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MBP Santa Rosa worth it?

K

kolax

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
9,181
115
I already own a MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo 2.33Ghz, 2GB RAM). I've been given the opportunity to upgrade to the newest model (i.e. Santa Rosa).

I've read various posts dumping the new GeForce graphics chip compared to the ATI one that's in my current Mac. Is this due to the drivers (read various posts saying that) and are they likely to be upgraded soon allowing faster performance?

I'll get a bigger hard drive, faster processor and LED back-lit screen. But, just from some responses I'm unsure whether to upgrade or not.

If you want to know what I'll use my Mac for - I'll be taking it to its limits with audio editting/mixing (apps such as Cubase, Ableton Live, Absynth), and video/photo apps (Final Cut, Apenture etc), along with games on Windies mode.
 
Well my sr-mbp is my first mac, and my first notebook, so i dont really have a good comparison against a computer like yours, however, i have tested some games out on this thing, and here are my results. I find the graphics card to be quite powerful, espessially for a 128mb card (i got the lowest sr-mbp), and it blows my old windows desktop away.

So, World of Warcraft running in OS X, i generally get on most outdoor areas about a minimum of 40 fps, and upwards to 60 or 70. Indoors, if there are lots of other players around, about 60 - 70 fps, and with a moderate population, even up to 90, and of course, in areas where there's not much happening, over 120 fps. Apparently the game runs much better under windows though.

Now, in the windows xp side, i installed 3 games. Half Life 2, Doom 3, and Lord Of The Rings online.

Doom 3, on the Ultra setting (which is as high as it goes, recomended for 512 mb vid cards) and having no AA enabled, i got 73 fps under a timedemo! A friend of mine who has a winddows vista laptop with 256 mb graphics card only got 33, so right there, it shows good performance.

Half Life 2, i ran the Lost Coast stress test on full settings, and got 70 fps, again, not too shabby.

Lord of the Rings online, when i pressed the button to auto detect best settings for my hardware, it put it on very high, with high res textures, lots of effects, and it ran very, very well, even in an area where its known to be slow because of lots of people running around. I dont have an exact frame rate for you because i dont know how to view fps in that game.

So in conclusion, keep in mind this is my opinion, i underestimated this thing. It out performed and exeeded my expectations. Again, i cant compare it vs your current notebook, but for me its very good. So if you have any of those games i mentioned, run them and see what the result is. Just dont run the mac demo of doom 3, didnt run too well for me, but under windows xp, it ran very well.
 
Well, if the oppurtunity requires you to pay more than a couple hunderd dollars, it's not worth it to me. You already have a great laptop, and Santa Rosa won't do you too much unless you really NEED 800mhz FSB, ability to have 4GB or the newer GPU.
 
There would be some improvement in graphics performance that would be likely to increase as Nvidia's drivers for the 8M series improve. The drivers are relatively new when compared to something like the X1600 drivers that have had years to mature and be optimized.

However I don't think that, overall, the performance boost of 0.07GHz in processor speed is going to be noticeable even in benchmarks. If you're pressed for hard drive space and don't want to swap out the hard drive yourself then maybe, but overall its a small speed bump in the line. They're great computers (I'm using one now) but I think upgrading from a 2.33 C2D MBP would be a waste of money. Ultimately its up to you, but I would wait for (at least) the next big revision to come along before upgrading. You aren't missing anything groundbreaking by not having the very latest machine.
 
Cost isn't an issue. The cost of MBP's has dropped, so I'd usually have to pay 10% to get an upgrade, but I can bribe my way into getting it free since it has dropped in neraly £400 ($about $750). Handy having contacts.
 
But its the graphics card I'm concerned about - I don't want to be loosing performance because of poor drivers etc.

Yeah the SR MBP will be faster in specs terms, but real performance differences?
 
even though the drivers are definitely not as good as they could be, the 8600mGT will outperform the x1600 by far!!!
 
the hi-res (1920x1200) screens made it worth it.

also, the fact that the nvidia's graphics card have DirectX 10 capabilities also made it very attractive for me.
 
Kilamite said:
But its the graphics card I'm concerned about - I don't want to be loosing performance because of poor drivers etc.

Yeah the SR MBP will be faster in specs terms, but real performance differences?
Click to expand...

The 8600M GT already beats the X1600 just by pure brute force of computational power and its performance can only go up as more optimized drivers are released.
 
Sbrocket said:
The 8600M GT already beats the X1600 just by pure brute force of computational power and its performance can only go up as more optimized drivers are released.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Barefeats had an article a couple weeks back where they pitted a 2.4 SR against a 2.33 (and a 2.16) C2D and the difference in timedemos on the existing drivers was eye-opening. Something like 48fps on Quake 4 timedemo to the 2.33 C2D's 30fps?

I have both right now, a 2.4 SR and a 2.33 C2D. Problem is, while I own the C2D, the SR is owned by my employer. Dammit. :mad: Hopefully they'll have a Rev B by Christmastime and I'll have to pick one up for tax purposes. :D

Go for it, yes, the drivers aren't that good right now but they WILL get better. And as it stands the 8600M spanks the X1600 in performance. It's the only reason why I want a SR of my own.
 
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