2011 MBP 13" questions

#1 I think I can accept the less than stellar performance of the HD 3000, but...

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What about that? Is that true?

#2 Does it suffer from the Core i whine problem? (I know I know, it's not actually the CPU itself.)

#3 How long do you guess until it's available refurbished?

 

I have a machine with a 320m, and one with a HD 3000 / 6750 combo. There is no difference in picture quality. The person saying there is might have a screen quality problem... I do not know. In fact, the screen looks great, and on my 17" i can switch back and forth between the HD3000 and the Radeon 6750 and the picture quality never changes, at all.. in anything... only the sheer performance changes.

I've never had any whine problem, or heard of any in the Sandy Bridge MBPs

sometimes they have refurbs up quick, depending on how many problems theres been and how fast things have been selling... sometimes it takes awhile. if you see a bunch of refurbs up fast, thats actually a bad sign about the models some of the time. There may be some up in the next couple of months though, but it depends, as they may just hold them back to try to clear out more older inventory first.

 

I find the newer mac pros screen to be darker then the 2010. its not bad. just different. never heard anything about any cpu whine in the sb models

 

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Yay or nay?

 

I say nay. I have my 2011 13" MBP hooked up to my 1080p HDTV at home all the time and it has absolutely no issues with 1080p videos (h.264 in mp4 and mkv containers, VC-1, divx/xvid, mpeg-2, and Flash h.264). I even stress it more at work where my desktop monitor is used as an extension. There, my external monitor has a mini displayport input and my MBP outputs video at around 2560X1600 (I forget what the resolution is, I know it is either near or at the maximum output that the MBP line supports). Again, my 1280X800 built-in monitor is still on and I have that external display.

I have had absolutely no issues playing back 1080p videos when I watch them on the MBP's display, when I pump them to the high resolution monitor, or when I mirror them and have the video playback on both. Video playback is something even the Intel GMA 4500 HD (something introduced more than a year ago) had no problems with. In fact, video decoding isn't even handles by the graphics processor itself and is instead passed off to dedicated hardware (which could be part of the same die or even embedded in the GPU).

In all honesty, I haven't come across anything the HD 3000 IGP on my 13" MBP hasn't been capable of handling whether I am under Windows or OS X. I can play the first Bioshock at 1280X800 with high details all at about 35-40 fps, video playback (whether I am in QuickTime, iTunes, or VLC) works just fine even when using high resolution monitors, and both OS's work nicely with Intel's solution.

People have been complaining about Apple's choice to use only Intel integrated graphics with the 13" MBP and it is a downgrade from the 320m for some things (there are programs/games that take advantage of Nvidia's architecture just as there are programs/games that take advantage of AMD/ATI's architecture) but, all-in-all, it performs a tad better than the 320m when gaming is taking out of the picture. It even supports hardware acceleration for video decoding and video encoding meaning, with the right program, you could take a 90 minute video, encode it to a different format, and the process would take only a few minutes (instead of relying on the CPU and thus taking 30-40 minutes).

The increase in processor performance when moving to the Sandy Bridge platform makes the 13" MBP and all around better performer than last year's model. The Core i5 processor in the 13" MBP also performs better (albeit slightly) than the dual-core Core i7 featured in last year's $2500 MBP. That is how much of an improvement the Sandy Bridge platform is brining. To me, it seems like people are getting all worried about nothing. I too would have been upset had Apple gone with Intel's previous graphical options but the HD 3000 marks a dramatic improvement from Intel. It is about on par with low end models from both AMD and Nvidia and the only people who need to worry about its performance are gamers (and they likely wouldn't be buying a Mac anyway). Aside from that, you wouldn't even be able to tell the 13" MBP was using only Intel integrated graphics.

 

I read somewhere that the HD 3000 was not running any non-Apple OpenGL apps. Is that true? If so, do you expect that will be fixed soon?

(It really doesn't sound right to me. I mean, I see videos of people playing games in OS X on it...)

 

what do you mean by running non-Apple OpenGL apps? I've played several Windows games using Wineskin with the HD 3000 for testing, and they run fine.

 

I think I mean 3D apps that aren't from Apple. Like I said, it doesn't really sound right. I've seen COD 4, that racing game in the Mac App Store, Left 4 Dead 2, Killing Floor, etc, running.

I can imagine some compatibility issues seeing that it's Intel, though. Hopefully all that stuff gets improved this year.

 

MBP's are warmer in general simply because they are metal housed notebooks. The cooling fans do kick on when I play Bioshock but they would also kick on with a 15" or 17" MBP. I could even play the game on a Dell XPS 17 and it would warm up a bit while the fans kick on. To me, the HD3000 has performed just like any other lower mid-end graphics card.