Best vid card available?

I'm about to get my first MacBook Pro (yay me!) and I plan on doing a little bit of gaming, nothing major, but I'd like to know which graphics card will I need to go with for the best performance?

I'm looking forward to ordering it

Thanks!

Well the top of the line MBP one would give you the best performance (seeing as it's the "best" for the MBP...duh... ).

I have the base one in my MBP 15 and it runs CSS at almost* full settings. Also it runs all the Valve games REALLY well (full or **** close). And the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R runs at medium high.

*basically full, the only things aren't; the water isn't the highest reflection, no anti-aliasing(not important really), and not the highest filter(again not that important)

To the OP:

This is the card you want: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB

Regards.

I agree with chscag- that's what I have and it's pretty good.

chscag said:

To the OP:

This is the card you want: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB

Regards.

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NVIDIA Faulty Chips Reported on MacBook Pros as Well

Many Apple users have reported on the forums similar problems to those that appeared on HP and Dell machines packing G84/86 chips

By Ionut Arghire, Windows Editor
11th of August 2008, 08:20 GMT
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NVIDIA announced in July that the company had put aside $150 - $200 million to cover "anticipated customer warranty, repair, return, replacement and other consequential costs and expenses arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of our previous generation MCP and GPU products used in notebook systems".

The news spread really fast, and lots of users began to fear that they might be the owners of such a card. Although NVIDIA initially said that only some notebook manufacturers/vendors had been supplied with defective G84/86 cards, after a few weeks, both Dell and Hewlett-Packard announced that their users had experienced problems with their machines and released BIOS updates meant to fix the problem. Overall, about 34 notebook models and versions were reported to pack faulty chips.

Beside the already reported mobile PCs, the latest news shows that MacBook Pro owners might have defective NVIDIA cards included in their systems as well. Apple did not announce any problem with its machines, yet the forums began to show that the issue affects the company's customers, too. Users seem to wonder whether Apple will extend its warranty for the inherently flawed systems that the company sold.

Many MacBook Pro owners have already reported video problems similar to the previous ones. Following a post on the Apple forums, which first indicated blank screen at boot, other users posted similar problems that appeared on their machines.

NVIDIA said that "All newly manufactured products and all products currently shipping in volume have a different and more robust material set". On the Apple forum, some users that experienced problems stated they have rather new machines, which means that the problems should not occur. Still, there are a lot of reports posted on the forums, which means that Apple should consider looking into the problem and provide with a solution.

I you're buying new I dare say that the bad nvidia chips are nothing to worry about.

I have the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB in my MBP

Under Vista I run Gears of War on almost max settings at a very acceptable FPS with so far no jumping or slowdown.

mick_aka said:

I you're buying new I dare say that the bad nvidia chips are nothing to worry about.

I have the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB in my MBP

Under Vista I run Gears of War on almost max settings at a very acceptable FPS with so far no jumping or slowdown.

Click to expand...

Buying new is no guarantee that you are not getting New Old Stock. Who knows how long that motherboard has been sitting on a shelf before it was used in production of your new MBP. Apple will not guarantee which part numbers you get.