Comparison question about graphic cards and processors

So I'm updating from my black MacBook to a MacBook Pro. I'm going to be doing 3-d modeling / animating and also photo editing, so using applications like Cinema 4D and Photoshop a lot. I also do some gaming, mainly World of Warcraft. My question is (and I have looked at the specs but I was hoping for some real-world tests that somebody might be able to point me to) are the graphic cards that come in the new MacBook Pros vastly superior than that in the older MacBook Pros? aka: NVIDIA GeForce 320M / 330M vs. Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT. I am also wondering about the Intel i7 processors vs the Core 2 Duo. aka: Intel 2.8 i7 vs Intel 2.8 c2d. The reason I'm asking is so I can see if it is really worth spending a lot of extra money to get the new MacBooks when I could just get a used MacBook.

Thanks very much!

Wow...you're really asking quite a bit from a bunch of Macintosh enthusiast's who help others in their spare time for free. This is the kind of detailed & involved benchmarking review that the "big guys" like MacWorld do every now & then.

Members here might be able to answer your question's in terms of generalities, but probably not with specific statistical comparison values.

The i5 & i7 laptops are pretty darn new...so there may not be much benchmarking info out there yet for the comparisons you asked for. I would say try some internet searches & see what you come up with.

Good luck,

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

Wow...you're really asking quite a bit from a bunch of Macintosh enthusiast's who help others in their spare time for free. This is the kind of detailed & involved benchmarking review that the "big guys" like MacWorld do every now & then.

Members here might be able to answer your question's in terms of generalities, but probably not with specific statistical comparison values.

The i5 & i7 laptops are pretty darn new...so there may not be much benchmarking info out there yet for the comparisons you asked for. I would say try some internet searches & see what you come up with.

Good luck,

- Nick

Click to expand...

Sorry if it came across that I was looking for a ton of detailed specs, I'm mainly looking for somebody to say "You shouldn't really notice too much of a difference between those two graphic cards and processors, maybe slightly better framerates during gaming and a bit better performance for 3-D modeling but not a huge difference." or something like that. Also if anyone has seen any tests done that I've missed that would be awesome!

Thanks Nick

A good place to start is geekbench - here is a search for 2010 in the results.
Search Results for 2010 : Geekbench Result Browser
The nice thing about geekbench is the testing is pretty uniform so that end number does give a pretty decent idea on how the system performs as a whole - especially for Macs.
Here is the blurb on how the benchmark works
Primate Labs Geekbench

Here are good information on the technical differences between the the processors
Compare Intel® Products

Here is anadtech's review
Apple's 15-inch 2010 MacBook Pro: More Battery Life Tests, High Res Display Evaluated - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

There was something on how Intel's new graphics chip is quite good but I haven't been able to find that article.

Hope that helps.

Sathoro said:

Sorry if it came across that I was looking for a ton of detailed specs, I'm mainly looking for somebody to say "You shouldn't really notice too much of a difference between those two graphic cards and processors, maybe slightly better framerates during gaming and a bit better performance for 3-D modeling but not a huge difference." or something like that. Also if anyone has seen any tests done that I've missed that would be awesome!

Thanks Nick

Click to expand...

No problems We get a lot of questions similar to yours...yours sorta just seemed a bit more detailed than usual...and thought maybe you were looking for specific numbers to compare.

Which I agree is a really good way to make processor & video hardware comparisons...although sometimes under real world conditions even a processor or video card that's 20% faster than the previous generation may not be noticeable to the user.

The basic rule to purchasing a computer (which you may be familiar with)...is buy as much computer as you can afford.

Good luck,

- Nick

IvanLasston said:

A good place to start is geekbench - here is a search for 2010 in the results.
Search Results for 2010 : Geekbench Result Browser
The nice thing about geekbench is the testing is pretty uniform so that end number does give a pretty decent idea on how the system performs as a whole - especially for Macs.
Here is the blurb on how the benchmark works
Primate Labs Geekbench

Here are good information on the technical differences between the the processors
Compare Intel® Products

Here is anadtech's review
Apple's 15-inch 2010 MacBook Pro: More Battery Life Tests, High Res Display Evaluated - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

There was something on how Intel's new graphics chip is quite good but I haven't been able to find that article.

Hope that helps.

Click to expand...

Wow thanks those are some really awesome resources, definitely helped. Thanks a lot!

Here is something on GPUs
Apple's 15-inch Core i5 MacBook Pro: The One to Get? - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

That article goes through some other comparisons (beginning of the same article)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3659/apples-15inch-core-i5-macbook-pro-the-one-to-get/1

Oh and mactacker is pretty good to - but it doesn't have the 2010 models in there yet - but that is where I found geekbench
http://mactracker.dreamhosters.com/

Well, considering the 300 series is 2 series newer, um... yes?

IvanLasston said:

Here is something on GPUs
Apple's 15-inch Core i5 MacBook Pro: The One to Get? - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

That article goes through some other comparisons (beginning of the same article)
Apple's 15-inch Core i5 MacBook Pro: The One to Get? - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

Oh and mactacker is pretty good to - but it doesn't have the 2010 models in there yet - but that is where I found geekbench
Mactracker

Click to expand...

Thanks again! But now I'm just confused Apple's 15-inch Core i5 MacBook Pro: The One to Get? - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News says they only got 19.1 fps running WoW yet there are a ton of videos on YouTube of 15" MacBook Pros (4 gbs ram, nvidia 9600m gt) running WoW, Crysis, Unreal Tournament, etc. at really high framerates with the settings on high or max. Honestly I think I'll stick with buying a used one for now so I only have to pay a few hundred after selling my current computer. Then when the time is right and everyone else is complaining about how they just spent 2.5k three months earlier and now the new macs have 3G built in I'll sneak in and buy. But really, thanks, I didn't know about MacTracker or that awesome benchmarking website.