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New MacBook Pro vs Old
Magiknight
Member CommonPosts: 782
in Hardware
I'm thinking about getting a new macbook pro. It wont be this week or next week, just something I'm looking into. But I'm not sure if the gaming performance of the new macbooks would better than mine.
I have a early 2011 macbook pro. 2.2GHz i7, 16GB 1333MHz RAM, Radeon 6750M 1GB video card.
The newer macbook I am looking at has a 2.0GHz i7 with turbo boost to 3.2GHz, 8GB of 1600MHz RAM, and Intel Iris Pro video card.
My main concern is the video card. Would my Radeon 6750M outperform a Intel Iris? The most demanding games I play are mostly the dolphin emulator. But I would like to be able to play EQN when it comes out too.
Comments
Why a Mac? Is there something it does that you absolutely must have? Or are you just buying it because you're an Apple addict and can't take a risk on a PC being just as good for less money?
Also, why a laptop? A desktop gets significantly better performance for the money spent. If you don't move your computer around a LOT, a desktop makes more sense to own. Even if you travel occasionally, it might make sense to buy an inexpensive laptop in addition to a desktop.
It's not clear whether that would be an upgrade or a downgrade on either the CPU side or the GPU side. My guess is that under heavy gaming loads, it would be a downgrade on both. It will, however, use considerably less power because the TDP of the CPU has to cover both the CPU and the GPU rather than having a discrete card.
I'm not really sure why you're looking to upgrade. If it's for the higher resolution monitor, then sure. It will also offer reduced idle power consumption which likely translates into a longer battery life at idle. But beyond that, it's probably not much of an upgrade.
If it's for gaming, then a Mac is probably a bad idea. As you're well aware, most games won't run on Mac OS X. You can get most to run fine on Windows by using Boot Camp. But with the new laptop, Boot Camp will leave you relying on Intel's notoriously bad video drivers to get games to run. Apple writes their own video drivers for Mac OS X, so that's not a problem for games running purely on Mac OS X, though.
Are you absolutely sure you want a macbook?
As someone who uses a current macbook pro, I will admit they are good computers, but I would not recommend one if you're primary purpose is to use it for gaming. They are not built to be gaming laptops, and are much better suited for design / low-end creative projects.
While macbooks are really powerful machines, they tend to run very hot, and the cooling system for the isn't the most optimized. They can run a lot of games, but most games don't tend to run as well as they could on other machines. There's some things you can do to improve the heat situation, but it involves essentially voiding the warranty on your computer (which you probably don't want to do).
I would say though that currently, your current computer looks like it would be slightly better for gaming. That said I can't say whether or not it would be able to handle EQN well enough, because last I checked sony isn't sure just what the hardware specs are going to be. They've got a ballpark they're aiming to match, but that's about it afaik.
Yes, a 6750M will perform better than an Intel HD 5200 (that is the actual intel in the MacBook pro 15).
I suppose the real question you should be asking, is why? What is it that your needing (wanting?) the new MacBook for exactly? Is it the WQHD screen? The battery life? The SSD? Do you actually want it for gaming?
There is a MacBook pro 15 with a discreet NVidia 750M. If you absolutely want the new MacBook pro, and want it for gaming, that's really the only one to go to.
But, from what you have to the new one, not a big upgrade. The processor is a teency bit faster, but nothing big. If you have a SSD in your current, then that will be the same speed as the new. GPU is only faster if you go with the discreet. You'd get better battery life... but is the price tag worth that?
And honestly, if your trying to get a gaming laptop, there are many PC laptops that are perfectly suited to that, that will be less expensive and better for gaming.
I love my Macbook. I had a 2008-09 15" Pro, I recently upgraded to a late 2013 Pro Retina.
The battery life alone was reason to upgrade. With the Haswell CPU, at work I usually don't even plug it in - so long as I'm just using Office or email or other light tasks the laptop will go all day and then some.
The laptop will play some games (I tinker around with Factorio on it), but that isn't it's primary purpose. You load up a game, and it will suck down the battery life for sure - from all day to a couple of hours at best.
Under normal load the machine is silent and absolutely cool. The PCIe SSD is very nice (I had an SSD in my other MBP, but it was SATA1). The retina display is nice. It was pricey, but considering how much I use it and what I use it for, the extra cost is something I'm more than willing to absorb.
So, will it be faster? For everyday stuff - yes. Battery life will definitely be a lot better. Retina display is a nice upgrade. They did remove the internal DVD-RW, so the new models are a lot thinner and lighter. The newer models run a lot cooler (the fan on mine really only turns on if I load up a game and it's charging the battery at the same time).
There are a lot of benefits. EQN specifically though, I wouldn't get a MBP for. SOE has never supported OS X natively (there was an EQ1 OS X client, but it was third party and not well supported). While it would likely run via Bootcamp, a cheaper PC-laptop would do it much better for a lot less money, and wouldn't require you to dual-boot to do it.
Your upgrade is vastly larger than what the original poster is looking at. Going from a Core 2 Duo (which is what I'm guessing you had) to a Haswell quad core is a huge upgrade. Going from a Sandy Bridge quad core to a Haswell quad core is a small upgrade.
On battery life, Sandy Bridge already has power gating to bring the CPU down to a couple of watts or so at idle. Core 2 didn't, so it was running a lot more power at idle. Yes, Haswell is better than Sandy Bridge at reducing idle power consumption, but Sandy Bridge already had most of the gains that were there to be had as compared to the Core 2 generation.
A 2008 laptop didn't have a good SSD. To their credit, Apple has been pushing SSDs earlier and more aggressively than just about any other laptop vendor, so there's a good chance that the original poster already has a good SSD. If he doesn't, then there's a good reason to upgrade--and going from a hard drive to an SSD also makes a big difference on battery life.
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Just about any modern laptop will be cool and quiet at idle, so that doesn't really distinguish a MacBook Pro from anything else. The heat and noise question is what happens when you push it hard.
The Intel Iris Pro will perform in the ballpark of the HD 6750M. They said it was about 90% faster than the HD4000 which is not very fast in the first place. The Intel Iris Pro will perform worse than the GTS750M in almost all scenarios because the GTS750M scales better to higher resolutions.
Both GPU choices are a bad choice for the Retina Display if you anticipate gaming. Neither really has the graphics power to display 3K resolution for most modern games.
If your main concern is the display, then MSI uses a similar display in its 15" GT and some GS series of notebooks with ample graphics power to play games on the display at a lower price.
If you want to play games on a laptop, Apple makes a poor choice. Most games will have to be played through boot camp, and Apple usually takes a while to accept more modern OpenGL standards. Games played through boot camp tend to play slower than if you were using a PC in the first place.
I do move around quite a bit. The last time I moved I had all of my stuff packed in a very small area and there's no way I could have fit a desktop.
I like OSX. I hate windows. Based on experiences. OSX hardly ever crashes and I've never had a virus.
A lot of people are asking "Why a macbook?" I don't play a whole lots of games. I try out the occasional mmo in bootcamp and play a few emulators in osx. When I'm not gaming I find osx to be a better operating system for me.
Also, the reason I am upgrading is because my laptop was making some strange noises. Someone mentioned how hot macs can get and they are absolutely right. I found out that it was my fan making the noise. The noise stopped after I opened up my laptop and clean the fan. It just got me worried and thinking about upgrading. Also, the Radeon 6750M has some trouble running max settings with some games I play.
To everyone who responded, thank you.
I think I'll just wait until my macbook dies to get a new one
I have used Windows 7 on my gaming computer and can't remember the last time the computer froze. Also, I've never had a virus on it and I don't bother to turn my virus scanner on. About 99.9% of viruses are acquired through user error. Failing to update something, using Internet Explorer, or not blocking ads is the easiest way to get a virus.
Just because it works well for you doesn't mean it is truly better.
You might want to try Linux. There are even fewer viruses for it and the OS is very stable. The only problem is it won't run many games until SteamOS pushes Linux on the PC gaming world.
If you like OSX over Windows then stick with it, as long as you are willing to pay the extra cost of purchasing a Mac over a PC. (Yes, Macs cost more)
If you're going to base if off of malware infections then you're going to be disappointed. I worked for a remote computer support contractor and we saw an equal representation of PC and Mac virus calls relative to total PC/Mac accounts. This meant that even though we had ~30% of total support accounts being Mac, we had ~30% of malware calls coming from Mac clients and Mac malware cases are on the rise.
What you should take away from this is that just because it's a Mac doesn't mean it's magically more protected against malware. Don't make your decision based on this misinformation typically spread around by people who don't know better.
I personally have had maybe one infection on my PC in the last decade and it was on Vista. I had WebRoot on my Windows 7 machine and never had a problem. I'm currently using Windows 8 and have no 3rd party anti-virus/firewall programs. I do run scans once every couple of months with various malware products such as SAS, MBytes and NPE and find nothing.
Typically those users who don't pay any attention to what they are clicking on are the ones that have problems, those who have even the most rudimentary levels of common sense can prevent the majority of problems. Protecting your system is 90% user.
Stability of Windows has greatly increased, starting with Windows XP. Vista was horrid but Win7 was very stable. Windows 8, after the growing pains, is incredibly stable and I have yet, in 3 years, to have any fatal crash. Running support for WinXP/Vista/Win7 I found the majority of the *major* problems was with XP and Vista, Windows 7 was much easier to work with and removal of infections was fairly easy.