128mb 8600M GT MBP 3dMark2005 score

That would be awesome if true..

 

Well, it's still shared system memory. I'm pretty sure there's still going to be a difference in what someone with a 128MB dedicated 8600M GT can do compared to someone with, say, a 512MB dedicated 8600M GT.

 

I'm thinking about buying the lowend mbp..but I don't understand all this gpu cpu stuff...so I'll just ask this simple question: Can the 128mb 8600gt version of the mbp handle the following games: sup com, cnc3, company of heros, star wars empire of war, star craft3 when it comes out. ( I don't care if you have to run some games on low settings.)

 

yes, maybe you can get as high as medium setting

 

YAY! I'm so happy macbook pro here I come! I think I'm going to go the store now.

 

so just in case anyone missed it from the review thread but here's a cool link

http://www.barefeats.com/rosa03.html

But my one thing against this is that it doesn't take into account future uses. I think though the MacBook Pros are basically the same in performance now, once the new DX10 games start coming out I think it will change. Also the longevity of performance is different, the 2.2ghz MBP will probably be great for about a year or 2, but in 3 years... chances are 256mb of VRAm will be the minimum for games and the 2.4ghz MBP's will still perform while the 2.2's won't (this is all speculation).

Another thing I have been wondering. People have reported that the GPU can take shared memory from the system ram to improve performance (or something like that) but only in Vista. Do you think this is something that will be utilized in OSX, or XP... i.e. years down the road when 128mb isn't cutting it,but you've upgraded to 4gigs of Ram, could you dedicate an extra 256 or something ram from shared memory for the gpu only improving performance??

 

they are already DX10 ready! they can handle DX10 games at least at the mid level. If this will last 2 years in the mid-high cards sector, I will be more than happy! No card lasted more than 3 years in top, IMHO

 

That's true, but it comes down to trying to predict the overall cost of saving money now for a computer that will be outdated sooner, or spending more now to squeeze a little more life out of the end of their laptop. I think anyway, I could be wrong.

 

If you look at the link you posted, the 2.4 MBP only gets 3-5 more FPS on the games they tested. Three to five FPS is hardly noticeable and certainly not worth the extra $500. And in the future, 3-5 FPS will probably stay 3-5 FPS, a marginal difference. I don't forsee that gap growing for some reason (except perhaps in GPU Memory demanding games, but even then, it wouldn't be a big difference).

If I get a MBP, I'm definitely going with the 2.2 MBP and saving $500.

 

That review was tested under OSX, which is not very optimized for gaming. If you want to play game with MAC u best get bootcamp and run it under windows. but, your right, I don't see OSX optimize a directx 10 card in the future...so the FPS will not increase, on the other hand, if u really wanna play games, $2000 will buy you a damn good gaming machine.

 

the future as i see it:

nvidia (and probably ati) will open up directx 10 hardware calls for open gl 3.0

therefore- directx 10 cards will end up supporting open gl 3.0 and mac will support open gl 3.0 as well. the benefits of a directx 10 card will therefore translate to the mac platform.

 

you mean $1,799 because I'm sure you are (using) a student and buy it with $200 discount
if I only had the opportunity to choose a 2.0 processor, 1Gb DDR and a 60-80Gb HDD (because I already own an extra 100Mb at 7200rpm), the price would be under $1,599

 

$1800 is still a damn good pc><, i am planning to spend $2499 for the 2.4 MBP version just so i can carry it around and play games.

 

i am sure u can still play games with the 128 vram mbp
its not really a gaming machine. I really hope Star Craft2 isn't that demanding on the graphic card though

 

See the thing I'm talking about is the future usability. The barefeats review looks at current games in MacOSX, I'm curious about the next wave of games coming out in boot camp... the fps difference... will it hold that similar when the games are new (like shadowrun) with much higher minimum requirements? Will the 128mb card still be competing with the 256 in a year when we are looking at DX10 only games that require a minimum of 128mb ram or more?

 

My opinion: get the 128mb version, play the less demanding games and/or the games that are comfortable to play with without a mouse. And

alternative 1). Take the $500, buy a desktop GPU that will absolutely beast on both versions of the card (something like a 8800gts), and take the left-over cash and hold onto it for the next gpu upgrade.

alternative 2). Buy an Xbox 360 with the savings.

alternative 3). If you are getting an .edu discount, that $500 is getting real close to being a third of the cost of the low-end version. Use this as an excuse to replace your MBP earlier, when even better GPUs will be available.

Of course, if you have a very large expendable income, than you do all three. But for most of us, I think you have to weigh it with what you could do with $500.

 

=D i agree, but then some ppl love to game on their pc. why not join the ADC the mbp only costs 2300 with the hardware discount and the membership only costs 120. U do have to be a university student to join though

 

Or you can convince the manager to give you an extra 10% off on top of the educational discount and get a total of $400 off the price of 1999.99 and get the 2.2 for $1600+ tax and save a crap load of money Oblivion runs great btw on medium settings, ill try and grab some benchies for people - havn't tested much on high settings etc. I assume it won't be horrible. Vista 32 bit makes the texture memory almost unlimited with turbo cash anyways and that is the biggest slow down with Oblivion. Run just fine.

P.S. (If someone finds me a touchpad driver for Vista x64 I will add a full set of 3dmark scores for the 2.2 + Vista x64 ----- Might do that anyways though Just have to wait and see.

 

Generally speaking, Blizzard is normally pretty good about making sure their games run on a pretty wide range of hardware. I'd be shocked if the 8600M GT (even with 128MB VRAM) couldn't handle Starcraft 2 well.

Honestly, I'd be kind of shocked if people with GMA950 graphics couldn't at least play it to some degree.

 

Oh that's for sure! remember that anyone with a 32Mb card can play Diablo2 and Warcraft3 at max settings and these are games only few years back! So if they required only 32Mb let's say.. 4-5 years ago, I'm sure 128Mb will be more than enough for SC3. I do possess a GeForce Go 440 with 64Mb and the only game I want and cannot play is TR Legend. But otherwise Blizzard really rules!

 

Amen to that! I used to play WCIII with a 8xx chipset (not sure, it's supposed to be the previous integrated graphics b4 the GM9xx came out) on my old Acer tablet at max resolution . . .

GJ, Blizzard!

 

Does anyone know how much the performance would actually increase those games if they were run in xp through bootcamp?

 

Probably quite a bit, most any Windows game is going to run better than it would on OS X at this point.

 

All stock settings for both tests

XP MCE:

1024x768 for 3dmark05 I got 6255
1280x1024 for 3dmark06 I got 2619

Vista Ultimate 32bit:

1024x768 for 3dmark05 I got 6400
1280x1024 for 3dmark06 I got 2945

 

is urz 128mb version?

does it run really hot under windows?

 

yes 2.2Ghz 128mb base model

Not that I am aware of, but I dont have an program monitoring the temp.

 

ah so the 128 version is about 25% slower than the 256 version. I also heard the 17 inch version is clocked much higher.

 

the analysts say difference is about 5% average between the two cards.
the 17" is not clocked higher but the 15" might be clocked lower thou...
that would explain why the 15" MBP have almost no heat.

 

what analysts? i am just simply basing on the 3dscore of a 256mb version, which is roughly around 3450.

 

Don't you ever read this thread ?

 

This is all stuff I've read and heard about, so don't argue just point out the mistakes.

From everything I've heard or read Vista is apparently slower than xp on gaming due to the drivers. But your 3dmark scores show vista out performing xp by a slight margin. Does this mean that the vista drivers are now getting better or is it just that vista is a faster os than xp.

 

OSX doesn't even know whats directx 10.

Vista is slower than xp with a crappy hardware, however for MBPs it's not the case. 8xxx series cards are dx10, which is what vista is for...the scores would only go up as time goes by.

 

does that mean all games will perform better on vista than on xp? i was under the impression that most games would have some sort of conflicts with vista.

 

Bah humbug! When I wrote that, I didn't realize that the barefeets test was in OS X. I also didn't realize that OS X would perform differently than vista when it comes to comes. Just wondering, how much of a difference is there in performance between a windows OS and OS X?

(Oh, and I did read the thread... in case you were wondering )

 

the quote was for Pinwanger (and that's why I got your name out of it )
anyway DX10 or not I think this year at least, XP will outperform Vista and OSX in each and every game, until good drivers will appear for Vista and some DX10 compatibility for OSX (maybe Leopard knows something we don't know ).

 

To be fair to xp, I could not get it to update fully. Everytime that I tried to use windows update it would bring the blue screen of death. Vista is fully up to date. All of the drivers from the bootcamp cd were installed on both xp and vista.

 

unfortunately we're relying only on Nvidia to give us new and performant XP drivers, because I have serious doubts that Apple will update'em again in future.

 

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/