13" 2011 MBP 8GB - Benchmarks

[Risasi]

I've spent the last 45 minutes searching all over the place for this answer...google is not my friend today.

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I was trying to locate 3DMark benchmarks and/or real world user reports of how the 13" 2011 MBP performs when it has 8GB of memory vs 4GB of memory. When the laptop has installed 4GB of memory the GPU has 384MB dedicated, when the system has 8GB available it dedicates 512MB of memory. I'm wondering if it offers any significant improvement when gaming. Likewise I'm wondering how those benchmarks look in comparison to the base 15" MBP, which only has 256MB of memory. I could see it making a bit of a different for certain effects and higher texture count etc.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

All the video memory in the world won't help if you have a sucky GPU. You could give the Intel crap in the 13" 8GM of VRAM, but the 256MB Radeon chip in the base model 15" would kick its' ass any day. The extra RAM will make negligible difference in gaming, if you want to do some decent gaming, you don't want the current 13" MBP.

 

[Killery96]

I've spent the last 45 minutes searching all over the place for this answer...google is not my friend today.

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I was trying to locate 3DMark benchmarks and/or real world user reports of how the 13" 2011 MBP performs when it has 8GB of memory vs 4GB of memory. When the laptop has installed 4GB of memory the GPU has 384MB dedicated, when the system has 8GB available it dedicates 512MB of memory. I'm wondering if it offers any significant improvement when gaming. Likewise I'm wondering how those benchmarks look in comparison to the base 15" MBP, which only has 256MB of memory. I could see it making a bit of a different for certain effects and higher texture count etc.

The HD3000 is supposed to be a downgrade from the nvidia 320m. It saves power. Something below 200mb of VRAM probably won't make a difference, esp. since that CPU isn't very high-clocked. You should look for an Nvidia 320m 256mb benchmark, and go from there, a little above or a little below, depending on context. Apple's computers are balanced, wonderful, and don't have the plethora of problems that Windows computers do. But don't hold too many expectations for them...

 

[Risasi]

Yeah, as I expected. I could see where it might help run some higher textures and details at the same framerate as lower details with less memory. But then I read someone who stated that it's dynamic, like of like the turbocache days and will dedicate more too it.

And no, I don't really game. It was more of a curiosity, because I'm seeing a lot of games requiring 256MB of VRAM as minimum. So, it got me to think perhaps, just perhaps a 13" MBP could eek out a win over the base 15" MBP with the 6490M chipset. Plus then I could better rationalize upgrading from 4GB to 8GB of memory.

I only play Rome TW and Medieval 2 TW with some mods and would eventually like to play Shogun 2, but will probably just wait until next year for the new MBP and upgrade then.

 

[cluthz]

Yeah, as I expected. I could see where it might help run some higher textures and details at the same framerate as lower details with less memory. But then I read someone who stated that it's dynamic, like of like the turbocache days and will dedicate more too it.

And no, I don't really game. It was more of a curiosity, because I'm seeing a lot of games requiring 256MB of VRAM as minimum. So, it got me to think perhaps, just perhaps a 13" MBP could eek out a win over the base 15" MBP with the 6490M chipset. Plus then I could better rationalize upgrading from 4GB to 8GB of memory.

I only play Rome TW and Medieval 2 TW with some mods and would eventually like to play Shogun 2, but will probably just wait until next year for the new MBP and upgrade then.

Higher textures = more bandwidth needed, bandwidth the IntelHD does not have.
And no, it will never be close to 6490m, remember when a real gfx card needs more vram, it gets it from ram.
My 2010 MBP with 256MB VRAM was reported as having 1200MB or something in windows, because It cal so counts RAM available to use for the graphics.