Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Hardware, Macbook Pro, MacBook, Mac Pro
Benchmarking the new MacBook Pros
I'm the new guy on staff here at TUAW, and from what I've been told, I get to lay claim to something none of these other guys want to: I'm a die-hard gamer, and while playing games on a Mac might be like performing Shakespeare in Russian, I do it as much as I can (the play games on the Mac thing, not the Russian thing).So you can expect to hear about more stuff like this: the good folks over at Bare Feats ran the new MacBook Pros (with the Santa Rosa chipset) through the benchmarking gears and found what you might expect: they're pretty darn fast. Not quite as fast as the Mac Pro with a Radeon X1900 XT in the video card slot, but the new MBP did beat out the quad core Mac Pro running with the Geforce 7300 GT in 4 of the 5 tests they did-- gaming like that on a laptop is very, very nice.
The new MacBook didn't fare quite as well-- the integrated video chip in that one, says Bare Feats, is "un-optimized" for 3D, even if it's fine for movie playback. Unfortunately, none of the Apple rigs tested come even close to Alienware's standard PC box (the Mac Pro ran at 83 fps on Quake 4, and the Area-51 7500 ran at... ummm... 135.7), but if you, like me, want to frag a few noobs in between, y'know, working with a UI that actually makes sense, the new MacBook Pro will do you right.
[ via Inside Mac Games ]
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Perry said 9:30AM on 6-08-2007
I still like Boot Camp (or Parallels now that 3d support is added) for demanding games. Plus you can play games that are not out on the Mac - Oblivion, Half Life 2, Galactic Civ's, etc.
Reply
Joe said 9:42AM on 6-08-2007
Looks like the 2.33 C2D iMac fared better in every test it was included in. Considering that the iMacs are basically built with laptop components, I find it interesting that the new models can't beat the aging iMacs - and a testament to how strong the current iMac lineup is, despite the complaints that it needs a refresh.
Granted, I'm a bit biased since I bought that iMac (with 256MB video RAM) three months ago. I really should try gaming on it.
Reply
AMH said 9:44AM on 6-08-2007
Hey, Mike, good to see you here -- being a mac user bumps you up automatically in my book :) Will you still be blogging over at wowinsider?
-- one of the wow_ladies ladies who doesn't hold a grudge
Reply
Brandon Hays said 1:05PM on 6-10-2007
I have a lot of respect for the hardcore Mac gamers, and it warms my heart to see them press on. As a young switcher, I used to read IMG back when they were imgmagazine.com, and back when Bungie was a Mac developer. I defended the Mac as a gaming platform when dozens of my friends sent me the Gus Sorola "Switch" parody.
But I have to say, these past few years have been enough to convince me to become a console gamer. Unless Apple makes a huge push with Leopard to compete with DirectX, it's truly a lost cause.
Reply
Brian said 10:31AM on 6-08-2007
Mike, I like you already! I would like more dirt on the mac gaming scene, so bring it on!
Here's to hoping I can save up for one of these bad boys in the next few months, my PB12, lovely as it is, just doesn't cut it (except for StarCraft LOL)
Reply
Mike Schramm said 10:36AM on 6-08-2007
Yup, AMH, I'm going to try to be in both places at once, wish me luck :)
Reply
Barry said 11:23AM on 6-08-2007
I don't understand this obsession with game frame rates. Any computer monitor is being refreshed by the video hardware at somewhere between 60 and 75 fps -- check your Display preferences. All these extra frames being generated by games are simply not being displayed. What good does a frame rate of 135 fps do if half of them are being thrown away?
Reply
Peter said 4:21PM on 6-08-2007
So, has anyone generated Quake 4 benchmarks on the new MBP running in Parallels on Windows? I'd be curious...
Reply
Chris Gardner said 12:03PM on 6-08-2007
Great to see. I've been a longtime PC user (Windows and Linux) and just started using Mac OS seriously. I also am an avid gamer (I keep a PC rig for gaming ATM). Benchmarks are always helpful.
Could you do a comparison in performance between running games in Bootcamp and the new Parallels 3? I know it'll be slower, but how much slower is the question.
"I don't understand this obsession with game frame rates. Any computer monitor is being refreshed by the video hardware at somewhere between 60 and 75 fps -- check your Display preferences."
Unless you're running with details way down (or a very old game) you're never going to get a consistent 60 or 75 (or 135 for that matter). It's going to bounce around. If your top fps is 60, it could very well bog down to 30 or less when a lot's going on. The goal is to get it high enough that it never dips below the refresh of the monitor.
Reply
Joe said 1:08PM on 6-08-2007
In addition to Chris's answer, I'll add that frame rates above the refresh rate of today's monitors for today's games give us some additional time in our updgrade cycles. If you can get 135fps today, then tomorrow's games may still be able to eek out an acceptable 75fps. If a comparison concluded that all of the subjects exceeded the capabilities of the display, then you wouldn't have anything new to base a purchase decision on.
Reply
ShaleX said 2:59PM on 6-08-2007
Dear God... I knew my MacBook was bad t games, but i didn't realize it'd be THAT bad! 5 FPS? And that was the fast 2.16 ghz model... though considering the bottleneck is the video card, i doubt there is any difference..
Reply
Noshtzy said 7:07PM on 6-08-2007
What I don't understand is WHY the iMac scored faster. I have a 24-inch iMac with the 7600 which I migrated to when the first gen MacBook Pros had so many problems. With this new MBP update, I'm ready to go back, but I just don't see how the MBP doesn't outperform the iMac when all of it's specs are better.
Reply
bothaus said 5:53PM on 6-10-2007
You'd see similar frames if you ran the games in windows as the Alienware system did. I easily get 20-30 frames more in XP than OS X. I strip out the boot camp video drivers for catalyst. THAT makes a huge difference. My macbook pro 2.33 benched only a few points below the ALienware m5550 in PCmark05. Mac games are dead if the developers don't step up and optimize. It's disgusting.
Call of Duty series is the only exception I've seen so far.
Reply