New MBA = Worse Gaming?

[ccs569]

A potentially naive question: How are people arguing that the new MBA's with SB & HD3000 going to be significantly worse for gaming than the current MBA's with 320M?

Using the MBP 13", which seems the most logical comparison, the performance running SC2 on Medium settings on OS X seemed to improve with the switch:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4205/the-macbook-pro-review-13-and-15-inch-2011-brings-sandy-bridge/8

I understand that the MBA will likely use a lower powered processor, but wouldnt that be the case for the current MBA C2D as well?

Any insight would be appreciated...

 

[racketeer71]

There's a lot of threads about this already.

No new insights will be provided in this one.

 

[ccs569]

understood. But there seems to be considerable disagreement on the matter...

 

[Davidkoh]

A potentially naive question: How are people arguing that the new MBA's with SB & HD3000 going to be significantly worse for gaming than the current MBA's with 320M?

Using the MBP 13", which seems the most logical comparison, the performance running SC2 on Medium settings on OS X seemed to improve with the switch:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4205/the-macbook-pro-review-13-and-15-inch-2011-brings-sandy-bridge/8

I understand that the MBA will likely use a lower powered processor, but wouldnt that be the case for the current MBA C2D as well?

Any insight would be appreciated...

Anandtech is one of the only sites which reports a gain in performance. I would therefore question their validity. Although performance under OS X seems to be cut by a lot on the 320m.

 

[FX4568]

A potentially naive question: How are people arguing that the new MBA's with SB & HD3000 going to be significantly worse for gaming than the current MBA's with 320M?

Using the MBP 13", which seems the most logical comparison, the performance running SC2 on Medium settings on OS X seemed to improve with the switch:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4205/the-macbook-pro-review-13-and-15-inch-2011-brings-sandy-bridge/8

I understand that the MBA will likely use a lower powered processor, but wouldnt that be the case for the current MBA C2D as well?

Any insight would be appreciated...

Its called "voltage"
r

 

[Cali3350]

It will likely depend on the game and the OS. In Windows you can pretty much make the blanket statement that the 320M is better. In OSX its a more difficult situation. In A CPU driven game like Starcraft 2 (it can look pretty, but it loves it some CPU) you will see a good increase in framerate with a more powerful CPU, even if that comes at the expense of the GPU. In a game where the CPU just doesnt matter (Modern Warfare for instance) then the GPU is all that matters, and the more powerful 320M will stretch its legs.

 

[Yinmay]

Yes.

The 2011 MB Pro 13 under Windows 7 64 bits pushes lower FPS on average than the 2010 MBA 13.
There's no way the 2011 MBA with a lower voltage CPU would perform better than the 2011 MBP 13.

 

[Xgm541]

again, under osx the intel hd 3000 will have an increase in performance because nvidia drivers are crap.

under windows however youll see a drop in fps with the new intel chip.

 

[striker33]

Been posted sooooooooooo many times before.

Bottom line is simple:

Windows = crap
OS X = arguably better than the 320m

Unless you plan on installing games and applications to an external HDD anyway then the MBA is irellevant for Windows gaming unless you splash out on a 13" with a 256gb SSD upgrade. Playing games with USB 2.0 limitations is generally painful anyway to say the least.

Unless you only want to play WoW/Starcraft and the few Valve engine games then this year's, and most likely any other Intel MBA release, is going to be pointless for gamers, due to the indications that Intel are most likely going to continue using their own IGP's for their processors.

If you want to play Crysis and Battlefield on low settings then go for a M11X.

 

[Duke15]

No one can give a definite answer, as the product has not been released yet. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

[CubeHacker]

It really depends on the game. I can say from extensive testing that in a game like WoW, the HD3000 will provide about similar framerates compared to the 320M with the same settings. This is comparing a 13" Air to a 13" MBP.

Of course, if you think about it, the 13" MBP has a CPU thats almost 2x faster compared to the C2D in the Air. That just goes to show how much faster the 320M is compared to the HD3000, since in the end they both manage to have the same framerates.