MBP upgrade ssd or 7200?

PU7E · 20 May 2011 at 21:04

My nice shiny 13" 2011 MBP arrived this morning and although it eats hypersamples for breakfast I'm looking to speed it up a little in games (Eve & WoW) it's smooth most of the time, but has some occasional lag and the current hdd can't be helping much.

Would a 7200 drive something like the wd black, get rid of most of the occasional lag, or am I better off waiting to afford a decent size (120+) ssd?

Dewotter · 20 May 2011 at 21:11

I've used both 5,400 and 7,200 drives and there isn't any real notice to be had in anything.

pingwing · 20 May 2011 at 22:35

SSD, turned my 09 mbp from a fast but slightly ageing laptop (c2d probably wasnt the best choice and I could have waited till i5) into a bit of a beast!

theheyes · 20 May 2011 at 22:53

SSD, but I'm not convinced the hard drive is the root cause of your gaming issues. It would be way down my list of suspects. Just try turning your graphics settings down a little.

Brian8bit · 20 May 2011 at 23:06

LOL @ gaming on the Intel integrated graphics. I can just about play WoW @ 1280x800 on the 320m with all settings down low.

Dewotter · 21 May 2011 at 02:23

Brian8bit said:
LOL @ gaming on the Intel integrated graphics. I can just about play WoW @ 1280x800 on the 320m with all settings down low.

TF2 runs surprisingly well on mine.

Brian8bit · 21 May 2011 at 03:01

RKO said:
TF2 runs surprisingly well on mine.

Source games will depending on title. TF2 being one of the less demanding ones.

PU7E · 21 May 2011 at 03:19

RKO said:
I've used both 5,400 and 7,200 drives and there isn't any real notice to be had in anything.

What sort of things were you using to compare the two?

theheyes said:
SSD, but I'm not convinced the hard drive is the root cause of your gaming issues. It would be way down my list of suspects. Just try turning your graphics settings down a little.

I'm leaning towards the hdd as it's very smooth when I'm not around other players but has the slight judder when I enter a new map chunk with a considerable amount of players in it, I've dropped the settings down and it's still very similar in the same circumstances.

Brian8bit said:
LOL @ gaming on the Intel integrated graphics. I can just about play WoW @ 1280x800 on the 320m with all settings down low.

The HD3000 is surprisingly good on both WoW and Eve, It easily hits a silky smooth 60fps anywhere there's not many other players running on fair (no shadows) with good view distance flying at 310% and for a laptop fair looks pretty dam nice at that res.