 said:
Haven't seen anything with that much power yet, but it could be coming down the road. Current models offer 75 watts from the PCIe connector. Some newer models may come with 150 watts. Still stand by the fact that it's too expensive to be worth it though.

Your idea of a gaming PC and 13" macbook is probably a better idea than an external GPU.
Click to expand...

I found this one:
http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp
But that doesn't seem to yet be available. But also that's not what I was thinking about, which was probably the upcoming ViDock, which will likely come in variants up to 225W as well. But considering the prices are likely to be close to a grand BEFORE you start thinking about the graphics cards, a dedicated gaming PC is still obviously the best solution.
 
As an example...

The power difference between integrated chips and dedicated cards is massive... I have the an early 2008 MacBook Pro 15" with the 8600m GT w/256mb onboard vRam. Under bootcamp I ran the diabo 3 beta at 1920x1200 on an external monitor with everything (in the beta) set to max with the only exception being the Low FX box and any AA if that was even an option. I consistently got between 15-25 FPS, only dipping slightly lower when playing with 4 people and fighting large mobs. This is on a 4 year old laptop running at 1920x1200 let me remind you again.

From what I've been led to believe, the current HD3000 sounds like it stuggles when everything is set to low at 1280x800. Mind you I ran it under windows. One thing I can definitely say, is video card driver support does make a pretty big difference in graphics performance over the lifetime of the laptop/video card, as it steadily improves.

Get something with a dedicated card if you want to play most modern games at anything above the lowest graphical presets, and usually fairly low frame rates. 4 years later, boy am I glad that I didn't purchase a Gen 1 MacBook Air (which cost the same as the 15" pro at the time).
 
I really dont see a point in buying 1700$ macbook pro laptop to play games when u can buy some Acer laptop for 300-400$ with more powerfull gpu.Even if he dies doesn't matter.It's plastic piece of crap that runs HOT.
 
A7ibaba said:
I really dont see a point in buying 1700$ macbook pro laptop to play games when u can buy some Acer laptop for 300-400$ with more powerfull gpu.Even if he dies doesn't matter.It's plastic piece of crap that runs HOT.
Click to expand...

The point is that I don't want to carry two laptops around....it's already a pain enough to carry a big macbook pro around and now you're asking me to carry two...
 
yalag said:
The point is that I don't want to carry two laptops around....it's already a pain enough to carry a big macbook pro around and now you're asking me to carry two...
Click to expand...

My suggestion is to skip gaming on Mac because of really high TDP on discrete GPU and i7. But if u really want to use it on that way,u have no worrys.6750 with 512 MB ram will run Diablo III on high detail without problem on native resolution.
 
A7ibaba said:
I really dont see a point in buying 1700$ macbook pro laptop to play games when u can buy some Acer laptop for 300-400$ with more powerfull gpu.Even if he dies doesn't matter.It's plastic piece of crap that runs HOT.
Click to expand...

What model Acer is this?
 
sorry to slightly threadjack, but does anyone have some optimal setting for a late 2011 15" base model with 8GB of RAM? I couldn't really afford to spring for the high end model, but am regretting now after playing the Diablo 3 Beta. After some fiddling it was running ok, but would lag significantly when more than 5 enemies or so were on the screen. Should I just keep bumping the FPS down? I haven't done much PC gaming since Unreal Tournament in college so I'm not sure exactly what I need to be looking at for performance increase.
 
Interstella5555 said:
sorry to slightly threadjack, but does anyone have some optimal setting for a late 2011 15" base model with 8GB of RAM? I couldn't really afford to spring for the high end model, but am regretting now after playing the Diablo 3 Beta. After some fiddling it was running ok, but would lag significantly when more than 5 enemies or so were on the screen. Should I just keep bumping the FPS down? I haven't done much PC gaming since Unreal Tournament in college so I'm not sure exactly what I need to be looking at for performance increase.
Click to expand...

if you turn off shadows and ground clutter the game will probably run splendidly even w/ vsync on (to get rid of screen tear).... that's what i experienced w/ my 2.5ghz i7-2860qm w/ 1gb 6770m in os x @ resolutions up to 1920x1080p on my thunderbolt display... no idea what you can get away w/ in bootcamp though, performance generally tends to be a bit higher.
 
cosmicjoke said:
if you turn off shadows and ground clutter the game will probably run splendidly even w/ vsync on (to get rid of screen tear).... that's what i experienced w/ my 2.5ghz i7-2860qm w/ 1gb 6770m in os x @ resolutions up to 1920x1080p on my thunderbolt display... no idea what you can get away w/ in bootcamp though, performance generally tends to be a bit higher.
Click to expand...

Thanks buddy!
 
ok so it seems like if I were to ever play games on a MBP I'm going to have to upgrade to a 15''. OK if that is the case, should I wait for the next MBP? Is a new one coming out? And how much better will it be? Is it worth waiting?
 
yalag said:
I'm getting prepared to play Diablo 3 next month and my current macbook pro isn't that great. I have the last generation one 13'' and it's not doing great so far with the beta.

I tried the current generation 13'' and the graphic card is actually worst so I went back. I hear the problem is with intel graphic chip and my nvidia chip is still superior.

I have to stick with a 13'' because I'm travelling a lot and a 15'' would kill me. Any solution? Is there a configuration that would be great for the new game? Or am I pretty much stuck? Any hopes with the upcoming new MBPs?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

The next 13" is suppose to have much better integrated graphics, but the 15" is much much better than any integrated graphics because of its dedicated graphics card.
 
Erasmus said:
As he/she says it's a quad i7, it must be either 15" or 17". As it's a 1GB card, it must be the 6750M or 6770M, as the poor 6490M in the base early 2011 MBP is only 256MB.
Click to expand...

The 6490M no longer comes with any MacBook Pro.

The base 15" comes with a 6750M with 512MB of RAM.

----------
naxir said:
I have an Early 2011 15" 2.2GHz, it ran Diablo 3 great.
Click to expand...

Yep, runs great on mine as well.

(The Windows version at least...The Mac client is so badly optimized, I get barely 20fps on OS X with low settings)

----------
Erasmus said:
I found this one:
http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp
But that doesn't seem to yet be available. But also that's not what I was thinking about, which was probably the upcoming ViDock, which will likely come in variants up to 225W as well. But considering the prices are likely to be close to a grand BEFORE you start thinking about the graphics cards, a dedicated gaming PC is still obviously the best solution.
Click to expand...

If they could get this working for gaming, it would be amazing.
 
yalag said:
ok so it seems like if I were to ever play games on a MBP I'm going to have to upgrade to a 15''. OK if that is the case, should I wait for the next MBP? Is a new one coming out? And how much better will it be? Is it worth waiting?
Click to expand...

3Dmark 2011 scored roughly 35 percent better on 640m than 6750m... But we dont know what hardware it will have yet. So its just speculation at this point. I would wait, in the longer run, expansions etc might demand more and then youd want max performance for that. Its worth a few weeks of frustration unless you can get a really good deal on the current one. I cant because in my country theres no decent sales on them.
 
The 13 will likely run Diablo 3 just fine with the new ivy bridge GPU. No it won't be max detail, but you're playing on a 13" portable.

My 15" ran native diablo 3 just fine with all details pretty much maxxed out.


edit:
that was on lion for what it's worth, which i believe has updated/better openGL support than Snow Leopard.


Also: for the price, you may be better off buying an MBA (for portability) AND a 21.5" iMac for gaming for similar price to a highly specced MBP 15 or 17".
 
Last edited:
throAU said:
The 13 will likely run Diablo 3 just fine with the new ivy bridge GPU. No it won't be max detail, but you're playing on a 13" portable.

My 15" ran native diablo 3 just fine with all details pretty much maxxed out.


edit:
that was on lion for what it's worth, which i believe has updated/better openGL support than Snow Leopard.


Also: for the price, you may be better off buying an MBA (for portability) AND a 21.5" iMac for gaming for similar price to a highly specced MBP 15 or 17".
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, but one of the problems nowadays is Diablo has turned into a party game for us. So portability is key. I need to play it on a laptop. And on then other hand I don't want to own two laptop, one mac for work and one PC to game. So pretty much the only solution I have now is to purchase a 15'' MBP.

And I think the next gen 15'' will release much earlier than then 13''?
 
yalag said:
And I think the next gen 15'' will release much earlier than then 13''?
Click to expand...

They'll be released around the same time if anything.

I think we're very close to a refresh now. Probably... 2-3 months away.
 
yalag said:
Thanks for the suggestion, but one of the problems nowadays is Diablo has turned into a party game for us. So portability is key. I need to play it on a laptop. And on then other hand I don't want to own two laptop, one mac for work and one PC to game. So pretty much the only solution I have now is to purchase a 15'' MBP.

And I think the next gen 15'' will release much earlier than then 13''?
Click to expand...

Fair enough, was only a suggestion in case you were playing games at a desk.

Refresh should be pretty close now as others have suggested, if you can wait, i'd see what the ivy bridge GPU performs like first - if it is 'good enough" for the sort of gaming you do then you'll be able to get away with a 13" or maybe even a new MBA when they get refreshed. Again, they won't be a gaming powerhouse but probably good enough.

If you can't wait, the 15" runs most stuff fine, so long as you have the 6750 or 6770 GPU. The 6490 in the early base model 2011 is a dog, don't consider one of them for gaming (if you were maybe considering a refurb).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back