which mbp 13" to buy now? 2010 or 2011?

I'm sure many will say go for 2011 due to the stronger i5 CPU. That's also what I though at the beginning. But I also saw tons of bad review against the 2011 mbp 13" because of the intel HD3000 graphics card.

I'm a computer graphics and animation engineer using a lot of Maya, opengl, directx, c++, python,photoshop stuff in my work. Of couse, I have a desktop to handle most of my work. So I dont need mbp 15 or 17 as a replacement.
But I still hope that the laptop can deal with most of my stuff, at least in a slower way, when I have to work outside. I also tend to play some games occasionally like Starcraft 2.

Now the price for the new 2011 mbp 13" with 2.3GHz and 2010 mbp 13" with 2.66 GHz are almost the same. So my question is either better CPU or better GPU. Since I never used intel GPU before, I also wonder if the intel HD3000 compatibility is good? not just speed.

 

I'm sure over time drivers will mature for Intel and the card will have more potential, but at $900 refurbished it's hard to pass up the 2010 model.

 

The processor in the 2011 model is better than the ages Core 2 Duo in the 2010 13" MBP by far. It is actually two generations ahead of the Core 2 Duo and I think the tests show it outperforms the Core 2 Duo by about 30-35%. The Intel HD 3000 graphics are about on par with the Nvidia 320M in last year's model as well. There are some things the 320M does better with but then the HD 3000 is also more power efficient. I could say the same thing about a comparable ~5300 AMD graphics card. There are just some programs/games that take advantage of AMD's or Nvidia's architecture.

Compatibility really is a moot issue right now and programs/games that take advantage of Intel's architecture are only going to increase in quantity (since there really are none). Either way, the 2011 model is all around a much better performer than last year's 13" MBP no matter how it is spun. The 2010 release may have a slight edge in terms of graphical power but the 2011 model has it beat on everything else.

On a side note, Microcenter is selling the entry level 2011 13" MBP (new, not opened) for $999. That beats the pants off of Apple's $900 refurbished price for the 2010 13" MBP.

 

Since you'll only occasionally be playing SC2, I'd say go for the newer one. Even if the 320M is slightly less crappy than the HD3000, they're both still crappy.

EDIT: here's some random link with benchmarks of SC2. According to these results, the HD3000 actually is as good or better for SC2 in OSX and on low settings in Windows. Obviously they don't tell the whole story, but this just illustrates that both GPUs are fairly close in performance from a broad point of view. The GPUs of those two machines shouldn't be the deciding factor in your purchase decision.

And of course, outside of gaming or other GPU bottlenecks, the 2011 is all-around faster.

 

It seems intel 3000 is less power comsuming, but overall the new mbp 13 battery time is 7 hrs compared with the old one with 10 hrs claimed on the official specs. So I just wonder if there is any practical comparison about that?

Since I never use intel GPU before, does everyone think it'll be more promising than the nvidia 320m in future? does intel upgrade the driver a lot?

 

thanks for the benchmark. If these two GPUs only has such slight difference for all 3D applications, I'm totally fine with it. So did anybody test them on mainstream design application other than games? like Maya, Zbrush, Photeshop, Final cut, etc.

 

Photoshop will run better on the 2010 version (CUDA).

There will be a back to school event and you should be able to get a macbook of choice + free ipod touch, so you should wait for that! My research has led me to believe that it will happen on the 25th (or later may)

 

Most tests show that the 2011 model actually gets just about 7 hours (some websites have it as a little less, others have it as a little more) whereas the 10 hour number Apple was previously using wasn't accurate at all. Most people and reviewers were getting about 6-6.5 hours out of the 2010 13" MBP. Apple changed their battery life measuring techniques so that they are a lot more accurate. I believe they have been doing that for a while with their iPod line (which tend to be rather conservative numbers), for the iPhone, iPad, and the first computers they did that with were the MBA's released last year.

I have done some 3D drafting in AutoCAD 2011 under OS X without any hiccups (though I do have 8GB of RAM and the dual-core Core i7 version) and Photoshop runs just fine. I haven't come across issues editing 20MP+ images from a DSLR. I have even edited mpeg-4 AVC 1080p videos without issues on my 13" MBP under the latest version of Final Cut Pro (my future university bookstore had it for $30 so I couldn't really resist). That was with the source video on a FireWire 800 7200RPM hard drive encoding onto the 750GB 7200RPM internal hard drive of my MBP.

I rarely ever use Windows but when I do, it is to run MATLAB. It isn't a very GPU intensive program but it can become CPU heavy. MATLAB boots and runs custom macros that I make with ease. I have yet to come across any issues and this is even when analyzing over one hundred samples with each one having thousands of data points.

 

Speedmark 6.5 individual application test results for Photoshop CS5 actions:

13" MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Core i5 dual-core	60
13" MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo	66

Test results in the above chart are in seconds; lower results are better. The Photoshop Suite test is a set of 23 scripted tasks using a 50MB file. Photoshop’s memory was set to 70 percent and History was set to Minimum.
Source: Lab report: 2011 MacBook Pro benchmark results Review | Laptops | From the Lab | Macworld

If you're using a pre-CS4 version of Photoshop, theoretically the spread should be bigger since Photoshop didn't take advantage of CUDA until then.

 

By just looking at those benchmarks in the link, the overall scores of the 2010 mbp pro 13" with c2D 2.66GHz & nvidia 320 are quite comparable with the new mbp pro 13" with i5 2.3Ghz & intel 3000 , except the encoding/decoding test (which I dont use much).

However, technically the i5 CPU alone should be much faster than the previous c2D in every aspects. Can this the results from the the bottleneck of the bad intel GPU?

 

I'd put the money down for the 2011. Maybe it's just me but the 2010 under performs when it comes to photoshopping and such. probably should've put a few hundred more into it.

 

To me compatibility and stability is really important.

Actually my old laptop is the ASUS A8JS bought more than 4 years ago with Nvidia Go7700 GPU (it's a monster at that time). It's still not that bad now and can run most of my applications as a spare machine. Yes, it's slow but RARELY fail to run. That means I can take my stuff everywhere but just need a bit more patience to see the results. The main reason I have to replace it is the LCD screen has been too dark due to long time utilization.

However, if the Intel GPU has bad compatibility and often fail to run, what the use of the extra CPU power for me?

 

I think you are forgetting that on a GHz-for-GHz comparison, the Core i and second generation Core i processors perform better than the previously released Core 2 Duo models. The second generation 2.3GHz Core i5 in the entry level 13" MBP outperforms a 2.3GHz Core 2 Duo in every aspect. The 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo was actually still pretty good but the Core i5 edges that out. So it is nice that a slower processor can outperform one with a faster clock speed but don't expect the differences there to be huge especially since the C2D has a 360MHz clock speed jump over the i5.

Lastly, the Intel HD 3000 is pretty much just as "bad" as the Nvidia 320M. There are just some programs that take advantage of Nvidia's architecture/technology so they are going to perform a little better as they are leaning more on the GPU and less on the CPU (whereas they are leaning more on the CPU and less on the GPU for the 2011 model). The benchmarks in the link still show the 2011 Core i5 version outperforming the previous 2010 model by about 35% overall even with Intel integrated graphics.

Specifically, in that Photoshop test, you see that it is relying on Nvidia's CUDA technology so it is able to get a score of 65 while the 2011 model still edges it out with a score of 60. That could drastically change if Adobe ever updates Photoshop so that it fully supports the HD 3000 architecture.

That being said, there shouldn't be much debate as the benchmarks for the 2011 13" MBPs have been better than the 2010 models. Some of the tests show a drastic difference (mainly the ones that rely on the CPU) whiles others currently aren't that much of a lead (when comparing programs that use Nvidia's architecture/technology). The same thing could be said if Apple had decided to slap an AMD 5300 IGP in there instead. Those programs that use Nvidia's architecture would have still outperformed the AMD IGP.

 

another difference I found between 2010 and 2011 mbp 13 is the camera. If looks like only 2011 come with Facetime.

So I just wonder if the Facetime feature depends on hardware or software？ or if 2010 mbp 13 can also somehow use Facetime to chat with iPhone4?

 

You can buy the Facetime app from the Mac App Store for $0.99 on the 2010 MBP.