mbp upgrade is kind of a downgrade...

also hugely dependent on which settings you put on low and which ones you put on mid, and which OS you are running, and I like to keep the game at 60 fps.

also, the 550m is actually not that much faster than the 540m. It's just slightly higher clocked. That picture explanation doesn't really look right at all.

 

Hmm upon 2nd look, I'll concede the difference between 550 and 540 being not that large. Provided everyone is using GDDR5 and no one is using anything lesser.

However, I retain the fact that the 6750 in the macbook pro is likely closer to the 540 especially given the likely underclock. If we use current benchmarked cards, the 6750 is likely similar to the 5650 or Nvidia GT 435m +15-20% and will do slightly better with resolutions above 720p due to more memory bandwidth with GDDR5.

 

I think notebookcheck got the order wrong as its put gt550m higher than gt445m purely due to the number where the 540/550 are just increases in 435 clocks.

Taking this into account and the fact all gt540m so far have come out in ddr3 not gddr5 I think that it should perform above either NVIDIA card at stock clocks (>720p) and between them or slightly higher with an Apple undertook.

Hopefully be able to test this out soon, will get a Windows partition and test out benchmarks and games (TF2, crisis, SC2, DA:O)

 

The 6750M has 20% more shaders and twice the memory bandwidth of the 5650, so the difference is more than likely greater than 20%.

 

I don't really see the new updates as being overall downgrades. Sure, the $1800 15" MacBook Pro may have a less capable graphics option compared to the previous model but it also packs a quad-core Core i7 chip that is better than previous iterations while providing much better integrated graphics for everyday operation.

I also don't see the 13" MacBook Pro as being a downgrade even with nothing but Intel graphics. Again, you are getting much more capable CPUs. Besides, the early benchmarks for the Intel HD 3000 series aren't that bad. I think most Apple consumers have already gotten used to the fact that, under Mac OS X, gaming support is rather minimal. That is why you buy an Apple computer after all: run Mac OS X.

 

the 2nd i5 is much faster than core 2 duo
who really care about the GPU......

 

It's about more than just gaming. OSX uses GPU acceleration, with Intel IGPs are incapable of.

See above. Also, I doubt that you anything that actually uses the CPU enough for you to notice any difference at all.

 

People put way too much importance on memory bandwidth. The memory bandwidth is about giving the GPU enough potential bandwidth to handle its needs.

Just because you have a 4-lane highway does not guarantee that it passes more traffic than a 2-lane. It depends on the traffic itself... the 4-lane has higher potential, but this does not guarantee more traffic.

Its all about bottlenecks.

At higher resolutions, the 5650 choked itself, but then again it doesn't really have the guts to pull off the higher resolutions well anyway. At lower resolutions, the GDDR5 won't help quite as much as the DDR3 was handling it just fine.

Adding 20% more shaders is pretty much why I said 20% more performance. I figure the additional memory bandwidth will be enough to handle the 20% more guts, but once again it will peter out not too far above 720p anyways. (the bottleneck becomes the guts of the card instead of the memory)

I am figuring that Apple will underclock the 6750 and thus it might have 20% more shaders but be clocked lower than some of the 5650s out there. (note some 5650s are already clocked faster than the stock-clocked 6750 is spec'd at.)

 

The 5650 actually is bottlenecked by it's low memory bandwidth. Besides that, the resolution of any MBP 15 is going to be at least 1440x900, so it faces a memory bottleneck on both ends of the spectrum.

 

I am not biggest Apple fan (only Apple product I own is 3GS iPhone, been buying Dell and HP laptops forever), but some of the commentary is silly.

a. The Sager model being sighted does not have greatest build quality, has 2-3 hour battery life, and has a worse video-card (GT 540M). Speculation that 6750 on the higher priced model is underclocked is just that, speculation. Maybe you could overclock it, you never know (well, in BootCamp)!
b. Mobility offered by the new higher-priced model is very good as compared to most of the competition (Sony not-withstanding perhaps, but Sony is not cheap). Find a comparable 15" laptop similar in size/footprint/weight/cpu/gpu/battery. It does not exist.
c. Build quality is also good and so is the style (for those people to whom it matters, YMMV).
d. OSX is a wash for the purpose of the hardware discussion really. Heck, I'd take Win 7 over OSX.

Good somewhat comparable comparison would be either HP/Dell/Lenovo business models and you will see the cost being at least somewhat comparable. Check out Dell Latitude 6000 series, HP Elitebooks mentioned in this thread or the W version of the Thinkpads. $2,000.00 -$2,500.00 (in US) is where you will see the cost come in. Whether or not cost is justified is another matter.

You cannot be seriously comparing with a straight face MBP to Sagers (at least the cheaper model, the other one is quite nice but over 2 lbs heavier). Overall, I think the upgrade is ok, too bad about Intel only graphics in MBP 13, but other features are fairly good (screen sucks, but it sucks on vast majority of 13" laptops other then Sony Z or discontinued 14" Envy screen). The more expensive MBP is a nice laptop for the price if you are looking at other premium systems.

Otherwise, if you are looking for a gaming fix and want to get decent laptop just get new XPS 15 and call it a day, or get the more expensive Sager with 9 cell battery. Heck, get Alienware M15x.

Personally, I will pass this time. I was thinking about getting smaller MBP for my wife, but instead I will wait for Z refresh, figure similar pricing (to the 15" higher grade MBP) will get me a lot more mobile model with SSD already built-in as compared to anything in the Apple line. Of course Sony also has their own issues.

 

Just saw the high end 15" review and had 3dmark06 >10k which I'm fairly impressed by. 3dmark11 was around 1400 so this looks like 10-20% jump over normal gt540m's. Wonder if a bigger gap appears at higher resolution due to use of GDDR5

Review was on laptopmag.com

 

A reminder that 3dmark (especially 06) is pointless without a resolution it was run at and the specific CPU clocks.

Assuming i7 2.4 quad and the 1400x900, 10k is not impressive... in fact the 2.5-yr-old 9800mGS is superior by a decent margin and that's not even including the bias for the much more potent CPU.

I had assumed the 6750 would be superior or roughly equal to the 9800mGS...
This is bad news indeed, and gives weight to the concept of "underclocked".

 

My applications and online games like fast CPU

C2D can't handle SC2 4V4

 

The 6750M hit ~4400 on Vantage GPU.

Macbook Pro 15inch 2011 ATI 6750m Game Benchmarks - MacRumors Forums

That is not too shabby at all.

Faster than the 9800M GTX, and on par with the 260M (which is basically an overclocked 9800M GTX).

Besides going with the IGP on the 13" (ack! Fail) and low end 15", the other models are very solid and viable upgrades within Apple's own product line which is what they were aiming for. I said the same about the Arrandale refresh (9600M -> 330M), and the same holds true here too. Nice, solid upgrades, and if anyone is shocked by the pricing, clearly they haven't been following Apple laptops for some time now...

The projected heat on the other hand.....

 

Laptopmag.com 2010 Macbook Pro 15. 35 watt quad.

Laptopmag.com 2011 Macbook Pro 15. 45 watt quad.

 

I don't know if someone has brought this up but...

The battery life estimation on the new MBP 13' is MORE ACCURATE considering I get only about 7-8 hours from a full charge with my 8 month old MBP 13' doing just web browsing(with flash)/word processing/email.

But this year's update is a huge disappointment. I had a feeling Apple was going to drop the dedicated graphics card on the 13' line...but they really should have upgraded the battery. My biggest incentive for buying the 13' was for the battery life (and my love for OSX!) So, my candid advice for all interested in the MBP is to skip this year's update. Lightpeak will only get better, Sandy Bridge will get replaced next year, and SSD may be standard all across the board (still dreaming)

 

well said.

 

Keep in mind that Apple added an $1800 model recently, there was never a model that differed from the other 15" configurations in order to be more more affordable. I think they are still experimenting with how to separate features across the different MacBook Pro configurations.

 

Umm... That would mean that Mac OS X would not be able to run on the 13" MacBook Pro at all. The Intel HD 3000 series supports proper acceleration for running Mac OS X (along with Windows 7), HD mpeg-4 AVC (along with VC-1 and mpeg-2) videos, and is a quite capable integrated card.

Apple would certainly have not gone with a graphics option if it could not run the affects inside of Mac OS X. I am not denying that it is a step down from the previous Nvidia offering. I am simply saying that too many people are blowing it way out of proportion especially considering the CPU advantages that both the dual-core Core i5 and dual-core Core i7 processors have in the 13" model compared to the previous Core 2 Duo chips.

Apple is also not the only company doing this. HP had a 15" aluminum Sandy Bridge model when it first came out. When configured to match the specs of the $1500 13" MacBook Pro, its price came out to around $1000 and that as with the Intel HD 3000 graphics. So, with Apple's typical higher pricing factored in, this shouldn't be a surprise and it definitely isn't worth all the fuss from so many people as Intel's option is quite capable and can provide the same performance of lower end integrated options from both Nvidia and AMD.

 

Hit or miss from reviews I read.

Maybe the MBP 13' i7

After that moaning I did I ordered it off Amazon and had 100 bucks credit and no tax is always sweet. Looking at the benchmarks I was very impressed, VERY impressed. GPU is quite good enough for me, it just came down to I feel Apple has the best lappies currently IMO of course. I have issues with a lot of stuff they do but oh well they got me by the balls.

Its a loose grip though. Looking forward to firing her up tomorrow. Got good cash on my 13' 2010 as well.

I checked over their specs again on their refresh and to be honest they really didn't mess around with processor speed, and the GPU's are actually decent IMO on the 15 and 17.

EDIT: I actually like the screen at 1280x800, 1400x 900 would be nice of course but thats not a deal breaker. They have quality screens on those. No dreamcolor of course but very good.

 

I hate homework man, avoided it at all costs I am pretty sure there was a scenario like that in 1995-1996 or something. I am only 80% sure. MS did help them quite a lot, and I obviously know it was anti trust issues.

I'll keep the nonsense to a minimum sir.

 

First of all, that HP had a quad-core, a bigger screen, and a better base config, plus you could upgrade to a dedicated card for only $100. A dual-core version is probably coming out next week, and it's base price will be $750. And I didn't even mention price in the first place...

Second, what I meant is that the HDG3000 won't render the effects quite as well and will probably fall back on the CPU quite a bit. That's just my assumption, though. Also, I don't think it supports OpenCL at all.

 

Actually, both the CPU and GPU performance has improved across the board for MBP 2011 > 2010

See this article for details ... MacBook Pro early 2011 benchmarks confirm huge performance leap – SlashGear

 

Anyone tried Metro 2033 or Mafia II on this thing under win7?
Judging by spec it should run at least on medium and mb with some stuff on high.

Also any idea how does 6750 measure vs 5850 and 5870 (looking at msi GX640-660 there and they run metro 2033 just fin).

 

they only benched the CPU... that's been the whole point of this thread, that GPU power was cut from every model up to the $1800 15"

 

No, you didn't mention price. I was simply showing that other companies were following the same path in using Intel integrated graphics with their higher priced models. Additionally, the HD 3000 has been shown to be on par with low end integrated options from Nvidia and ATI anyway (of course, performance will dip on the low end Core i3 and Core i5 processors) so it really eliminates the need for having those options especially since most people (both private, government, and business) were fine with Intel's GMA 4500MHD option and the HD 3000 (even on the lower end processors) runs circles around that.

 

what the hell? on an german site they say that apple throttle the i7 in the 13"mpb for reduce temperatur and no turboboost 2.0! under overload the cpu reaches 100°C!

News - Apple Macbook Pro 13,3'' (Early 2011) - 13-Zoll Macbook Pro ohne Intel Turbo Boost auf notebookjournal.de

 

Apple really needs to get their priorities straight.

 

MacBook Pro (2010) vs MacBook Pro (2011) | Techy Alert

Actually, it turns out that in actual games the HD 3000 is faster than the 320M in OS X. Now it can be pointed out that the 320M is faster in Windows, but OS X is of course the OS that Apple cares about and Apple appears to be investing development in optimizing Intel IGP drivers, perhaps at the expense of effort on nVidia drivers, which makes sense seeing that nVidia GPUs seem to be on their way out for this generation, whereas whether as a primary GPU or not Intel IGPs are here to stay.

Yes, in a theoretical ideal situation where each party has fully optimized drivers and equal CPU power, the 320M would be faster, but to the end user picking up the 2011 13.3" MacBook Pro to run it's intended OS, Mac OS X, it will actually be comparable or faster than the previous 2010 13.3" MacBook Pro, even in graphics, which makes the overall system more attractive considering the large jump in CPU performance. Could it have been better, yes, but is it a step backwards, apparently not much of one as previously feared.

 

You were correct. You don't have to apologize.

 

You guys are acting like the 320m is a godlike gpu it isnt...the intel 3000 isnt bad just dont buy this device or a Mac for the most part if you want hard core gaming

 

However the 1GB ATI 6750M available in the 15" and 17" MacBook Pro has performance similar to a NVIDIA 260M, so it can be considered more of a gaming system than ever with a high-end GPU rather than a mid-range GPU like we are used to seeing Apple use.

 

the 6750M *is* a midrange GPU.

don't fool yourself. it's just in the upper parts of the midrange.

 

Still pretty decent for a Macbook Pro. If I didn't love my G73 so much I think I would have to get a new MBP.

 

Considering how PC gaming tech has slowed (in terms of demand), it's certainly not like the GPU is a hinderance go gaming enjoyment...so I agree. It's no slouch when it comes to playing today's games and should run reasonably well for the foreseeable future. that's really all that matters in the end.

 

Eh its habit. LOL

I also noticed a lot of people around other forums (people here seem more knowledgeable) that the 320m was like a 5870 or something. In all honesty it does some things better than the HD3000 but they are pretty much the same. Also Macbooks arent those type of computers so I dont get why some think its going to get 60+ FPS on high settings for demanding games all of a sudden.

That is for things like the G73 in your sig that handles pretty much everything with that beastly GPU.

 

A 320m will never even remotely be as good as a 5870. Not even if you could overclock it to the point it melts through the aluminum case.
I don't think anyone here could delude themselves to the point to where they think a G73 and a MBP could go toe-to-toe in gaming.

 

I was using kind of a stretch analogy there I hope no one thinks that. Actually Kaelang, I heard a lot about re pasting on the G73. Is that only for overclocking? Seems kind of odd if you would have to do that after a year just doing normal gaming.

I don't think the G73 even gets that hot in the first place.

 

Compared to most laptops, it really does stay cool, and it is super quiet.

Unfortunately, many people get their G73's with poor TIM jobs (something that plagues the PC industry, even Apple) and either repaste themselves or send it to Asus to get it done.
Lots of people here just do it because they have the ability and are enthusiasts. I had mine repasted just because I felt my temps could be better, but they didn't really change.

Internally the G73 can withstand 110c before thermal shutdown, but most units don't come to that. Externally, the G73 stays very comfortable.

 

Makes sense. Thanks for the info.

It would be nice if the factories did a better job of pasting, must be in a rush I guess.

 

Agreed. Lots of Asus G73 owners re-paste the CPU because they are enthusiasts and want optimum performance

 

The problem is that PC companies have automated a process that really should be done carefully. TIM is a real pain, considering that you have to use just the right amount of thermal compound and just the right amount of pressure to equally spread the paste on the die. That, and I get the feeling that some companies use really crummy thermal paste.

 

Its kinda frustrating though that there is no mobile GPU can handle Metro 2033 on ultra. Even in sli mode.
6750 can handle med settings, 3-4 mobile gpus can handle high and thats about it.

 

Metro 2033 is pretty much the most demanding game out there now. And it's not even that great, for that matter. Buy your laptop based on the games you want to play. If you really want to play Metro 2033 in Ultra - you should probably buy a desktop gaming box or build one.

 

Like yourself I was making sure it wasnt something that was like a defect, I guess some research could have told me that. I got lazy.

I did one paste job when I custom built, I think I did pretty good. Took my time and spread a nice thin layer carefully with the applicator. Only took about 1 minute, not sure if I did it wrong. It was a 3.0 dual core wolfdale processor. It's idle I think was about 45-50c, load was 75c if I recall. Probably could have had it a little lower.

Hopefully PC companies pay better attention to that, it does really make a difference. I agree as well the paste they use is more than likely butt.

 

I can only imagine Apple's next CTO:

• "New improved Arctic Silver thermal paste option - +$200"
• "Efficient application of new improved Arctic silver thermal paste option - +450"

 

LOL
I'm sure Best Buy's Geek Squad is adding a line item to their pre-delivery services, called "Mac thermal optimization".

 

I have little experience with vantage as quite frankly it never impressed me.
(06 always produced a more comparable score as long as you isolated the resolution and CPU used)

Any know if 3dmark vantage is resolution-based as 06?

If so, the benchmark in question is 1400x900 and you are comparing with 1280x1024 scores.

Looking around for some scores....
The 260M gets around 5k GPU vantage at 1280x1024.
The 9800mGTX gets around 4300 GPU vantage at 1280x1024.

If the resolution does matter, you are looking at 70-80% of that score...
So slightly faster than the 5650...

If the resolution no longer matters, then the 6750 has truly moved apple gaming into 2008/early 2009.

A reminder that current 2011 tech has 15" laptops under 7lbs (and cheaper than even the lowest-end macbook pro) getting 12k+ vantage gpu. (1280x1024)

 

I just sold my Mid 2009 13" MBP. It had $8GB Ram which was a $50 upgrade and Apple Care which was cheap (I didn't pay $249).
Plus I bought it on my student discount and free ipod which I sold.

I sold it for $950. My cost was roughly $1100 (including discounts, and even upgrades).

Only depreciating $150 and using the laptop for year and half. Only an Apple product could pull this off lol.

Plus I have 10 years in sales experience haha.

 

Update:
It seems someone did a 3dmark06 1280x1024.
9477... even with the monstrously nice i7, that is worse than a 9800m GS, and nowhere near a 9800mGT where 10k+ scores were common. (with much lesser processors)

Vantage score of 4k+ is now quite questionable.

I am curious to see some real gaming benchmarks compared with other GPUs.