Macbook refresh rumours....?

There's not a great deal in it:

"Starcraft 2

At high graphics details (1366x768, high) just 13.1 fps are possible in our test. This does not suffice a smooth game play. Nevertheless, the GPU still ranks in front of the G310M graphics from Nvidia (12 fps) and falls only slightly behind the Geforce 320M (15 fps)."

"Resident Evil 5

The Intel graphics delivers 20.9 fps on average at high graphics settings (1366x768, DX10, high) and is placed on a level of the Geforce 320M or slightly above the G 210M in our ranking."
 
ninja2000 said:
Although the 320m was integrated, its still a great card. I can play COD BO, SC2, MOH 2010, DOW2 all at native res and with decent frame rates.
I would put money on the new intel gfx wont touch it for performance.
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Well after a google it seems most sites reckon they're very much on a par...how much money do you want to put on it?
 
Only thing I'm disappointed with on the 13inch is that the screen res doesn't seem to have been bumped up to match the Air :(
 
Looking at the 15" MBP now..

[X] 2.2GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7
[ ] 2.3GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 [+ £200.00]

lol. :D
 
Ev0 said:
Only thing I'm disappointed with on the 13inch is that the screen res doesn't seem to have been bumped up to match the Air :(
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Indeed, fair criticism, I'd have expected that to be brought in line...

That aside, price is not brilliant but not extravagant, battery is probably as before (and if seven hours is seven hours that's good enough). Faster processors (including the little mentioned i7 dual core for the 13") are nice too.

While the 13" is the big seller for people here it seems, the 15 and 17 are what I want, I've waited a long time for a quad core macbook pro and a top of the range 15" is only a few days away for me now...
 
If the Intel 3000HD can indeed play 1080p at high bitrates without playback suffering, I'll still be buying one. My disappointment was levied at those saying OS X struggles to play back HD content using GPU acceleration, which these days simply isn't acceptable.

Apple's own site virtually glosses over the integrated gfx (and the 13" generally), saying only it's suited to 'everyday' tasks and that for anything requiring grunt, one has to get the 15"+ with discrete gfx. They do say, however, that the 13" can "play DVD video".

When you're looking at a manufacturer's site in hopes of buying the latest and greatest, surely you can understand how that comes across as... underwhelming?

As I said earlier though, I'll be along to the Apple store tomorrow to give it a good test. I'm nothing if not fair. :D
 
LordSplodge said:
Wow. Whole load of hate.

The new MacBook Pros are better than the old ones. Why the hate?
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It wasn't hate, it was incredulity. Big difference. At least in my posts, I can't speak for anyone else. :) Getting told the £1,000 laptop you're looking to buy can't play movies is pretty shocking believe it or not. :p

If those people were wrong, and the new 13" plays my 1080p sample flawlessly tomorrow without exploding or at 1fps, then I shall be getting one. No hate here!
 
Rather glad I decided not to wait and bought my 15" 2.8 i7 last month, looking at this. Not that I'd have nessesarily been disappointed with the refresh models, but they certainly don't offer anything that makes me wish I'd waited even slightly.
 
Rainmaker said:
It wasn't hate, it was incredulity. Big difference. At least in my posts, I can't speak for anyone else. :) Getting told the £1,000 laptop you're looking to buy can't play movies is pretty shocking believe it or not. :p

If those people were wrong, and the new 13" plays my 1080p sample flawlessly tomorrow without exploding or at 1fps, then I shall be getting one. No hate here!
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My 18 month old work Dell Latitude with a core 2 duo 2.26 and integrated graphics plays every 1080p file I've ever thrown at it, I think somehow it might just about manage. Unless you're expecting to throw prores style bitrates at it, in which case your on your own, because that's just silly...
 
bigredshark said:
My 18 month old work Dell Latitude with a core 2 duo 2.26 and integrated graphics plays every 1080p file I've ever thrown at it, I think somehow it might just about manage. Unless you're expecting to throw prores style bitrates at it, in which case your on your own, because that's just silly...
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No, as I said earlier in the thread I won't be expecting it to play 50Mbps Blu-Ray image files, just 10-15GB 1080p (up to 15Mbps) video. As I also said earlier, I couldn't imagine Apple selling Pro laptops unable to even use iMovie and QuickTime properly, but according to earlier posts from others OS X struggles with this due to its software constraints not the underlying hardware.

How does your MBP compare at playing HD movies? I'm more interested in that than how your old Dell copes. :D
 
Damn was really hoping for a resolution bump on the 13". To be fair all of them need to go up a notch, 1680x1050 I'd prefer at 13" :(.

Think I'll wait until the AMD Fusion netbooks appear and go with that instead :(.
 
Rainmaker said:
No, as I said earlier in the thread I won't be expecting it to play 50Mbps Blu-Ray image files, just 10-15GB 1080p (up to 15Mbps) video. As I also said earlier, I couldn't imagine Apple selling Pro laptops unable to even use iMovie and QuickTime properly, but according to earlier posts from others OS X struggles with this due to its software constraints not the underlying hardware.

How does your MBP compare at playing HD movies? I'm more interested in that than how your old Dell copes. :D
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My macbook pro (2.26, 9400m, 4GB, 160GB SSD) has played every video file I've ever chucked in it's direction without complaint. From a brief glance my largest HD file on my NAS is a 13GB rip...so it should be fine. I hear VLC can stutter a bit but I don't use so can't accurately say. My old mac mini (1.83 / 2GB) managed almost flawlessly playing 1080p in plex.

How it'd cope with other apps open or the like I couldn't say right now (at work, NAS at home with films) and the codec will matter (x264 will obviously work better). In general though, I really don't understand what people are doing if they can't play 1080p on the latest few generations of macbook pro, I've never had a problem.
 
The move to quad core isn't to be sneezed at. Saying that, I don't think most people (me included) would be doing enough of the kind of work where it'd shine.
 
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