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    Question about Base 15" MBP 2011

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by asdad123, Jun 25, 2011.

  1. asdad123

    asdad123 Notebook Evangelist

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    Hey guys, I have a chance of buying a base 2011 i7 2.0 GHz 15" MBP with a ATI 6490 from a friend at work for $1400.

    I currently have a m11xR2 that I would sell to another friend for $700 which means that I could upgrade to this MBP for about $700. The MBP was bought on memorial day so it is barely a month old.

    I am just wondering, how does the 6490 fare in gaming? Is it better than the GT335m in the m11xR2? I do not game a lot, but the occasional game on it would be nice.

    Also, Ill be doing AutoCAD and other engineering programs on the MBP while using windows bootcamp. Do you guys think the 6490 would be enough?

    I was thinking of waiting another year to upgrade my M11x, but for a $700 upgrade, it seems good. Just wondering how the 6490 will fare. If only it had the 6770, I would buy it in a heart beat.
     
  2. KCETech1

    KCETech1 Notebook Prophet

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    6490 is roughly the same AFIK, for CAD it will do fine unless you need to do huge renders or run CUDA or Stream optimized apps or plugins.

    do note battery life goes way down bootcampedn if that will be a factor for you
     
  3. kornchild2002

    kornchild2002 Notebook Deity

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    Also note that you should get a MacBook Pro only if you plan on running Mac OS X the majority of the time. Getting a MBP and using Windows as the default OS defeats the purpose behind buying any Mac (which is to run Apple designed systems with Apple software).
     
  4. Bill Nye

    Bill Nye Know Nothing

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    335M beats 6490M handily.

    Sandy Bridge walks all over the ULV Arrendales.
     
  5. mrPico

    mrPico Notebook Deity

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  6. yuio

    yuio NBR Assistive Tec. Tec.

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    I believe the AMD A processor's IGP is about as fast a 5670, which is quite impressive, and should best a 335M.
     
  7. mrPico

    mrPico Notebook Deity

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    The HP I mentioned has a ATI Radeon 6750M dedicated card with switchable graphics support. Could probably do crossfire with the APU too not sure about the crossfire part.
     
  8. KCETech1

    KCETech1 Notebook Prophet

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    I believe all APU's with the dedicated GPU's as well can do hybrid crossfire. I know the test models needed some driver improvements, but have not heard complants of any production units sofar.