shivs Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 I am currently looking to buy a new MacBook Pro. The 15" MBP with NVIDIA GeForce 9400 + 9600M GT looks pretty tempting as I'd probably be looking to use it as a replacement desktop when not in lectures / on the move. Does anyone else think it's worth it? (it's quite a big jump in price). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliott Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 The 9400M does a nice job, but the 9600M GT will definitely improve you're experience when you're working with graphics-intensive applications/games. The 9600M GT will also give a nice boost to applications that begin to adopt OpenCL, the new technology in Snow Leopard that lets a normal, non-graphical application use the latent power of the GPU for computation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vice Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 Personally I leave my MacBook Pro on the 9400M it runs cooler to the touch and I get much better battery life. And unless I'm playing a Game I notice no difference in graphics performance. That is to say window effects do not lag and I don't get low frames per second in Quicktime or other media players even with 1080p content. But having said that, it is nice having the 9600GT there incase I do want to fire up a game now and again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shivs Posted October 19, 2009 Author Share Posted October 19, 2009 Thanks for the replies. I think I will probably go the 9600M GT model as it'll be useful for gaming when I go home (won't have to lug my huge pc home every holiday). And also if I got the cheaper model I'd always be wanting the better one :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elliott Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 And also if I got the cheaper model I'd always be wanting the better one :rolleyes: Isn't that how it always goes? Damn tech jealously. :p Yea, the 9600M GT is a good idea. For gaming, just install Windows in Boot Camp and voil?, you're set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yamazaki Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 just make sure you get the 512 mb 9600M GT rather than 256 mb. I bought the 15" MBP with 256 mb 9600M GT, while it's okay to play some new-released game, it could be better if i had the 512 mb one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KoL Veteran Posted October 20, 2009 Veteran Share Posted October 20, 2009 Personally I leave my MacBook Pro on the 9400M it runs cooler to the touch and I get much better battery life. And unless I'm playing a Game I notice no difference in graphics performance. That is to say window effects do not lag and I don't get low frames per second in Quicktime or other media players even with 1080p content.But having said that, it is nice having the 9600GT there incase I do want to fire up a game now and again. Same here. I usually leave my MacBook Pro on the 9400M but when I do graphics stuff on it I change to the 9600M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morficus Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 I'd say go with the 9600 simply because when OpenCL hits you'll be super happy you got the higher-end card. Offsetting CPU cycles to the GPU?? YES PLEASE! :-) Personally I leave my MacBook Pro on the 9400M it runs cooler to the touch and I get much better battery life. And unless I'm playing a Game I notice no difference in graphics performance. That is to say window effects do not lag and I don't get low frames per second in Quicktime or other media players even with 1080p content.But having said that, it is nice having the 9600GT there incase I do want to fire up a game now and again. Keep in mind that rending high def video is a processor-intensive task and doesn't really use the GPU. The graphics card gets a work out when rending stuff (like in games or even photoshop). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shivs Posted October 25, 2009 Author Share Posted October 25, 2009 Still haven't got round to buying one yet, but also wondering if there's a chance the MBP range will be updated again this year? I know there were updated Late 2008 and Mid 2009, will they again this year? If so I'd be tempted to wait it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vice Posted October 25, 2009 Share Posted October 25, 2009 I'd say go with the 9600 simply because when Keep in mind that rending high def video is a processor-intensive task and doesn't really use the GPU. The graphics card gets a work out when rending stuff (like in games or even photoshop). Thats not actually true on newer machines by Apple they use H.264 acceleration built in to the 9400M and 9600GT. You can view the information on Apples website for Snow Leopard or on Mac Rumours where they showed without the acceleration CPU usage was 50-60% when playing back 1080p and a mere 8% when using GPU acceleration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shivs Posted October 25, 2009 Author Share Posted October 25, 2009 Going by this buyers guide: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro I'm guessing there wouldn't be an product updates until the new year for the MBP line? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 25, 2009 Share Posted October 25, 2009 Going by this buyers guide: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro I'm guessing there wouldn't be an product updates until the new year for the MBP line? Don't think there will be any updates until the new year, as they would have probably took the chance last week to update them along side the new iMac, Mac Mini & MacBook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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