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shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007
Any hard drive recommendations for a 2011 MBP? I need to be able to run a Win7 VM and it beach-balls like crazy while the VM is on (I guess due to swapping choking the 5400rpm drive). Would a Momentus XT make a noticeable difference? Or should I upgrade to 8 gigs of ram instead?

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shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

japtor posted:

Keep track of this MacRumors thread I guess: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1193637
Looks like some people have gotten it working but the cursor turns into a frozen beachball or something. I guess you might basically be using it as a semi hackintosh, especially if you get the 6630m model (...there's also new Bluetooth to watch out for too).

You can run 10.6 in a VM, albeit the licensing only allows the Server version, so for client you'd need to do some simple hacking from what I've heard. No clue whether or not it'll have the performance you need. Does your old version of Final Cut not work in Lion for sure?

If you're swapping for sure upgrade the RAM first. How much do you have now and how much are you giving the VM? The Momentus XT won't help if you're swapping, but general performance should improve a bit just from being a 7200rpm drive.

I'm at 4 gig worth of ram. Would bumping to 8 make a huge difference? I'm assigning 4 cores and 2 gigs of ram to the VM.

quote:

If you can afford it, an SSD will make VMs scream.

I'd need a huge 512GB SSD to satisfy my storage needs and I can't afford to sell my kidney yet :/.

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

wolffenstein posted:

You could buy a small SSD, place only the VM on it, and save your Windows documents outside the VM. Fusion and Parallels both offer that functionality. It's also a very good idea in case if your VM gets corrupted; your documents would be safe and could be backed up by Time Machine.


I'm actually virtualizing my bootcamp partition so it needs to be on the same drive as my main osx partition I guess. On top of that, I'd like to avoid removing the dvd drive and swapping it with an optibay if I can get acceptable performance from the system by either upgrading the main storage and/or ram.

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

japtor posted:

Yeah it'd probably help, again assuming you're swapping. And does the VM need 4 cores? If not I've heard using extra cores can be detrimental to performance, so try maybe 1-2 out (...although since it's running off the BC partition I wonder if it'd mess with the Windows activation). Otherwise the kidney money for SSD may be the way to go, ~$400 for 256GB if that's big enough. I'm sure your kidney is worth much more!

Well I am using the VM for development. The reason it's my bootcamp partition though is that I still wanna be able to game on that fancy 6750m.

Unfortunately 256GB is too little for me to work with...my previous machine, a Vaio Z with the 128GB SSD and a secondary 340GB HDD was practically full. And I didn't even have an OSX partition on that!

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

Kilted Yaksman posted:

What graphics setting was this on? And what framerate do you get? I'm thinking about getting a new 13" and I'm trying to decide between the new MBA, or waiting to see if the 13" MBP gets better graphics in the next refresh.

I seriously doubt that we'll be seeing anything else than Intel IGPs on the lower end Macbooks for the foreseable future...

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

Space Racist posted:

I like how as soon as the whitebook gets axed, the "will it die?" speculation immediately shifts to the 13" MBP. :v:

It's pretty fair. The differentiators between the 13" MBP and the 13" MBA are the optical drive and storage. The MBA might actually be faster for most things due to the SSD. Product line-wise the stock MBP doesn't make much sense any more...

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

You Am I posted:

You also forget the MBP has an ethernet port and firewire (although I expect FW to go bye-byes with the next refresh if the new Apple Cinema Displays are anything to go by). I much prefer my 13" MBP over an Air, from both an upgradeability point of view as well as having an ethernet port in it, which is great for work.

Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer the MBP too. I just don't see the small differences in connectivity being a major differentiator (Apple can always say "screw it" and bundle some sort of dongle with Air that provides ethernet connectivity. Besides, most consumers don't really care about that).

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

DEUCE SLUICE posted:

Thunderbolt is going to replace FW and ethernet on all Apple portables at the next refresh, and the optical drive will go as well. The 13" Pro goes away while the 15" and 17" become airs. Book it.

While Apple still entertains the notion of catering to professionals (or Pro-sumers) I doubt that they would completely kill off discrete GPUs. Tons of professional software solutions (particularly in content creation) have been shifting to GPU acceleration.

However, I wouldn't mind at all a 4 pound 15" notebook with a discrete GPU with MBA thickness. Once you go over 11", I feel that portability is defined much more by weight and less by surface area.

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007
I assume that this memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139481

will work fine with a 2011 MBP?

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

MrEnigma posted:

It will, just won't run as fast as it could (the sandy bridge chips can run at 1066 or 1333) -- In actual usage this isn't going to matter.

Also, I posted this last page, but it's faster and chapter:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231342

Also, I saw the page said I was supposed to get the flash drive, but it wasn't added to my order. In talking to the live chat person, she said I can contact them when the flash drives come back in stock, and I'll get them.

I just bought these, they should show up in a couple of days.

Also it was interesitng to see that there are no 8GB SODIMMS out there...Is this due to lack of high-density chips or what?

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

MEET ME BY DUCKS posted:

yeah, that's my dilemma. 15 inches is big, but I don't think I could use a laptop for hours upon hours of research and writing without that hi-res screen. I'm also guessing the higher-end one is recommended if I want to do any sort of light gaming on it. of course buying a MBP for gaming is sort of sickening, but I don't think I can justify/afford building a new PC any time soon, and I need a laptop.

Honestly I don't find my 15" MBP much less portable than my previous 13" Vaio. Carrying around an extra pound is not that bad plus I think the power brick is actually smaller.

e: Concerning gaming, the 6750m MBP is pretty decent. I finished Crysis 2 on it for what it's worth at native res and it was very enjoyable.


quote:

also what's the verdict on SSD or no SSD? I have an external drive so I could get away with the small size, but is it worth it?

Whatever you do, don't get the 5400RPM hdd. OSX is not bad but windows performance (particularly time after boot-up until the system is actually useful) is pretty nasty. SSD would be boss but I couldn't get nearly enough storage for the money I could afford to pay...

shodanjr_gr fucked around with this message at 10:58 on Aug 5, 2011

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

On Unicornback posted:

So would an Intel Single Core/Core Duo mac mini be sufficient as far as future compatibility? I'm most worried about the latest iTunes at some point needing Lion or something B(

Aren't the first-gen mac minis 32 bit? Doesn't lion require 64 bit procs?

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

movax posted:

poo poo I'd just be happy to have an option that lets me boot into Windows with only the Intel or Discrete video selected. Former for when I'm not gaming, latter for when I am gaming.

Yes please...honestly when I was looking for a performant laptop, there wasn't much out there at 15" that was portable, had a decent GPU AND didn't feel crapilly built (closest I got was the Alienware M14x but OMG LEDS and space-age design, and it was still less portable than an MBP). Yes I did buy an MBP to use it primarily as a Win7 machine.

The thing is, Apple is being assholic on purpose. There have been some folks out there trying to hack switchable graphics drivers on the MBP but as it turns out, Apple disables the iGPU through UEFI on boot time. There's some way to get it to show up by a weird suspend-resume hack while in windows, but I don't think that anything concrete has come out yet...

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

Colonel Pancreas posted:

I play on a desk; I think I'm just worried about making the graphics card work hard for 3 or 4 hours at a time. Is that unnecessary paranoia on my part, as long as the ventilation isn't obstructed and I don't live in a sweat lodge?

Having done significant amounts of gaming on my MBP, I think you are overreacting.

Honestly, this whole "cooling stand" fad is a sad testament to the lovely quality/design of generic gaming laptops...

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007
I suppose that the driver situation for bootcamp is still the same as it was a year ago? Graphics switching still doesn't work and neither does Native Command Queuing for the HDD?

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007
Got an 11" Haswell Air. While I look comical holding this thing as a 6'3" person, it is just so freaking portable and quite powerful.

Still trying to nail down what the actual battery life is, I've been abusing the hell out of it in the past couple of days so I don't expect that reading to be super accurate.

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007
Any trip reports on using Mavericks on a Haswell air w.r.t. battery life?

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

flavor posted:

As for the CPU, I'm not so much just watching for speed, but also for the fact that the i7 has hyperthreading and can make background processing even less disruptive.

Pretty sure the Haswell i5s in the MBAs got hyper threading.

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

tonic posted:

Aren't i7s true 4 core processor (8 via HT) and i5s 2 core (4 via HT)? This how the desktop CPUs used to run, but maybe things have changed.

No you can get dual-core i7s. I think the ones in the air are clocked higher (and maybe more cache?). There should be an impact to battery life though...

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007
e: never mind

shodanjr_gr fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Jun 27, 2013

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007
So I've had my haswell 11" air for a few weeks now and I don't think that I"m observing the expected battery life that I've read about. It's good but it's not 9 hours good. I don't do "heavy usage" either. Web browsing/videos, 1 account synced on Mail (IMAP), skydrive and skype running. Also I'm noticing that it seems to run down the battery a bit fast when in standby (even with power nap off).

Should I take it to the fruit stand?

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

rufius posted:

What's the specs on it? With the i7, I didn't see the battery life reported but with the i5 I've had good luck.

It's the base i5. Skydrive goes mental when syncing but generally it behaves when there's nothing to pull from the cloud...

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

Selklubber posted:

I just called Apple and they gave me the gift card! I bought my Air 11.5. :toot:
Are the OS upgrades sold in the app store and how much do they usually cost?

When did your receive your mac? I bought mine June 13th from a retail store and they wouldn't give it to me, saying that there's a 14 day window from the day of receiving the product.

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007
Any suggestions for a small and "flat" bluetooth gamepad with OSX compatibility? I know that optimally I'd use a PS3 pad but I'd like something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...&pf_rd_i=507846

that is kind of easier to fit inside a small bag (I got a Booq mamba 11).

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

flavor posted:

This is one of those ideas that is so glaringly obvious that I've been wondering for years why this hasn't been standard since tabbed browsers appeared in 2003 or so. Particularly on laptops.

Because the very rapid processor power state changes that enable the actually savings from such techniques didn't only come around till recently.

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007
So the 13" is using Iris 5100 and 15" is using the Crystalwell (HD 5200)?

Goddamn I want a 13" so bad I need the graphics performance of the 5200...

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

kuskus posted:

I'm sure those holding onto 8 or 12-core aluminum Mac Pros are just clutching them in their hands ever so dearly.
This is truly the voice of someone who can't afford it, but- $3K for a quad-core CPU with 12GB of RAM? My ability to grok this has dissolved completely. Seems like the minimum purchase is somewhere around $4.5-5K. 12GB of RAM is a joke, 256GB (or a single drive for that matter) is a joke. I guess the only thing that isn't is the GPUs. So 50% of the price is workstation graphics, right? And a very specific, non-replacable choice at that. And I'm sure it will be a very long time until Thunderbolt 1 or 2 graphics is anything close to a "standard".

Pretty sure you can upgrade the RAM yourself so it wouldn't make sense to order it fully-speced directly...

Do we know what's the corresponding retail model for the GPUs?

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

eames posted:

Somebody over at ars posted this:


The D500 might be custom silicone. :iiam:

Given this, I don't see how the MP is expensive...Even if you are getting 20% off retail for the GPUs you are still looking at $1400 just for the graphics.

Any work-station class chassis with a XEON CPU is going to run you at least $1k. And this is 1/8th of the size, much more quite and has solid state storage.

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

dino. posted:

You speak SO MUCH truth. The 15 inch macbook pro retina is heavier than it looks.

Plus, from a hardware perspective, the base 15" rMBP does not make a lot of sense.

Less storage than the 13" (too little, at least for me), same amount of RAM and it costs $200 more. Of course it is a quad core machine but I don't think that a ton of folks would realize the performance benefits...

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

All of my local Apple Stores are showing stock for the new rMBPs. :ohdear:

I'm so tempted!

Picked up the 13" with 8GB of RAM and the 512 SSD from mine today :).

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

Thauros posted:

Alright, my last laptop question.

I've narrowed it down to either a refurb 2012 13" Retina at $1059 or a new one upgraded to 8 GB of RAM which would be $1289 with the education discount.

Are there any reviews with a head to head comparison? The Iris Pro seems to definitely be a notable upgrade, but that's a little more than I'd ideally like to spend.

The 13" Retina comes with a regular Iris (not the Iris Pro). There were a couple of benchmarks posted earlier in the thread (no full reviews seem to be out yet).

I got one with 8GB of RAM and the base i5. The only game that I play these days is Dota 2 and it feels substantially better on the Iris than on my 11" Air with the HD5000. Overall, it is a terrific laptop, the battery life is great and the only thing that I'm regretting is not doing a BTO for the 16GB of RAM.

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007
You know, using a laptop with a HiDPi display and proper scaling is a one way street. Every other laptop display looks crappy after a week with the 13" rMBP.

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

tirinal posted:

Can anyone comment on how their 13" Haswell is handling games? The only thing I really care about is GW2 and I suppose the upcoming Project:Eternity, so nothing overly taxing, but I'm wondering if there's anything unexpected in the 5100 or if I should just expect the MBA + ~10%.

Dota 2 runs MUCH MUCH better on my rMBP 13" (2.6 GHz i5, 8GB RAM) than it does on my base 11" Air. It's not just about the GPU but also the fact that you are not using a ULV CPU...

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

eddiewalker posted:

Flash always sucks on a Mac, and it seems to be even bigger hog in Chrome. Is there an HTML5 version of what you're streaming? I've had flash banners I didn't even notice on a page kick my fans into overdrive so I try to keep flash on click-to-play.

Also, if battery estimates are based on casual browsing, that's a lot less than the constant traffic of streaming.

Honestly I can't wait until the W3C figures out the HTML5 DRM situation so we can get proper HTML5 streaming. Flash video kills the battery life of every Mac I've owned by ~50%.

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

Electric Bugaloo posted:

I've probably posted this at least 50 times in this thread but I stand behind it being absolutely true. OS X is going to eat about 8gb and a small collection of Steam games will easily push past 20gb. Throw in another 20+gb for a Windows partition and/or another 20 for XCode/dev software, and you've already filled more than half of the drive. And we haven't even gotten to music/docs/personal files/random poo poo and other software like Office or browsers. Given what you've said you plan to do with the computer, the basic entry models would be absolutely off my radar. It sounds harsh, but believe me- 128gb fills up really fast, and it could force you to replace way sooner than you plan to.

This can't be overstated. My various "research documents" + code + a Windows VM for development leave me with less than 200GB free on the 512GB SSD on my rMBP 13".

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

Glasgow Kiss posted:

My sister just bought a 2013 13" inch air and is already returning it to due to a glitch where it won't respond from sleep. Like, pressing the trackpad, power button, or even the keys won't wake it up. She took it to the Apple Store, where they even did a reinstall of Mavericks and the genius confirmed that it was a hardware issue. Is this common for the 2013 models? She kinda worried that if she got another one, it might do the same thing. She bought it from Amazon, she she couldn't replace it in the store for some reason.

Wasn't there a firmware update out a month ago or so for this exact issue?

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

Binary Badger posted:

fixed

I keep thinking an 8 / 256 rMBP 13-inch is in the cards for me, but I can't get past that 'Iris 5100' inside.

After suffering for years in the GMA 950 / X3100 wilderness with MacBooks and Minis, it's hard for me to believe Intel makes even semi-decent GPUs.

Eh, maybe I'll just have to suck it up.

The 5100 is fine for more than casual gaming (I regularly play Dota 2 on my rMBP and have no issues whatsoever).

It's also a modern GPU with OpenGL 4.0 support, if you're into graphics programming.

It's not the kind of GPU that you'd wanna play Battlefield 4 on (but I'd argue that if that's the case, you probably shouldn't be looking at a Mac).

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007
Has Apple talked about support for Eyefinity/Crossfire style features for the new Pros (considering they got two FirePros in them, it would make sense).

shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

kernel panic posted:

I'm looking to buy either a rMBP or Air in the next couple of months. Will the rMBP ruin my non-retina iPad Mini for me?

rMBPs will ruin any and all non-HiDPI displays for you. Even real life will look pixelated.

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shodanjr_gr
Nov 20, 2007

echobucket posted:

So, I got my Retina MBP in, and I also got a thunderbolt ethernet adapter for when I use my MBP at my desk. And the ethernet adapter just refuses to work.

It does this:


Eventually it will assign it a Self-Assigned IP, but even if I turn off DHCP an set a manual ip address, I can't ping anything through the ethernet adapter.

I've got a genius bar appointment tomorrow, but I was wondering if anyone else had seen this before.

Edit: Well, in desperation I tried unplugging the power from my net gear switch I keep mounted to the bottom of my desk and when I powered it back up the adapter started working. I guess the switch was hosed in some way. Wacky. Genius bar appointment cancelled.

I've had this happen to me a few times with my rMBP. Putting the machine to sleep (or restarting it) seems to fix it.

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