Upper 15" or 17" for gaming?

[shamash]

I've been reading and talking to people about it, but I can't seem to find a consensus or any good sources/info.

I honestly do a lot of gaming on my MBP. Mostly WoW, Dragon Age, Dragon Age 2 soon, but still. I hear that the 15" with standard resolution is the best, because the lower resolution you have, the higher the FPS will be.

But, can't I just set my resolution lower on the 17" and have it be the same thing? I feel like it might be better to get the 17" just because its so huge haha, would be perfect for movies and gaming I think, plus the better sound system.

Please help figure this out

 

[ZZANG]

I've been reading and talking to people about it, but I can't seem to find a consensus or any good sources/info.

I honestly do a lot of gaming on my MBP. Mostly WoW, Dragon Age, Dragon Age 2 soon, but still. I hear that the 15" with standard resolution is the best, because the lower resolution you have, the higher the FPS will be.

But, can't I just set my resolution lower on the 17" and have it be the same thing? I feel like it might be better to get the 17" just because its so huge haha, would be perfect for movies and gaming I think, plus the better sound system.

Please help figure this out

Nobody can decide, but yourself. I mean that in the nicest way bro. 15" was perfect for me for traveling and on the go. Anytime I need a larger screen - plug in the external monitor.

 

[DoFoT9]

the 17" was always too big for me, so the 15" seems the perfect option - i think you should go that too!

 

[teflonsheep]

The 17" is only 1 lb heavier, 1 inch wider than the 15" and for that you get a larger screen with a higher resolution for $250.

That was my reasoning for getting a 17". Had the 15" been more like $500 cheaper, i would have stuck with it i think.

 

[Adidas Addict]

17 it's the daddy

 

[mulo]

the 17" has always been the way to go for me, you can always just lower the resolution, and its awesome for watching movies

 

[Derango]

Yeah, you can always lower the resolution on the 17" and it'll perform the same, but....it will also affect image quality. Running at a non native resolution will always result in a blurrier image on a LCD. If you can deal with that...go for it. If not, get a lower resolution.

 

[Tconroy135]

Here is the thing, the 15" high end has the same internals as the 17", so the only upgrade is the screen size and resolution.

The extra resolution though on such a small screen is not going to increase quality that much. And because the resolution is lower on the 15" the GPU is gonna be able to pop out more FPS for you.

 

[neal.young]

You're right that you could just decrease the resolution on the 17'', and get better performance, but it wouldn't look nearly as good because the resolution wouldn't match the native resolution of the LCD. If I were you, I would get a maxed-out 15'' with the high-res matte display. You'd get better performance than the 17'', due to the lower resolution screen on the same hardware, and more portability for a lower price.

 

[HBOC]

NBA 2K11 plays perfectly on my MBP. My early 08' couldn't render it, but I used VMWare, which probably isn't a fair comparison.

 

[C01E]

I got the 15" because I find that 17" notebooks take up too much space for that tiny extra amount of screen size. (plus, No tenkey on macbook pros, so why bother...)