[NateEssex]

I have been holding out for a new MBP. I like to play MMORPGs and want to know if the 13" M320 is good for current games. If not, how good is the 15" GeForce GT 330M? I would prefer the 13" for portability, but not if the 330M is much better...

I like to play D&DOnline, Warhammer, & want to try some of the newer games in Bootcamp.

Thanks!

[Helmling]

Have you seen all the Gizmodo benchmarks? They're linked in the thread about the new MBP's in the notebooks forum. The 15's and 17's have a lot of horsepower and should be good to go for almost any game on or about to hit the market.

[mduell]

330M is about 20% better than the previous 9600M GT. 325M is about the same as the 9600M GT, so 320M is probably a bit slower (but a brand new part that's Apple-only at the moment).

[lpkmckenna]

The 320m will be more than enough for MMORGs. Heck, the 9400m could play anything short of Crysis.

[Simon]

The 320M is based on the GT216 core (like the 325M) and offers all 48 shaders. It's manufactured with a 40nm process.

Gaming performance of the 320M should be better than a 310M. The 320M also supports PureVideo HD to decode HD videos with the GPU. Using CUDA, OpenCL, and DirectCompute the shaders of the GPU can also be used for other calculations (like encoding videos).

However, the 320M is not at all similar to the GT 320M (32 shaders, 65nm) which is based on a GeForce 9600M GT (G96 core).

Bottom line:
320M and GT 320M/9600M: unrelated
320M and 325M: related

The GT 330M (GT216 core) is the successor of the GT 230M and technically a faster clocked GT 240M (but maintains 230M power levels). The performance of the GT 330M is similar to the GeForce GT 240M and therefore located in the range of the Mobility Radeon HD 4650.

[The Godfather]

Originally Posted by Simon 

The 320M is based on the GT216 core (like the 325M) and offers all 48 shaders. It's manufactured with a 40nm process.

Gaming performance of the 320M should be better than a 310M. The 320M also supports PureVideo HD to decode HD videos with the GPU. Using CUDA, OpenCL, and DirectCompute the shaders of the GPU can also be used for other calculations (like encoding videos).

However, the 320M is not at all similar to the GT 320M (32 shaders, 65nm) which is based on a GeForce 9600M GT (G96 core).

Bottom line:
320M and GT 320M/9600M: unrelated
320M and 325M: related

The GT 330M (GT216 core) is the successor of the GT 230M and technically a faster clocked GT 240M (but maintains 230M power levels). The performance of the GT 330M is similar to the GeForce GT 240M and therefore located in the range of the Mobility Radeon HD 4650.

What specific OSX apps take advantage of OpenCL/CUDA?

[Leonard]

The only thing I know of that takes advantage of CUDA is the grid software BOINC.

You typically wouldn't run BOINC on a laptop.

[Simon]

Core Image at the very heart of Snow Leopard was re-implemented using OpenCL. Result: 25% performance boost.

That's an API and not an an app, but you get the idea. Every app that calls Core Image on SL can now make use of OpenCL. iPhoto for example.