fahdriyami

Ok, so im going to buy a MacBook and im stuck between the MacBook 13" Aluminum Unibody or the MacBook Pro 15" Aluminum Unibody.

I prefer the MacBook 13" because of its smaller form factor and i dont like the looks of the speakers on the MacBook Pro, but the MBP comes with a faster processor and a discrete VGA (9600M GT).

Any idea's on what i should go for?

I also wanted to ask about Flight Simulator X's performance on a 9400M (MB 13").

Keep in mind that I REALLY WOULD PREFER the MB because its more portable and looks better , and advising me to buy a PC instead wont work because i need an Apple MacBook for the college im going to.

Oh and 1 more think, please take price into consideration, and if the MBP is actually worth the extra money.

Thanks.

UnAimed

I am writing this from my macbook pro unibody 15'' right now
Performance wise I am running windows and I can play all the latest games medium to high graphics easily. Such as Mirrors Edge with Physx enabled.
Also I have World of Warcraft installed on the Mac partition and With the 9600M GT with all settings maxed out I get around 50-60 fps and with the 9400M GT I get 30-40FPS I have the medicore version 512mb GDDR3 9600m GT, 4GB DDR3 ram and the 2.53Ghz dual core processor. On the mac partiton I mostly always use the 9400m GT because it is a real battery saver and performs exellent. I say if you are looking for superb performance and you are a power user that plays games go for the macbook pro. But if you don't play many games and wan't the smaller practical macbook go for that. Hope I helped and sorry for the spelling

Edit. And I can play FSX very well on High graphics I don't know the FPS that I get but I see no lag at all.

fahdriyami

Thanks, but do you mean that FSX plays well with the 9400M or the 9600M? Oh and does Hybrid SLI work?

oobe

they dont make any games for a mac, you need a pc to play games.

joking aside, i am typing this from my 13" MB Aluminum unibody and i absolutely love it. Small, thin, light, portable, roughly 4-5hr's battery life when using it for normal tasks. However i doubt that the 9400M graphics are going to play many games extremely well. You will need to bootcamp windows to get the best performance gain for games anyway, however if you really want to be able to play games i'de suggest going with the MBP because of the 9600M GT and the faster CPU.

__________________
CPU-Z Validation

trogalicious

I'll join in with the others recommending the MBP if you want more performance. You basically answered your own questions though... the 13 is better for more portability, the 15 for more power.

I can't imagine a school that would require someone to purchase a macbook though...

__________________

fahdriyami

Lucky you! The thing is, ive watched video's on YouTube of the MB playing games like GTA4 and Crysis pretty smoothly, no doubt on low settings but still seem to fulfill my gaming needs on a laptop, games im planning to run are games such as The Sims 3, and mainly FSX, and because FSX is mostly a CPU dependent/intensive game, im not too worried about the graphics...
Oh and i'll be running Windows 7 on it.

fahdriyami

LOL, the college is focused on design and ALL, literally ALL the computers in it are Macs, thats why...

trogalicious

Right, but making a student buy a mac is a different story.

I live near one of the bigger photography programs on the east coast.. and for sure one of the largest in NC... but there is no requirement to purchase a mac. Maybe a recommendation not not a requirement.

__________________

fahdriyami

They give you the option but it would be the students loss due to the compatibility issues...i didnt say it was a "requirement" but i myself would rather not have to go through compatibility issues...but thanks anyways for your advice

trogalicious

Do they have labs available? If that's the case, get the machine you want and then just use the available labs. It'd save you from buying a separate machine AND software to go along with it. What school is this?

__________________