New Macbook Pro Graphics

Now that the new Macbook Pro is out, they have come with new graphics solutions, the NVIDIA 8600GT, in every system! I was wondering, however, will this be able to play current games, including Oblivion and Rainbow 6 Vegas, at reasobly high settings? I was looking at getting the lowest end version, so would the 128MB version of the 8600 run these games and others? Thanks in advance.

 

yeah. it should run them just fine.

i dont know how much 128 megs or ram will cripple the 8600gt, but i think you will find that you can attain good to excellent performance with those games at reasonable settings

 

I just want to be able to run Oblivion, and hopefully Rainbow, at graphical settings which look like their Xbox 360 counterparts.

 

I wonder what the battery life for the new macbook pro would be now.....

 

i dont think the 8600m gt is quite as fast as the custom ati gpu in the xbox 360 (i think that despite having a different architecture, its probably close to a desktop x1800 / 7800 gpu)

the 8600m gt is probably closer to a desktop 7600 series gpu in terms of raw performance? maybe somewhat faster?

8600m gt does have a broader feature set - directx 10 support, so the gap might close between what an xbox 360 can do and what your 8600m gt can do as new games come to market.

im sure it can handle rainbow 6, especially.

oblivion is even more of a system hog.

both might require a little bit of tweaking to get just right, but they will both play well and similarly to an xbox360 in my opinion.

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I think the battery life is 6 HOURS? isnt that what the webpage said? real battery life is probably somewhat less, but still. wow.

 

Now the question is if getting the MBP with 256MB for the video card actually worth $500 more...

 

You also get a faster processor (2.4 GHz) and larger hard drive (160GB)!
So I'd say, yes, it is worth the extra money.

 

Thing is, I can get the new Macbook Pro for around 1700 with student discount. Yet, I don't want to spend the money if I don't see good performance with games. Mmmm, does anyone know if this beast will run Halo 2? All these awesome games are being released, and I hope the 8600GT can handle them quite nicely. To me, I don't think Halo 2 would be much of a problem. And I agree, Oblivion is quite the hog, yet if my friend can run it quite nicely on his Dell with an NVIDIA 7300 LE 512mb, I would think the 8600 would have a fair chance.

 

Pretty sure it can handle Halo 2. Ofcourse you need bootcamp and Vista to run it. I dont think the 128Mb will have a huge effect. Unless they did something else like downclock the core and memory it should performe similar to other GTs. You will feel the lack of memory mostly at high resolutions.

 

I would probably run everything at 1024 by 768. With this resolution, can I run games with all the graphics options mostly high? I mean, if this card doesn't really perform that well, then I will just stick to getting a Black Macbook.

 

For any type of intense gaming ie rainbow 6 vegas its better if you have 256 mb video ram.

On my Toshiba Satellite A100, it has the 256 mb go 7600 video card and it ran rainbow 6 vegas just fine on medium settings, very playable, and i beat the game with no problems. The 8600 in the MBP with 256 mb ram will definitely run todays games with respectable performance.

 

My student discount says its $1799...how do you get yours for less??

 

Apple laptops were on my "no" list because of the lack of a good graphic card. But now they have the 8600 GT... back on my list! I'm really considering getting a MBP now.

 

Apparently selecting the glossy screen lowers the price.

 

The 8600gt in the asus g1 makes over 3600 3dm06 and it's capable of running a lot of games including the newest at good settings. check here
But remember that apple could have lowered the clock a little like it did with the x1600

 

Yes, selecting the glossy screen drops it to $1664, plus you get the free iPod nano.

This price doesn't show up once you add it to cart though....only the standard $1799.

 

I'm thinking of getting some pretty intensive games, like Oblivion, Rainbow, and possibly STALKER. Maybe I should go with a desktop instead. I really haven't decided anything yet.

 

Hmmm does graphics card take memory from the main RAM when it needs it?

Sony's 8400M GT does that I think, and I hope that makes up for the 128MB I'm looking at.