Which Mac???

Howdy Everyone,

I have been coming to this site for a few years now, but primarily lurking in the Alienware forum. However, I just started graduate school, and am currently contemplating purchasing a Mac for school, and iPhone development I have written programs for Windows and Windows Mobile, but am intersted in getting into iPhone development. I have been looking at all of the currently available Macs, and the only thing I know for sure is I am pretty sure I want a notebook. Here are my "requirements" (in no particular order)

1. Best Bang For the $
2. New enough so that it won't be obsolete in a year
3. New enought that it should "fully" support OS X "Lion"
4. At least 4GBs of RAM
5. Smaller the better
6. Good amount of storage space
7. Strong Video card

I m currently eyeballing the 13" MacBook Air, 13" MacBook Pro, and the 15" MacBook Pro. The MacBook Air is a fantastic size, but has limited storage space, and I am not convinced that is powerful enought to support "Lion." The 13" MacBook Pro is no really a "Pro," but rather an overpriced MacBook, as it has anemic graphics, but everything else is Ok. The 15" MacBook Pro has OK hardware, but it is really bigger than I wanted, and the price seems a bit steep. I realize I am going to have to make some trade-offs to get around my requirments, but I thought I would post here to get some other people's thoughts on it. Thanks!

Rich S.

 

The 13" MBA fully supports OS X Lion. Even the 11" MBA supports Lion without issues. In fact, Lion has been shown off a lot running on those particular models. I also think you need to look back at the reviews and benchmarks for the 13" MBP (which, contrary to what you say, it a MacBook Pro model and years ahead of the current MacBook) as its graphics card is just as "anemic" as the previous generation model and even the 13" MBA. The 320M might edge the Intel HD 3000 out in some tests but the HD 3000 actually performs better with other programs. Starcraft actually runs at a higher FPS on the HD 3000 than the 320M.

I can also already tell you that the only MBPs out there with "relatively strong" video cards are the much more expensive models. The 13" MBP and both MBAs have lower end cards, the entry level 15" MBP has a low mid-level card, and the $2000+ 15" and 17" MBPs have high mid-level graphics. Then again, MBPs have never been known to have the most power graphic cards.

Either way, there isn't anything on your list that the 13" MBP can't handle with extreme ease including the iOS 4.3 SDK.

 

Hi kornchild2002,

This is excatly the type of feedback I was looking for, thanks! The price on the 13" MBP seems to actually be the best bang for the buck, I am just wary about the integrated graphics particularly since it is an Intel card. From the specs sheet I have seen, the Intel HD 3000 only has 12 "shader units" which seems very weak, while the nVidia 320M has 24 "shader units" which while still pretty weak, it is twice as many. I would guess that the nVidia card would be faster at rendering the Mac GUI. Before I sold my last Mac 2 years ago, there were rumblins that Apple was going to be using the GPU to offload some of the processor intensive tasks, as long as the computer featured a strong enough GPU.

So, can you play SCII on your 13" MBP at native resolution with high quality, or are you forced to lower the settigns? Thanks!

Rich S.

 

Unless your planning on playing games like Crysis or playing at the maximum setting, the integrated graphics should be fine. When i'm on the road, I mainly play things like counter strike and amnesia:dark descent and those play perfectly for me. If you concern is with just playing the game, you'll be fine. Check out this link to see the kinds of games you can play on the macbook pro 13.

Also, you should look into to steam for the mac as many popular games are on there have been specifically ported to the mac. Onlive is another good thing to check out for macbook gaming.

 

The Nvidia 320M may have more shader units but that doesn't mean it is more powerful. For example, Intel just released a new 1.66GHz dual-core Atom processor but tests are showing that, despite the extra core, it really isn't more powerful than the single-core N450 Atom that had been featured in netbooks for quite a bit of time. The extra core doesn't really do anything.

The OS X GUI is not something that is going to be problematic for the Intel card as it is about on par with the 320M anyway. It may come with the Nvidia logo on it but the Intel HD 3000 performs (essentially) the same. There are some games and programs that use Nvidia's technology (CUDA for example) so they are going to perform a little better than the Intel card. On the other hand, there are some things that the Intel card does better.

I don't have SCII so I can't test it. The only games I have for my MBP are Angry Birds Rio and Bioshock. Bioshock plays at the native resolution (1280X800, that is the native resolution of the 13" display) with all of the settings turned to high and the framerate is sooth.

 

Blasphemy!

 

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts! Now I have another question, it seems that my best option is the 2011 13" MacBook Pro. However, I am hesitant due to the Intel based graphics on this model. So, I was wondering what the general consensus on this board is on the Intel HD 3000? Is it fast enough? Does it fair favorable with the older nVidia 320M cards? Kornchild2002 inidcates that it would probably meet my needs. When I purchased my last Mac (in 2007) I purposely steered away from the Mac models that had Intel graphics as they had very poor video performance. Even the Mac desktop responded more slowly on those models than the nVidai and ATI based models (at the time the iMacs had ATI graphics and the MacBook Pros had nVidia 8600 based graphics). Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

Rich S.

 

This is the first Intel integrated card that is actually worth a damn. Back in 2007, Apple was using the GMA 950 which was just awful. Apple later switched to the GMA 4500MHD. It was a bigger improvement but it was still pretty bad (though it could decode HD videos with ease). Sandy Bridge marked the introduction of an Intel IGP that could actually compete with IGP offerings from Nvidia and AMD.

I think you will find a lot of negativity here on the threads towards the HD 3000 simply because people don't trust Intel's IGP solutions. I can't say that I blame them as Intel has always produce horrendous results. That being said, the HD 3000 really is on par with the 320M (overall) along with a ~AMD 5400 (maybe 5500) level IGP option as well. So while I understand people's negative comments against Intel's past IGP options, the HD 3000 is a large improvement. All-in-all, we are still talking about lower level integrated graphics solutions (which share memory with the main system RAM) whether it is the HD 3000, 320M, or an AMD ~5400.