[tannenhauser]

So I will be buying a new mac this summer or early fall. What I want is the 15" MBP, but is the screen real estate enough for playing games like WoW? I currently have a 17" PB and am very happy with the size... I want a 15" MPB because I'd like to be a bit more mobile with my laptop. Do you guys think 15" is enough, can anyone speak from experience, I've never played any kind of games on a 15 incher.

[Yontsey]

are a dl dvd-rw and fw800 important to you?

[tannenhauser]

no not at all. whats important to me is speed and enough screen size for gaming.

[Sketch]

well i am using a 15" MBP and for me it is enough for games like WoW. But for you, may be at the beginning would be difficult to get use to a 15" screen as you are used to a 17". If you upgrade 15" MBP to 2.16 Ghz with 100 GB HDD and 1GB RAM (Graphic card has the same memory-256 MB) it will cost you 2799. And with 17" MBP it is already 2.16 Ghz and has 120 GB HDD and 1 GB ram and cost 2799. So, if you want a bigger screen then go for 17" otherwise go for 15" MBP. But remember that you loose 20 GB of HDD and screen would be bit smaller if you buy a 15".

[Luca]

Whatever you do, you should either get the $1999 MacBook Pro 15" or the 17" MacBook Pro. The $2499 MacBook Pro 15" is a terrible deal. You get hardly anything extra, and it actually costs more to equip it the same as the 17" version ($300 to go from 2.0 to 2.13 GHz, and another $100 to upgrade to the 7200 RPM hard drive like the 17" version, pushing the price up to $2899 for the 15" configured equally to the 17").

[tannenhauser]

thanks for all your input guys but what i am curious about is the screen size and how games pan out on a 15", are they playable? or is there not enough room. i would prefer to buy a 15" purely for the smaller form factor, i have a 17" now and am not really happy with it because its not too too easy to cary around.

[macleod]

How much of your time will be spent playign games? Because portability is a huge factor for me, but I don't play many games. I personally think 15" would be enough. But what really matters is evaluating which is more important to you; some extra screen or some extra portability?

[tannenhauser]

i will be using the MBP for graphic design, internet, and games. in the past ive used a 15" MBP for design and it was fine, there was enough screen estate to work with, ive just never played any kind of games on a 15".

what i want it a 15" but if theres not enough room on it to play a game like WoW then i will have to buy a 17" again... which IMOP is not a very portable laptop which kind of makes me wonder why get a 17" at all when i can get a much cheaper Imac with similar specs.

[tannenhauser]

guys, i think i am a 17" mbp nazi...

[Wrao]

Why not just get a 20+ inch screen for gaming at home. Granted you want to game portably, I can't imagine a situation that would enable you to really dig into many modern games on the go. Especially since most games make heavy use of the mouse in a way a trackpad can't emulate.

[Slilock]

Originally Posted by Luca Whatever you do, you should either get the $1999 MacBook Pro 15" or the 17" MacBook Pro. The $2499 MacBook Pro 15" is a terrible deal. You get hardly anything extra, and it actually costs more to equip it the same as the 17" version ($300 to go from 2.0 to 2.13 GHz, and another $100 to upgrade to the 7200 RPM hard drive like the 17" version, pushing the price up to $2899 for the 15" configured equally to the 17").

Wow! I just did a price comparisson and it is.

[macleod]

Originally Posted by Wrao Why not just get a 20+ inch screen for gaming at home. Granted you want to game portably, I can't imagine a situation that would enable you to really dig into many modern games on the go. Especially since most games make heavy use of the mouse in a way a trackpad can't emulate.

I agree completely. If you get a nice screen for playing at home you get the best of both worlds. And I don't think that the difference between an 15.4" widescreen and a 17" widescreen will kill your enjoyment of gaming that much. I would lean towards the 15" MBP just because of portability advantages.

[tannenhauser]

Originally Posted by MACleod I would lean towards the 15" MBP just because of portability advantages.

exactly what i wanted to hear!!
thank you thank you all

[macleod]

No problem! I am actually waiting for something smaller than the 15" MBP to be released because I don't game much and only use my laptop when I am out and about.

[709]

Originally Posted by Luca Whatever you do, you should either get the $1999 MacBook Pro 15" or the 17" MacBook Pro. The $2499 MacBook Pro 15" is a terrible deal. You get hardly anything extra, ...

Well, you know more about video cards that most others here, so I'd ask if the jump from 128MB to 256MB of RAM on the X1600 would be worth a move to the high-end 15" if he's into gaming (and is set on getting the 15" instead of the 17").

[Luca]

It's not worth it. Most games don't need more than 128 MB of VRAM. And any game that would use more than 128 MB will probably run like crap on an X1600 anyway.

Besides, 128 MB and 256 MB versions of the same card cost basically the same amount of money. There might be a $5-$10 difference, but if the only difference is the amount of VRAM, the cost barely goes up at all. Spending a whopping $500 to get that (as well as a 9% CPU speed improvement, an extra 512 MB of RAM worth $50, and an upgrade to a 100 GB hard drive that is worth at most $50 more than an 80 GB one) is completely insane.

[tannenhauser]

are you guys saying that the mbpros will have X1600 cards when im planing to buy around late summer/september?

[Luca]

I'm just talking about the current MacBook Pro. I don't know what future ones will be like, so I'm not referring to them. Odds are if I make a prediction about when the MBP will be upgraded and which GPU it'll have in that upgrade, I'll be wrong.

In the past, the PowerBook G4 kept the same GPU even when the processor, hard drive, RAM, etc. was upgraded. But who knows? Maybe the next MBP will get something faster than the X1600. We don't know, though.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Luca In the past, the PowerBook G4 kept the same GPU even when the processor, hard drive, RAM, etc. was upgraded.

Well, that was mainly because the PowerBook G4's inner layout was a dead end. The Mobility Radeon 9700 was essentially the only AGP graphics chip that could be fit in there at a reasonable compromise between performance and heat. (The 9800 would have been to hot, the Xx00 series were PCI Express and the X1x00 series didn't even exist yet. And nVidia's mediocrity that is their laptop offerings simply wasn't an option.) Combining the G4 CPU and its bus with PCI Express would have been a nightmare to achieve, so they opted not to.

Just look at how the iMac's GPU "jumped" when they moved to PCI Express. The iMac G4s and G5s had been stuck at nVidia GeForce 4 MXs and GeForce 5200s Ultras, then Radeon 9600s. But the PCI Express-based iSight iMac G5 had a Radeon X600 Pro/XT, and the Core Duo version now uses a Radeon X1600.

Point being: there weren't really any decent GPU options for the PBG4s to get upgraded to, without severe changes to the case design (thicker / better heat dissipation) and the innards (from AGP to PCI Express Graphics). Now there will be. As newer generations of Mobility Radeon cards come out (and hey, maybe some day, nVidia will learn performance isn't everything, but I'm not counting on it), the MBPs will come with them.

[tannenhauser]

is the current imac gpu the same as the mbpros?

[Luca]

The MacBook Pro's X1600 is downclocked in order to generate less heat. I don't see how they could upgrade the GPU if the current one is already really too hot for it. Maybe there will be a newer version of the X1600 that runs cooler at the same speeds, but I can't imagine the MBP will be able to move up a notch in the graphics department anytime soon.

EDIT: tannenhauser - probably, but like I mentioned, the MBP's GPU is running at lower clock speeds. I don't know what speeds the iMac's GPU is running at, but presumably they are higher than the MBP.