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The 13" has better graphics than the 15"/17" most of the time, for most users

Most of the time during that "most of the time," the graphics workload is sufficient for both the GMA HD and the 320M.

Arie said:
What is the use of "better horsepower"? Nothing at all. It does not improve anything. Ever. A better processor, even though not everyone might indeed need it or profit from it, can improve working. (I do not know how else to write this in English, sorry. The word "working" was as close as I could get.) In other words, this topic does not make any sense.
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Code: 
         Low performance          High performance
13”                        320M
15”/17”         GMA HD                   330M
As long as the workload stays within the GMA HD (which is most of the time), the 13" will be fine. As cathyy stated, tasks that exceed the GMA HD but are within the 320M may favor the 13". But when the workload exceeds the 320M, the 15"/17" is the better choice. Now, that doesn't take into account power consumption.
 
ReallyBigFeet said:
If that's all you are doing, there are cheaper alternatives to even the 13" MBP to accomplish that. I'd question why would someone bother with a MBP at all if they are only doing that.
Click to expand...

Are you serious?
- Aluminum vs Plastic
- industry leading battery life
- OSX
- FW800
- best 13" screen around, even if TN
- best touchpad ever
- best IGP ever for its class (I said IGP, not discrete GPU)
- great keyboard
- etc.

Even for just browsing, I don't see why I should live with a keyboard with flex or bad materials or joke battery life, etc.
 
manhattanboy said:
Exactly!!!!!
EXCEPT they have their pride that their ridiculously long wait for Apple to get off their @sses and update their laptops was not all for nothing.
I mean what would you do if you waited many months for an iCore processor in the the 13" only to be let down?
Probably you'd buy a 15".

And let's face it, most people buying now are not that concerned about how much it costs...at this point its all about ego.
Click to expand...

Wow, who has the ego here?

I've been in the market for a replacement MBP to my 2007 15" MBP for several months now. I _REALLY_ wanted a MBP in 13" because I travel a lot and the lighter weight of the 13" was attractive to me. I wasn't looking forward to losing screen real-estate but figured I could always attach it to an external monitor here at the house when I wanted that.

So I waited, patiently, for the past 3 months to upgrade. I knew the rumors about refresh cycles had been proven true before and they were. But the moment I saw the 13" was left with 2-year old CPUs, it became pretty apparent to me that I'd be disappointed paying that much money for what amounts to an even-trade of my 2007 technology. I don't play games, but I do already heat up my processor with heavy processor-intensive apps. I get annoyed at the length of time to transcode videos (I've been archiving the family video footage over the past couple of years....usually an overnight process for most lengthy ones).

I wasn't happy about the hitch in price, it was several hundred dollars more than I was hoping to spend, especially in light of the economic times. But I couldn't bring myself to downgrade my expectations and pay for a 13" MBP with outdated technology. If I buy anything new, I want it to be an upgrade to my user experience. So I stuck with the 15" size and am greatly looking forward to my replacement. My expectations for an upgrade are that it is, you know...an UPgrade.
 
ReallyBigFeet said:
So I waited, patiently, for the past 3 months to upgrade. I knew the rumors about refresh cycles had been proven true before and they were. But the moment I saw the 13" was left with 2-year old CPUs, it became pretty apparent to me that I'd be disappointed paying that much money for what amounts to an even-trade of my 2007 technology. I don't play games, but I do already heat up my processor with heavy processor-intensive apps. I get annoyed at the length of time to transcode videos (I've been archiving the family video footage over the past couple of years....usually an overnight process for most lengthy ones).
Click to expand...

I totally see your point...same here....except in the end maybe I will go for the 13" anyway....or maybe not.....
 
Encoding

I've realized that the problem with encoding may not be the hardware (Core 2 versus I5) but really the software. Compressor is dog slow. I imagine the other programs with iDVD or whatever are probably also crappy. I did an encode using Episode for a 100 minute DVD and in Episode it took 3 hours and Compressor took about 12. Now Episode is expensive, but I'm researching less expensive options.

My point here is that you may be able to get more bang per buck investing in software that can effectively use the Core Duo rather than crap software that can't take advantage of either the i5 or core 2.

It's like having a car, oh forget it.

ReallyBigFeet said:
Wow, who has the ego here?

I've been in the market for a replacement MBP to my 2007 15" MBP for several months now. I _REALLY_ wanted a MBP in 13" because I travel a lot and the lighter weight of the 13" was attractive to me. I wasn't looking forward to losing screen real-estate but figured I could always attach it to an external monitor here at the house when I wanted that.

So I waited, patiently, for the past 3 months to upgrade. I knew the rumors about refresh cycles had been proven true before and they were. But the moment I saw the 13" was left with 2-year old CPUs, it became pretty apparent to me that I'd be disappointed paying that much money for what amounts to an even-trade of my 2007 technology. I don't play games, but I do already heat up my processor with heavy processor-intensive apps. I get annoyed at the length of time to transcode videos (I've been archiving the family video footage over the past couple of years....usually an overnight process for most lengthy ones).

I wasn't happy about the hitch in price, it was several hundred dollars more than I was hoping to spend, especially in light of the economic times. But I couldn't bring myself to downgrade my expectations and pay for a 13" MBP with outdated technology. If I buy anything new, I want it to be an upgrade to my user experience. So I stuck with the 15" size and am greatly looking forward to my replacement. My expectations for an upgrade are that it is, you know...an UPgrade.
Click to expand...
 
The whole thread is a joke.
gainly you don't seem to realize that any GPU has power saving features. This means that a 320M in its lowest powser saving state might just performs worse than an Intel HD in its lowest. Even if this whole 90% of the time it is not used argument made sense it is nuts. Considering the idle power of the 13" MBP and the 48 shader cores the 320M needs some serious power management. At the same time Intel reduces its GPU power consumption on the 35W models significantly less than on the 18W or 25W models. I guess in all your non demanding workloads there is actually less horse power in a 13" than in the 15" with Intel HD and only when either platform ramps up the speed the 15" has a higher max thus there is really nothing where the 13" is better.
BTW Intel HD can accelerate 2 1080p streams in parallel and is very close in speed to the old 9400M which is much more than you need for almost anything in 2D.
 
yohannus said:
You have a ridiculous argument. How is the 320m better than intel during browsing/iTunes/email?
Click to expand...

How hard is to understand what the OP says. He has a very excellent point.

When you surf the internet, your GT330m gets activated which will eat all your battery life. The 13 inch will keep using the GT320 with 10 hours battery life.

And even a 9400M is more than enough for such tasks.

I have to award this round to Sony Vaio. Users can switch between GPU themselves. This way they can choose if they need the GT330m or the IGP from Intel.

I hope Apple comes with an update that allows users to choose when they want to switch instead of some software controlling it for you. I don't want to use a GT330M when I'm surfing or opening iTunes ( the intel IGP handles this perfectly ). This way you can get more battery life.
 
mark28 said:
How hard is to understand what the OP says. He has a very excellent point.

When you surf the internet, your GT330m gets activated which will eat all your battery life.
Click to expand...

What makes you think that? It seems a bit surprising.
 
mark28 said:
I have to award this round to Sony Vaio. Users can switch between GPU themselves. This way they can choose if they need the GT330m or the IGP from Intel.
Click to expand...

I bought my daughter a Sony Vaio since she's a gamer and in college. While I do like the switch, the very fact that its Windows makes this less than perfect. There are many times where she'll switch to 'gaming mode graphics' and be forced with a reboot. It sounds like a better implementation than it actually is in practice.
 
gianly1985 said:
Get your facts right:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/9679543/

This user prefer the GT330M over the IntelHD for non-3D-PIXAR-rendering-stuff like browsing or running the GUI of OSX with a lot of spaces.

So he PERCEIVES a difference between IntelHD and GT330M even in non-Game non-3D-work-stuff tasks.

I guess a difference (of course SMALLER) could be perceived between the IntelHD and the 320M. Or let's get back to the GMA950 and save money, for some users here it's all the same for non-Crysis tasks.
Click to expand...

I have tried both the new 13" as well as the new 15", browsing the web, reading PDF's, having various applications running, et cetera and I noticed not a single difference between the two.
 
mark28 said:
How hard is to understand what the OP says. He has a very excellent point.

When you surf the internet, your GT330m gets activated which will eat all your battery life. The 13 inch will keep using the GT320 with 10 hours battery life.

And even a 9400M is more than enough for such tasks.

I have to award this round to Sony Vaio. Users can switch between GPU themselves. This way they can choose if they need the GT330m or the IGP from Intel.

I hope Apple comes with an update that allows users to choose when they want to switch instead of some software controlling it for you. I don't want to use a GT330M when I'm surfing or opening iTunes ( the intel IGP handles this perfectly ). This way you can get more battery life.
Click to expand...
That seems like a software issue rather than the "wrong" combination of hardware.
 
Apple CAN'T use a 320M in a Core i5 notebook.

Intel's chips include the Intel HD graphics on the same board.

NVidia isn't legally allowed to make full system chipsets for Intel's newer processors.

Apple's only two choices are to use Core 2 Duo processors with their choice of integrated graphics (tada, 13" Macbook Pro) or to use Intel's latest chips and get HD graphics without any other integrated graphics options, requiring the addition of a discrete GPU if more power is needed (tada, 15" and 17" Macbook Pro).


Here's a picture of the Core i5 processor package if it isn't clear:

mbp3-100415-3.jpg
 
The 320m is different from the 330m

The 320m is the replacement to the 9400m and is a C2D chipset. It cannot be used in Arrandale platform (I5 &I7)

Manufacturer NVIDIA
Series GeForce 300M
Codename MCP89
Pipelines 48 - unified
Core Speed *
Shader Speed *
Memory Speed *
Memory Bus Width
Memory Type
Max. Amount of Memory
Shared Memory yes
DirectX DirectX 10.1, Shader 4.1
technology 40 nm
Notebook Size small and light
Date of Announcement 01.04.2010
Link to Manufacturer Page

The 330m is a discrete chip and has the following stats.

Manufacturer NVIDIA
Series GeForce GT 200M
Codename N11P-GE1
Pipelines 48 - unified
Core Speed * 575 MHz
Shader Speed * 1265 MHz
Memory Speed * 1066 MHz
Memory Bus Width 128 Bit
Memory Type GDDR2, GDDR3, DDR3
Max. Amount of Memory 1024 MB
Shared Memory no
DirectX DirectX 10.1, Shader 4.1
technology 40 nm
Features DirectX Compute Support (Windows 7), CUDA, OpenCL, HybridPower, PhysX
Notebook Size medium sized
Date of Announcement 10.01.2010
Information
182 Gigaflops calculation power
 
Sounds like your trying to convince yourself that 13" is the way to go. Maybe it's a money situation or don't like the bigger size. Either way, your mind is made up on 13". So enjoy your 13". It's not a bad machine at all!
 
ReallyBigFeet said:
Wow, who has the ego here?

I've been in the market for a replacement MBP to my 2007 15" MBP for several months now. I _REALLY_ wanted a MBP in 13" because I travel a lot and the lighter weight of the 13" was attractive to me. I wasn't looking forward to losing screen real-estate but figured I could always attach it to an external monitor here at the house when I wanted that.

So I waited, patiently, for the past 3 months to upgrade. I knew the rumors about refresh cycles had been proven true before and they were. But the moment I saw the 13" was left with 2-year old CPUs, it became pretty apparent to me that I'd be disappointed paying that much money for what amounts to an even-trade of my 2007 technology. I don't play games, but I do already heat up my processor with heavy processor-intensive apps. I get annoyed at the length of time to transcode videos (I've been archiving the family video footage over the past couple of years....usually an overnight process for most lengthy ones).

I wasn't happy about the hitch in price, it was several hundred dollars more than I was hoping to spend, especially in light of the economic times. But I couldn't bring myself to downgrade my expectations and pay for a 13" MBP with outdated technology. If I buy anything new, I want it to be an upgrade to my user experience. So I stuck with the 15" size and am greatly looking forward to my replacement. My expectations for an upgrade are that it is, you know...an UPgrade.
Click to expand...

Dude, you totally did what I was writing about. My friend did the same, hence the reason I could identify...

The "ego" is that you couldn't bring yourself to buy a crappy 13" given the lack of a "real upgrade"
 
Apple Expert said:
Sounds like your trying to convince yourself that 13" is the way to go. Maybe it's a money situation or don't like the bigger size. Either way, your mind is made up on 13". So enjoy your 13". It's not a bad machine at all!
Click to expand...

It's a horrible machine.
 
The Mid 2010 Macbook Pro 13" is a stopgap solution short of redesigning the logicboard and/or body of Apple's current 13" hardware.

The MCP89 is a pin per pin drop-in replacing the older MCP79 (9400M G/ION) platform. Apple doesn't have to redesign or retool anything to continue selling the MacBook Pro 13" using this solution.

In all honesty the tepid 10% theoretical increase in CPU performance in an increasingly threaded world is keeping me from choosing the Mid 2010 13" model as a replacement to my Late 2007 Macbook. I do like the GeForce 320M as a GPU but the processor isn't enough to inspire a purchase in me. I want something in a 2 core, 4 thread size in a 13" form factor.
 
gianly1985 said:
I didn't say it can't or people have to be disappointed by that, I'm just saying that MBP 15"/17" users are going back to a worse-than-2008-9400M graphic horsepower unless they launch Photoshop or other stuff that "awakes" the GT330M.



I'm not arguing that.

ps: a i5 13" + 320M + upcoming 27" ACD Led 2560x1440 would kick asses. A man can dream.....in the end, I think I'll go for this setup even with C2D 13".....
Click to expand...

the intel HD in the i5 and i7 chips has been consistently benchmarked above the 9400M...15" and 17" users are not getting worse than 2008 performance.

also, if the only thing youre going to be doing on your MacBook Pro is browsing the web, using itunes and checking email, you should buy the 13"
its perfectly capable of doing these tasks. the 15" and 17" are for people who want/need more power, and the 13' does not cut it in terms of power.

they are aimed at two very different markets. the 13" is more a consumer notebook, and the 15" and 17" are aimed at the professional market, and at people who want more power

you cant really compare the two, they are very different products
 
tombilske said:
the intel HD in the i5 and i7 chips has been consistently benchmarked above the 9400M...15" and 17" users are not getting worse than 2008 performance.
Click to expand...
I'd like to see something other than 3DMark03. Do you have any links?

tombilske said:
the 15" and 17" are for people who want/need more power, and the 13' does not cut it in terms of power.
Click to expand...
What about those that do want more power in a 13" form factor?
 
mark28 said:
How hard is to understand what the OP says. He has a very excellent point.

When you surf the internet, your GT330m gets activated which will eat all your battery life. The 13 inch will keep using the GT320 with 10 hours battery life.

And even a 9400M is more than enough for such tasks.

I have to award this round to Sony Vaio. Users can switch between GPU themselves. This way they can choose if they need the GT330m or the IGP from Intel.

I hope Apple comes with an update that allows users to choose when they want to switch instead of some software controlling it for you. I don't want to use a GT330M when I'm surfing or opening iTunes ( the intel IGP handles this perfectly ). This way you can get more battery life.
Click to expand...

this is apples first implementation of this technology and there are bound to be some bugs. apple knows that you dont need a 330M to surf the web, and im sure that they will fix that with future updates
 
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