Aluminum Macbook 2.0 Ghz 9400 nVidia for gaming--

I just sold my old black macbook on eBay. Lo and behold, an opportunity presents itself in the form of the Aluminum Macbook in the NBR Marketplace.

Anyway, how does the 9400m compare to the 9300ms that is in the Asus N10J?

I already have a Clevo laptop for gaming, this would strictly be for ultaportability and perhaps some gaming while on the road for clients.

I didn't post this in what laptop should I buy since I figured I'm only asking about the GPU performance difference between the two-

 

Around a 10% performance increase for the 9400. See detailed article comparison on this question at Anandtech here.

 

The 9400m is more powerful and also more power efficient.

You'll have to use google yourself for some exact benchmarks.

 

Thanks- deciding between portability and decent gaming performance just got harder--

Hopefully, the next set GPUs would put the netbooks on par with their subnotebook counterparts.

 

when i tried on my white macbook, i managed to run crysis on Textures Very High, Object Detail very high, shadows and shaders on medium and everything else low resolution 960 x 600 and it ran at 30 - 40 fps.

compared to my 17" mbp which can play all settings high / very high 1280 x 800 i dont think it did too bad

 

it will give you a lot more FPS since the Atom CPU in Asus can't handle modern games!

 

the alu macbook is plenty powerful for its specs. it will run most if not all modern games out there. obviously you'll have to decrease the settings depending on the games you'll be playing.

 

The 9400m is a pretty impressive integrated graphics chip. I was surprised myself. Battlefield 2 (I know it's older but it's demanding compared to my other older games) and Medieval 2 play great on it.

 

i was shocked when i read that it could actually play crysis, the world's most graphically intensive game.

 

I just might get the refurb one from Apple next time--

 

Um... my netbook with intel gma 950 can play crysis as well, even though I have to setup everything to either low or medium with no AA. However if I turn on the AA, even to 2xAA, the game will get about a couple frame per second.

So playing crysis on a computer isn't something that you should be proud of. Playing crysis with high resolution with something like 8x or 16xAA with high frame rates is.

 

^video or that didn't happen!

 

With such a small screen, I don't think you need AA--

 

If I just stick to working, I could probably get by with an Acer Aspire One for $349.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9421654&type=product&id=1218102738371

Of course, the lowest refurb Alum Macbook is $899-

http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB466LL/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw

Then, for ultraportability (matching the netbook for weight), the Macbook Air for $1099-

http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB543LL/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw

Of course, I could also say the hell with it, just get the MBP 15 for $1299--

http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB470LL/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw

Blabus, BTW, managed to snag the MBP 15 w/ dual GPU for $1050 at BB(I'm checking out BB today to see if I could replicate his luck).

I have about a week to decide, or until my work demands one again [I keep my work and full time game laptop separate to avoid conflict with client data, though I'll make an exception for occassional game use].

 

get the 15 inch mbp. its a beast

 

I was just curious if crysis would actually run on this netbook and it did. I tried 16AA just for fun. It got less than 5FPM.

 

would there be a significant difference between the 2.0 and 2.4 GHz (late '08) models in frame rates?

 

Depends on the game, and most games are GPU dependent, so it shouldn't. The biggest difference, I would think, is when using a MBP 15 with the 9600GT.

There was a macworld review where the 1.6 GHz MBA was faster than the 1.86 GHz, due to the way the 1.86 was downclocking.