1799 Macpro or 2199 MacPro

hi,
I was thinking about getting one of these, with student discount, they are 1699 and 1999.
What do you guys think? would you guys pay the 300 extra to get the faster processor and better card? is it worth the money?

I only game sometimes, but not often.

thanks for the input.

 

If you game what kind of games? If they are older than I would save the money or invest it in an after-market ram or hard-disk -> SSD upgrade. It benefits overall performance more than the gfx upgrade.

 

If you are just checking mail, doing browsing, chat, light photoshop work etc — then go cheaper version. On the other hand if you are "into something" like gaming, video editing or photoshop — go with top end model.

Seeing that you only mentioned gaming from the above — cheaper version can run anything on low and some on medium setting. Top version can run most of the things on high and some on medium.

 

the 1999 Macbook Pro doesn't have a super strong GPU anyways. It is a lot better than the Intel HD 3000, but if you really need GPU power, you need to upgrade to the Macbook Pro with the radeon 6750.

I've been very impressed with the Intel HD 3000... even for light gaming it seems to handle things fine at lower settings. It is overall MUCH MUCH faster than any Intel graphics has ever been, hitting the low end entry level GPU range.

 

The 1999.00 (w/ student discount) MBP has the 6750.

 

typo... meant to type 1799

 

I heard that the AMD 6490m is a smidge faster than last year's Nvidia 330m. And the Intel 3000 has around the same performance as the 320m or 330m. Although the performance between the AMD and intel aren't huge I think that the dedicated VRAM will boost performance. Just to let ya know.

You should get whatever suits your purposes. If you do normal stuff just get the base model. The MBP's are not slow whatsoever. The difference can be seen when you're running heavy stuff. I always think about it like this: Is it worth getting a Porche (high end MBP) over a BMW (base MBP) when you only drive 60 mph on the road? If you usually drive over 60 mph then you should get the high end MBP.

 

the HD3000 is definitely not even close to as fast as a 330m... a 330m is a LOT faster than a 320m even though the numbers are close. The HD 3000 in OSX seems pretty much equal to the 320m, which is maybe half the speed at best as a 330m.

 

I think this link should be stiickied somewhere in bold red text
Computer Games on Laptop Graphic Cards - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Put in the number of your GPU in "model" (e.g. HD 3000 or 330m or 6750) and see how much fps it gives in any game.

 

srry I forgot which Nvidia card was the comparable one. I guess I meant the 320m.