Help me pick out a macbook pro...

I'm caught in a slight dilemma. I'm looking to upgrade my 13" Core2DUO Macbook Pro(with a Momentus XT, which I will be switching into my new Macbook Pro once I buy it.)

I can't decide between three things:

1: Buy this refurbished 2010 15" i7 macbook pro with a Nvidia 330M- Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 - Apple Store (U.S.)

2: Buy a new 2011 13" i7 Sandy Bridge macbook pro with the Intel 3000 HD graphics and pray they fix tweak the drivers to work better than the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M I have now.

3: Wait until the 2011 15" i7 SandyBridge to drop down in price and who knows when that will be.

Here's what I'm working with:

Money= I have $1500 to spend. This already includes me selling my current rig which someone is buying for $800 once I buy my new one.

Usage= Mostly web surfing, but I want to do some gaming, possibly WoW and hopefully Guild Wars 2 when it comes out.

Size= Don't want bigger than a 15" I would rather have a 13" if possible though. The smaller, the better but don't want an Macbook Air. I can handle a 15" if it can do some decent gaming.


Also I'm not against buying a used/refurbished rig, if its in good cosmetic shape so if you know of anyone who would part with a 2011 macbook pro without a hard drive(like I said, I have the Momentus XT I can toss in it) for sale, I might be interested in buying something along those lines.

So what do you guys think? Thanks ahead of time for your input!!!

 

I don't think you will notice any performance difference between your current MBP and the 2011 MBP 13" for gaming and web surfing.

Is there any other particular reason or benefit you see with the 2011 MBP?

 

with gaming in mind ur only choice is upper 15 model.
Unless u are fine with playing everything on "low", but then you hardly need to upgrade.

 

For any sort of gaming, I think you should be looking at the 6750 option only.

 

You're not going to get any gaming done on the 13 inch, only the 15. Unless you want to play on the lowest settings.

 

You can also play older games on a 2011 13" MBP without issues. I can run Bioshock at the native resolution with all of the settings on high without issues. Even Modern Warfare runs at some decent settings (medium to high depending on what it is) without any hiccup. So gaming is possible on a 13" MBP and its Intel HD 3000 graphics are in fact better than the Nvidia 9400M options out there. There are other games that take advantage of Nvidia's architecture (just as there are games that work better on AMD graphics) but that is par for the course when it comes to PC gaming.

That being said, I still wouldn't purchase a 13" MBP for gaming. It is nice being able to fire up a game here and there but, much like running Windows on my MBP, it is not something that I would want to do all the time and there are better models for doing that. Lastly, if you were heavily involved in gaming, you wouldn't be going with Apple hardware as there are more powerful solutions running Windows (which is a much better platform for PC gaming) that come in at a lower price.

 

What is the real difference between a Core 2 duo and i7? I have the former one which also is 2.66 GB on 4 year old MBP.

 

Well, I echo the sentiments above about getting the 6750 model, but unfortunately Apple is not known for lowering the prices of its laptops until the next gen comes around, so you'll be in for a long wait. I'm not familiar with the refurb market though--possibly you might be able to get one sooner than that there.

At this point, I'd say get the cheapest 13 mbp or an air that you can find. Then use what money is left over to get a cheap desktop for gaming. WoW is not particularly demanding, and a dedicated desktop for that game should be cheap. GW2 isn't out yet though, so who knows there.

If you're okay with a 15", the 330m will play WoW just fine. Maybe not at ultra high settings, but certainly at medium or high.