Have Apple gone mad? Macbook 2011

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The new Macbook Pro 13 with the Intel 3000 384mb is a bottle neck when you think about it.
Your going with an i5 or i7...... then your throwing in an Intel 3000 which is not going to be any good for things like Final Cut (I assume).
Would it be best to go with the 2010 model?

Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Originally released April 2010


13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display
4GB (2 x 2GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
250GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
8x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory

As this has a good graphics card.
Reason why I ask is because my friend is doing media and is wanting a Macbook and does not know which ones to get.
I would say go with the 2010 model.
320 would be way better then a 3000.
Plus the fact he will be doing web design and use allot of Adobes sweet.
And he wants to play Minecraft and Counter Strike Source.BUT that's not completely importent
So I would definitely say to get the 2010... but Just to be sure....... what do you think?

Despite being a discrete card, the NVIDIA 320M is a special (Apple only) cut down version of an already low end part (330M). On average, HD3000 is actually slightly faster. NVIDIA generally has more mature driver and less issue. But then it also means that Intel has more potential headroom. The only downside is that Intel doesn't support compute. That said with just 48 CUDA cores, I'm not sure how much it matters.

All in all, if there's no driver issue, the new model has a similar GPU but significantly faster CPU. It also use much less power. The only reason you may want the old one is for GPU compute. I don't think Final Cut supports compute, but some Adobe programs do. I can't find any benchmark of Photoshop/Premier on 320M. My guess is no one does it because it's pointless.

Almost none of the already-limited Mac game library will run at all if you use an Intel graphics card. But that Nvidia card is about as crappy as they come, and won't support many games either.

What about for video editing?
Not to bothered about gaming at all.

I think RAM and CPU are probably somewhat more important for that. Macs are commonly used for video editing, so apparently the graphics cards they have are adequate to the task.

It's true for older Intel IGP because its OpenGL is version 2 only and vertex shader is emulated by driver. But does it still hold true for Sandy Bridge?

Video editing program doesn't need advance 3D functions, so your program should run. Some of these programs like Premier can use GPU compute to accelerate rendering. Intel doesn't support it now and never will. NVIDIA theoretically supports it but the 320m is too slow to be meaningful.

So it really would not matter?
I thought the 320's render time would be allot less then the 3000s.....

Compared to the 320m? No.

You see, video editing is inherently 2D operation. As long as the display card can handle 30/60 fps, it doesn't matter.
That is unless the GPU can accelerate the process in non-3D related ways. There are two main candidates: codec and filter.

Basically all cards out there can accelerate decoding with deinterlacing. So HD3000 and 320m are equal here.

On the encoding side, if you're using programs like Final Cur Pro and Premiere, you'll most likely avoid acceleration like plague. All GPU accelerated encoders produce significantly worse quality than CPU implementations. They are only fine if you use watch it on your mobile on the road. And believe it or not, Intel's Quick Sync actually gives a lot better result than NVIDIA.

Another area that can be accelerated is filters/effects. OpenGL shaders is not flexible enough for this purpose, you need to use GPU compute (OpenCL or CUDA). HD3000 doesn't support compute while the 320m does. However, the 320m is so slow it'll more likely decelerate things instead.

btw besides hardware, the program also need to be written to use the GPU. Right now, on the mac only Premiere has this capability. Final Cut Pro X is rumored to support it but it's still unclear when it'll be released.

Correction, the GeForce 320M is not a discrete graphics card its an integrated chipset GPU.