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Upgrading Celeron M to C2D or Arrandale. Should i wait?

M

mossme89

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 2, 2009
596
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I want to upgrade to a 15" MBP within the next year. The current models have really caught my eye, but with all this talk about Arrandale i am considering whether or not to wait. Is Arrandale that big of a jump?

Regardless of what i do, i want a computer that is capable of gaming modern games at decent settings (ex. 1-2 steps lower than native resolution, & atleast low-med settings with atleast 30 FPS). The 9600 fits these guidelines.

Whenever i buy a Mac i'm sure it will be night and day compared to my current PC. As my main computer i am using a 2-year old Toshiba 1.73 GHz PC with the Celeron M processor. The battery rarely lasts more than 1 hour. It's still running fine, albeit slow. I can wait, but would Arrandale processors provide a performance boost in gaming if the MBP would still (hypothetically) have the 9600?
 
Hellhammer said:
I would wait because of Arrandale and NVIDIA 2xxM series. You will notice the difference.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry to be a nag, but how does the 2XXM compare to the 9600? I have looked at the Asus gaming laptops at BB with the 260M and i know that they are better than the 9600, but how much better? Is it like comparing the 9600 and the 8600 (slightly better), or the 9600 and the 9400 (much better)?
 
mossme89 said:
I'm sorry to be a nag, but how does the 2XXM compare to the 9600? I have looked at the Asus gaming laptops at BB with the 260M and i know that they are better than the 9600, but how much better? Is it like comparing the 9600 and the 8600 (slightly better), or the 9600 and the 9400 (much better)?
Click to expand...

I think it's worth it. I just looked some benchmarks and 260M is over two times faster in some cases (over 50fps more in Crysis).
 
There will always, always be a better system on the horizon. I say buy a new system whenever you really feel that you need it (and it sounds like you do now). Whenever you buy you'll be lucky to stay at the leading edge for six months anyway.

In the case of Arrandale we still don't know exactly when the chip will be released, or how long after that until Apple puts it in a laptop.
 
A new cpu architecture is not always so close as it is now, I'm waiting for it to buy a MBP, and I suggest you do the same if your able to wait. We also have some other new things on the horizon, SL which is coming very soon, and of course new GPU's. These three things combined can improve things significantly.
 
Hellhammer said:
I think it's worth it. I just looked some benchmarks and 260M is over two times faster in some cases (over 50fps more in Crysis).
Click to expand...
You're never going to see a GTS 260M in an Apple notebook. The TDP is 38W, compared to 23W for the 9600M GT. Even the GTS 250M has a 28W TDP, which is probably too high for the MBP. You're more likely to see a GT 240M, with a 23W TDP.
 
It's hard to say what components would be in a Macbook with a new architecture, especially since Intel has put some functions that would be in external chips into the cpu. Either way, it's worth waiting IMO. Just think of someone that bought a Macbook Pro right when the C2D model was first released, they have been able to enjoy that machine all these years without worrying about having to upgrade.
 
Bill Gates said:
You're never going to see a GTS 260M in an Apple notebook. The TDP is 38W, compared to 23W for the 9600M GT. Even the GTS 250M has a 28W TDP, which is probably too high for the MBP. You're more likely to see a GT 240M, with a 23W TDP.
Click to expand...

That's true but Arrandale will be cooler than Penryns because they don't need Northbridge chip. Hard to say.. I think 17" can handle GTS 250M maybe even 260M

Belm said:
Do you think Arrandale will even be in January's Macbooks?
Click to expand...

There is no "January MacBook". Apple doesn't have keynote in MacWorld anymore. Update will likely be in Q1 (Jan-Mar)
 
Hellhammer said:
That's true but Arrandale will be cooler than Penryns because they don't need Northbridge chip. Hard to say.. I think 17" can handle GTS 250M maybe even 260M
Click to expand...

260M is a no go.

Just see what happens in MBP when you enable the 9600M.. You'll loose 2 hrs of battery.

The 9400M is 12 watt
The 9600M is 23 watt (11 more)
The 260M is 38 watt (26 more)

The 250M might happen. The 260M would make the macbook pro a 2 hrs laptop.
 
cluthz said:
260M is a no go.

Just see what happens in MBP when you enable the 9600M.. You'll loose 2 hrs of battery.

The 9400M is 12 watt
The 9600M is 23 watt (11 more)
The 260M is 38 watt (26 more)

The 250M might happen. The 260M would make the macbook pro a 2 hrs laptop.
Click to expand...

But without Northbridge chip, it has ~10W more to use, so 260M is 15W more than 9600M which is only 5W more with Arrandale (no Northbridge needed). Hard to say, 17" could handle it because of bigger battery.
 
Yes, like I said, it's hard to say right now, there is a possibility that there will be additional heat/power budget for the GPU. Engineering these systems is not as simple as adding the watts in a spreadsheet, some more thought needs to go into it. What we can say for sure is that there will be a notebook one day that will have a better GPU and CPU than we have now, and the CPU will have an integrated controller, so that part is not necessary.
 
The 13" gets hot (170-200F) with just the 9400m, just think what an extra 23W would do to the heat. YIKES!. I would not want that on anything that can be melted or have the stain ruined from heat, let alone my lap. We are talking in the neighborhood of like 220-240F with good cooling and fans on full blast. I don't think the 260M will happen for the 15" at all, maybe with the 17" if it had extra cooling. Knowing Apple, they will make it almost silent, causing overheating in a few minutes of midrange load. I just don't think the current design would be able to handle a more powerful GPU.
 
txhockey9404 said:
The 13" gets hot (170-200F) with just the 9400m, just think what an extra 23W would do to the heat. YIKES!. I would not want that on anything that can be melted or have the stain ruined from heat, let alone my lap. We are talking in the neighborhood of like 220-240F with good cooling and fans on full blast. I don't think the 260M will happen for the 15" at all, maybe with the 17" if it had extra cooling. Knowing Apple, they will make it almost silent, causing overheating in a few minutes of midrange load. I just don't think the current design would be able to handle a more powerful GPU.
Click to expand...

There is no way it gets 170-200F. Maybe 70-100F, but not 170-200F. Temps that high would melt the plastic and/or cause a fire. Plus the T-junction on your intel processor would make your book shut off, so its impossible to have 170-200F temps.

Personally, I would wait till Arrandale and the 2XXM comes out and there are some benchmarks out on them. Arrandale will make intresting because of the IGP on the CPU, but I would still opt for Nvidia graphics.
 
nullx86 said:
There is no way it gets 170-200F. Maybe 70-100F, but not 170-200F. Temps that high would melt the plastic and/or cause a fire. Plus the T-junction on your intel processor would make your book shut off, so its impossible to have 170-200F temps.
Click to expand...

... 170 deg F = 76.6 deg C
200 deg F = 93.3 deg C

The CPU can handle up to 105 deg C or 221 deg F.

Plastic has a higher melting point, at least for Polycarbonate which we use than 105 deg C. It's melting point is actually 267 deg C or 512.6 deg F

It is NOT impossible for 170-200 deg F temperatures.
 
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