Gaming on the 6750m and 6770m

I am considering selling my M17 with 580m and getting a Macbook Pro 15.

Obviously they are completely different gaming wise, with the Macbook having less than half the GPU power. Still at lower resolutions I figure the Macbook should still be fun to game on.

How is it performing for you? What games do you play, what settings, and what FPS do you get?

I mainly play BF3, Fallout series, COD:MW3, and similar titles aswell as some Starcraft 2.

I tried a google search on this but no real good info turned up.

Thanks in advance.

 

May be this does help you

Battlefield 3 Running on a Quad-Core MacBook Pro (Late 2011) - YouTube (AMD HD 6770M 1GB)

Greetings
Julian

 

The system performs about on par with notebooks of similar specifications. It will be a bit slower in most cases as the GPU isn't clocked as high.

Before you make the leap, though, ask yourself this question: When I buy a Mac, will I use OS X at least 60-70% of the time? If not, then a Mac is not for you. Consider any of the other Windows-based notebooks of similar form factor (Envy 15, Samsung Series 7, etc). Or, if you've liked your Alienware, drop to the M14x.

 

The MBP is honestly the best gaming (and most powerful) machine at ~1". Seriously. Spanks the Razer Blade for fun.

 

if you are concerned about gaming and you have thunderbolt, consider an egpu. me and a few others have successfully implemented this. i'm running a an nvidia 560GTX on a 2011 i7 macbook air. things like mass effect 2 run great, while newer games like skyrim, with some reflections disabled, can be cranked up to ultra settings. i can also run it on the internal LCD via optimus.

i've posted instructions on how to get this work with the MBA.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...851-diy-egpu-experiences-855.html#post8331202

 

Which thunderbolt product did you purchase for connecting the card? I can't seem to find any that are available yet.

 

sonnet echo expresscard. limited to pcie 1x since it's an early gen product.

 

Oh, so you adapt the TB to EC and use the normal eGPU solution. I assume you mean 1x because of the eGPU solution and not the TB<->EC adapter itself.

 

yep it looks that way, its a tb to expresscard, but their product that we want is this one

echo express pcie2.0 thunderbolt expand chassis, basically this one would limit the bandwidth to almost pcie 2.0 x4, which is what the tb port holds.

 

My only concern would be overheating I own a Macbook Pro from Late2008 and boot camped it for games. Problem is, it'd overheat and shut down a large majority of the time (Even with a cooling pad)

 

I have a late 2009 Macbook Pro that had major heating issues...

but I also have a 2010 13" that never had any issues, and a 2011 17" that is my main gaming machine and I've played it maxed out around 85º with fans at their max speed of 5500 for several hours and have never had an issue.

 

I have a 2011 MBP that I game on quite a bit in bootcamp. Never had a heating issue. System has never shut down or anything of the sort.

As far as the games listed:

Battlefield 3 - Meh, it runs okay. It doesn't run well on my machine at native resolution...but my native res is 1920x1200. I find that dropping the resolution down a notch and keeping most settings around a medium setting makes things very smooth (45-55fps).

MW3 - It a CoD game, which is running on the same engine they've used for damn near 5 years. It'll be fine (50fps+) on a 2011 MBP at your native resolution with most if not all settings maxed.

SCII - It'll run fine (30fps+) in Bootcamp at almost all maxed settings (or close enough). Drop a couple settings if you want to get closer to 60fps.

Dota2 - Smooth as butter in Bootcamp with everything maxed, v-sync off, AA off.

TF2 - Smooth as butter in Bootcamp with, V-sync off, AA at like 4x, and everything else maxed.

 

Have you tried with everything low but native resolution? What fps do you get? (in MY opinion, going with the native res gives you the best quality (improvement))

THX!

 

@ 1920x1200? It's below 30fps.

6750m just can't hang. any lower resolution and it's great.

 

Thank you very much!

I know it's a bit off topic but this is what we are waiting for

SONNET at CETE 2011 : Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis - YouTube

Greetings
Julian

 

yea, it'll be interesting to see what happens with those products. it would certainly give my 2011 MBP legs.

 

I got an iMac 21.5" with the 6750, it's not a bad gpu, I can max MW3 1080p with constant 60fps, it's an old engine anyway.

I play Fifa 12 at max as well, not really tried anything else, I tried BF3, it was TERRIBLE lol, after playing it on my PC at max there is no comparison.

 

/shrug overheating is a major issue if you game for extended periods of time. You will want external cooling as the MBP (even recent models) cannot even run its intel processor at max for extended periods of time without overheating.

This doesn't mean you cannot game on it... just that it is definitely not designed for it and indeed Apple made sacrifices to make it thinner. Sacrifices which make it overheat, throttle, and in multiple cases here at work, fail.

If gaming is the priority, there are better choices.

If running OSX is your priority, then you have no other choice.

Unless the above is true, I cannot recommend a MBP.

 

if you use it as intended, like on a table top thats flat and hard, it runs fine. I've had mine pushed hard for well over 10+ hours with no issues or overheating. If you stick it on a bed or a pillow or something, sure its going to trap heat. Extra cooling stands do help a minor amount, but aren't needed.

 

Speak for yourself.

I've run Dota 2/Crysis 2/Battlefield 3/StarCraft II/Team Fortress 2 for sessions lasting several hours and have been doing so for months. With a slight overclock I might add. Sometimes I'll leave the games on for hours or days idling or something.

No overheating. No throttling. No failures. No problems.

 

Same here.

I played hours a CoD BO on my MBP 13(2010) & 15(2011), no overheating or underclocking.

 

This is good info. Thanks everyone. I am selling my M17, and I think a macbook pro 15 is my next bet for sure. I have also contacted Sonnet about the thunderbolt eGPU, they said it should be out in April. Watching that video makes me excited. I assumed you would have to use an external monitor, but they were pipping the video back into the laptop and using the native display, way cool. Such a situation would make your eGPU and big box you could break out (or keep at work or home) and only use when gaming, exactly what I want. Plus it looks like the larger one will fit 2 slot GPUs exactly as they said it would. Perfect for a desktop 6850 or similar high performance low power GPU.

 

Hi,

I am looking to buy a new MBP 15" or MBA 13" the next months. And I am actually wondering if it makes sense to pay 300USD more just toget the slightly faster 6770m. eGPU seems like a very interesting opportunity here, though I have almost no knowledge about it.

How much do you think you have to invest to utilize the system? What kind of cards can you use with it? Does it work with all MBPs? What are the pros and cons in general?
Are there any websites that offer such devices?

Thank you for your help.

 

6770m for the most part is not a worthy upgrade over the 6750m.

 

Thirded. No problems with my MBP whatsoever.

If you're going to be driving a high-resolution external display, then you would need to get the 1 GB 6770M. If not, the 512 MB 6750M in the cheaper MBP will do most everything just fine.

While I've not delved into eGPUs too much, they seem to work best on notebooks that utilize the Intel integrated GPU. While the 15- and 17-inch MBPs have this, it only operates within OS X. If you use Windows with Boot Camp, the only GPU that's active the the discreet Radeon. I'm not sure an eGPU would work in that circumstance.

Edit: After reading the post by borealiss in the DIY eGPU thread in the gaming forum, it seems a very involved and fiddly process just to make everything work. Honestly, for the time and money you would invest in building an eGPU and trying to get it to work properly, just buy the MBP with the discreet GPU. Yes, its performance won't be anywhere near what you'd get with a similarly priced Alienware/MSI/Sager, but that's one of the compromises you must be willing to make.

 

indeed, Im quite hopeful that the real thunderbolt version would give us less hassle.

also msi is launching one, so it shouldnt be too hard

 

it def will be overheating if u run BF3 with it

 

I run BF3 on mine all the time with no overheating. I have my gfx at 750/900 @ 0.955v
It does get hotter than when playing less demanding games as it heavily uses cpu and gpu but definitely no overheating

 

@ninja:

I see you have the M4600 and the MBP 15" in your signature. I am curious. Could you compare the both a bit? What do you think is the better machine? Which would recommend whom?

Thank you very much!!!

 

egpus aren't for everybody. once you've gotten the egpu to work, hibernating into and out of windows 7 seems to work. my 560gtx is hooked up to an external monitor. once i'm done in windows, i hibernate. when i want to resume, i start it back up, and the graphics card comes back up like i never left it. between hibernation sessions, i boot to OSX all the time. mass effect 3 runs really well with this setup.

 

Wow that would be a hard choice but if I had to choose, for personal use it would be MBP. If for business use m4600. They both are amazing in different ways.
Pros of each:

M4600
- Performance, cooling and noise are in the dells favour (not by a lot mind)
- Selection of ports (usb3, vga, hdmi, expresscard etc etc)
- Configuration options
- Ability to use docking stations (I use these daily and it is a godsend)
- Very rugged

MBP
- amazing looking package with great screen, speakers and keyboard
- great size and weight, makes carrying much easier
- tiny and useful magsafe power adapter h is dwarfed by the dell brick)
- OSX with easy bootcamp utility

 

If you're looking for a macbook, why not consider the Envy? Similar size and package (not as thin and sexy) but more powerful videocard?

 

its the same gpu...

 

Beat me to it.

 

But the envy it's kind of plastic. Just touch it and you will feel the difference.

 

Is plastic bad?

 

I had the envy in my very hands and, in addition to mimic the mbp aesthetic, after you touch it, it feels really cheap plastic. Other plastic are sturdy and looks and feel good. I own a G73 from asus, it's plastic but feel completely different.

 

I currently have both a MBP 15 and an Envy 17 while I decide which one to keep. The top of the Envy is of a decent quality, but the bottom does indeed feel like cheap plastic and the part covering the battery and HDs comes off very easily. In fact, the day it arrived the battery cover was actually off the machine when I took it out of the box, and I couldn't get the Envy to power on for a day until it miraculously decided to start working.

I haven't noticed a difference in terms of gaming power between the two. My gaming sessions have been under an hour, since I'm only playing games to test the two systems, so I'm not sure if the results would change with a many hour session. In my sessions both machines have run very well playing SWTOR, SC2, and Skyrim all at max settings (except for anti-aliasing off, which I do out of habit).

The advantage with the Envy for gaming is it runs infinitely cooler. While viewing web pages with flash, running a virtual console, or watching a movie the MBP's processors will be around 80C. While gaming it jumps to 90C. If I put a cooling pad under it I can drop the temps around 10C. Meanwhile, using an Envy in the same location I cannot get any internal component to register higher than 60C no matter what program I'm running. It also feels cool on the outside while the MBP feels uncomfortably hot underneath. The downside to the Envy is the fans are almost always on and very loud, even when doing basic web surfing.

 

you realize you're comparing two machines with a very different size on their ability to dissipate heat. you might want to compare it to a mbp 17 if you're interested in a fair comparison between systems.

 

yeah... my 17" MBP right now has many things (no games) going, including a couple browsers with flash, and its only at 47º C. My 15" is a bit older, but it does run much hotter than the 17". Gaming it maxes out about 85 when pushed to the limit... with the fans at 5500rpm, which is max in a 17", unlike the 15" which goes to 6200 rpm.

 

runs decidedly cooler than mine. about 10C cooler, to be exact.