Could really use some expertise.

So im planning on getting a macbook pro this fall. The plan is to run iOS on the mac And also boot Windows 7 on one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009HQKR0Q/ref=ox_sc_act_title_7?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A34JWT04R7KMFW

(Connected w/ thunderbolt)

The iOS would be mostly for school and around 5-10gb music... While I plan on using the windows 7 partition for gaming. In the future I plan on getting ProTools HD though and running that on the iOS.

So my question is...
Whats better for gaming.

2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7
Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
8GB 1600MHz memory
750GB 5400-rpm hard drive1
Intel HD Graphics 4000

or

2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
4GB 1600MHz memory
500GB 5400-rpm hard drive1
Intel HD Graphics 4000
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 512MB of GDDR5 memory

cause the second has the nvidia card... but less memory and Hz.
Also the second setup is like $500 more.
Games I'll be playing: Bioshock 1-3, Fallout 3-4, Mirrors Edge 2, Minecraft, Skyrim, MW2, L4D2, AoE2, Farcry3, Mount and Blade Warband, RAGE and Half-Life 3

Thanks for any help or suggest a better setup.

Yikes... neither? But if I had to choose, the second one since it actually has a GPU, albeit a slow one... you will likely be running things on LOW to get decent FPS on some of the more modern games for sure.

Trust me, gaming on a Macbook Pro is a terrible experience. The cooling system is not up to par, it'll get hot and loud fast. And it just doesn't have the GPU horsepower to push anything that well. Macs have their strengths, but gaming is most definitely not one of them.

Why do you need a mac at all? When most/all Apple services will sync with a PC just fine?

You could get a really nice (PC) laptop for Macbook Pro prices.

Second one is definitely better. Doesn't mean either is good though. There are a lot of better hardware options for gaming on other platforms.

I vote the first one. You bump up the saved money from the second one and throw it into 16GB of RAM, throw about 1GB of RAM into just VRAM. And from experience that will run most of the games you listed, not fantastically, but not terrible either.

DarrenP said:

I vote the first one. You bump up the saved money from the second one and throw it into 16GB of RAM, throw about 1GB of RAM into just VRAM. And from experience that will run most of the games you listed, not fantastically, but not terrible either.

Click to expand...

The hd4000 is woeful at best in a lot of modern games at 1080p. I think that MacBook is lower though.. so that may help.

Looking at reviews... Its kinda ugly at 1200x800. I suppose 'terrible' is in the eye of the beholder, lol!

If you must get one of those the second one is better but, neither of those laptops will play games as well as you would like them to.

For what you going to spend on the external HDD and Macbook Pro you could easily get a decent windows based laptop for school and throw together a budget gaming computer that will blow the mac out of the water.