Notebook video cards, lasting value

I'm looking into purchasing a Macbook Pro with all the upgrade bells and whistels. Only thing I'm kind of scared about is the video card, and it's lasting value. I like the idea of being able to run multiple OS's, and I like the price for the features, but the video card is also very important to me.

I just read the thread on NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GTand ow it won't run Crysis on max, which I guess is acceptable, it's only a laptop, however I want to be sure I'll be able to play the flurry of new Pc games coming out over the year with it, Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, Bioshock, Crysys, Etc.

Anyways, two cents on this guys? What other options do I have?

 

buy a cheapo laptop and use a desktop or console for games


you can't upgrade apple's gpu AFAIK, they're soldered on

and you can't predict what settings the 8600gt will run on GoW since its just been announced. there isn't even a min requirement yet

 

When in the world did it say that Gears of War is available for PC? I would have never bought it for the Xbox 360 if I knew that! But back to your question, the graphics card is going to last so don't worry.

[EDIT] - Just checked and yeah your right, it is coming out for the PC.

 

I'd say you should be able to at least play them, who knows what settings you'll be able to use. I mean the 8600M GT isn't a bad card, it's just slower than say a 7950 gtx

 

yes, you will 100% for sure be able to run those games (it'd be stupid for the developers make its requirement so high that 8600gt can't play them)

just don't expect maxed settings or much AA


side note

GoW to come to PC is so awesome

i played the xbox version at 1080 with 52 inch, and that was just WOW

but 1 criticism is that i didn't know what the heck was going on (plot wise) but it was hellas fun just sawing and shooting stuff up

controls were okay, but i think mouse and keyboard would make this just godly

 

As for your other options, there really aren't any for 15" laptops. The 8600M GT is currently as good as it gets for a 15". There may be better options in the 17" department, but currently, we're still waiting for them to come out. In the future, this may change of course.

As someone suggested above, if gaming is critically important, you might consider saving some money on the laptop and buying a slightly lower performance one without a strong GPU, and then using the excess cash to build or buy a gaming desktop.