Graphics chipsets in new Intel Macs - Page 2

You're wrong. There's one feature of the X1300 Apple can't resist -- hardware H.264 acceleration. And the 64bit memory ATI 9200 is not better than the GMA900 or GMA950--every benchmark shows it.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother arguing with zealots.

Yeah, because that's just what's most important to their very lowest-end machine! Not.

I would think the MacIntel GPU will at least have H.264 support

well, it's me, the zealot here again. i just looked up some benches and even if apple put in the x1300 in the mac mini, that is a pretty damn hideous graphic card -- in terms of performance and chip availability. i think apple will go with pci express ati 9650 64mb dedicated vram or maybe a nvidia 6600 LE ?

edit: x1300 for directx9 is quite okay but openGL it is pretty dodgy........

PCIe ATI 9650? Where did you find that?
ATI AGP cards are 9nnn. The PCIe cards are Xnnn or X1nnn. Only the X8nn got the Rialto bridge chip.

BTW a X1300 would be much better than the 9200 the mac mini has now, even the new ones with 64MB on a 128bit bus.

wow. i'm getting totally slammed on this thread to clarify i meant that perhaps given the shortages of the x1nn line ati might shift the 9nnn cards to pci express.

anyway, here's my guess on the possibility of a certain graphic card in macintel mac mini and macintel ibook, looking at ati cards only. (percentages do not add up to 100% in this estimate)

macintel mini:
agp 9200 50% chance
agp 9550 60% chance
agp 9650 70% chance
pcie 9650 20% chance
pcie x300 25% chance
pcie x600 15% chance
pcie x1300 2% chance
pcie x1300pro 0% chance
pcie x1600 -10000% chance (okay, 0% chance i mean)

macintel ibook:
agp mobility 9550 20% chance
agp mobility 9650 68% chance
pcie mobility x300 20% chance
pcie mobility x600 38% chance
pcie mobility x700 1% chance

Don't the current-gen iBooks already have 9550's?

That's because the drivers for Windows are much more developed for DX than for OpenGL for non-pro cards. That's been like that for a LONG time!

I'm sure that, since OSX uses OPEN GL exclusively, ATI and Apple will develop an well optimized Open GL driver.

Integrated Intel graphics are not that bad in real life. I have the Extreme 2 GPU as part of the 855GM mobile chipset on my PC notebook and multimedia runs on it fine, no sweat. I can't say that it will win any FPS on modern 3D games, but Raven Shield and GTA3/4/5 run on it just fine at 1024X768 at medium detail level. Certainly more than I need for the amount of gaming that I will do on a sub-notebook.
If I didn't test it out in games, I would have never noticed the difference between it and the ATI 9600XT I have on a desktop. It pulls 720p H.264 decoding just fine with 1.1 GHz ULV Banias.

yes, but how would you account for nVidia Windows drivers whipping ati to the moon and back when it comes to openGL??

yes, that's why i'm betting on odds that 1 in 5 chance that apple will continue to use 9550s in the macintel ibooks

I agree, Apple is going Intel that means all those componets will be Intel, anyone who thinks Apple isnt going to use Integrated graphics are nuts. Its easy to get a Cpu/Gpu combo deal from Intel for a cheap price and thats what Apple will do. Integrated graphics = Crap
Lets hope Apple has some way for Mac Users in the know to get a modern graphics chip. Again Apple just may use cheapo graphics to help seperate model lines.

To have their fresh switchers watch 720p downloads from the iTunes Movie Store, without having a particularly nice CPU? Sorry, but that definitely seems important.

To the person who thought EFI wasn't ready, give this a look.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/chi...9118819,00.htm

The first computers with EFI shipped back in 2004. Now imagine what apple can do having control of both the hardware and operating system. I'm fairly certain they are not going back to using the outdated BIOS.

Actually, I think h.264 decoding on-board is a very important part of Apples media strategy. I expect all the Mactels to have this from start.

720p? Where? They don't even have widescreen at iTMS to begin with.


They may do it across the line, but I just don't see something like that happening on the Mac mini (and even more certainly not, as was implied, on the Mac mini first). The mini has absolutely nothing (except arguably DVI) that could be considered a "luxury" feature.

(double-post)

to follow up my predictions previously, new macintel ibooks have a 75% chance, i predict, and hate to admit, that they will contain the 915gm express chipset with intel GMA900 for graphics

nvidea 6150 anyone?

HDMI output mmmmmm....

Then in what sense are they "percentages"?

Originally posted by Gon
Then in what sense are they "percentages"?

well, we are looking at possibilities of each scenario in say a quantum universe.... in my assumptions, each possibility has nothing to do with the other, therefore they are independent odds for each situation.

75% chance means 75 in 100 odds that such a situation might arise

damn, you guys are so smart and so bloody picky

heh. i used to hang out with smart people, now mostly dumbos around me. but the dumbos know how to survive and make money and run businesses, so, well.... whatevah..! \

well, file this under "too good to be true" but maybe an x1300 will be in the mac mini i consider myself thoroughly spanked should this happen at macworld 2006 january.......

http://www.hardmac.com/news/2005-12-02/#4818

"The german website Chip.de has tested a beta version of the software Avivo from ATI.
This application for PC allows users of a Radeon X1x00 to turn its GPU into a powerful video encoding coprocessor.
The supported video formats range from MPEG-2 to WMV9 and include of course H.264.
During a test with a Radeon X1300, the video encoding process was accelerated 5-folds! Of course the CPU, in this case an Athlon FX 57, was also fully loaded by the process.
This result will for sure be really attractive for customers."

English version of the article.

You know, this thread is all conjecture, but let me point out one other thing to you guys. There is one group of people who are always disappointed by Apple hardware releases. Every single time, they are disappointed. And you know who those people are? The ones who say that Apple will, or even must, use such-and-such graphics chipset/card.

From the little we really know, the probability is upwards of 90% that the machines will use Intel's shared memory video. X1300, in Apple's cheapest, crummiest computer?

Seriously, from what part of your ass are you pulling this out of? 90%?

I mean, they could use an intel shared memory card, I have no clue.

Apple, however, has specifically said their developer machines have no bearing on what products they will come out with.

See, there you go. Apple has never made any such statement.

The other group of people who suffer from perpetual disappointment are those who are clueless about the realities of physics and engineering. Not everything is possible or practical to do. The X1300 is estimated to draw (and dissipate) 30-35 watts, which is not ideal for a laptop, nor a iMac mini style case.

Umm, I'm pretty sure they have:


That's Steve Jobs at the keynote at WWDC. Seems pretty clear to me.

So, I'll ask again, what part of your ass are you pulling the "90% chance the machines will use Intel's shared memory video" again?

Uh, probabilities that add up to 100% are not mere "conveniences" - it's a mathematical law that they must (or less than 100%, if you have not listed the entire sample space)! You might as well write 2+4 = 12.

Ah *knocks chucker on the head* hello? recoding television and using the Mini-Mac as a core component of the 'digital lifestyle'? does that ring a bell?

The Mac mini, at least for now, is a low-end, entry-level computer, not a "digital hub" machine. The iMac is.

(Have you compared the CPU and GPU of the Mac mini and the iMac? Or the hard drive space?)

Holy crap I can't stomach all this laptop talk.

The XServers, future PowerMacs and perhaps the phantom XStation might get folks interested other than the same dungheap of low cost laptop shit.

Nothing like being stuck in a noisy coffee shop with a laptop. Gee I really get a ton of really productive work done now!

I just want my reasonably-priced Powermac with kick-in-the-pants performance, with compenents that can be replaced. If I can get that, I'm happy.

ALSO: Does the new Phoenix equivalent to BIOS require a different flash of graphics cards?

Originally posted by Placebo
I just want my reasonably-priced Powermac with kick-in-the-pants performance, with compenents that can be replaced. If I can get that, I'm happy.

ALSO: Does the new Phoenix equivalent to BIOS require a different flash of graphics cards?


hmmm.... a reasonably-priced powermac with kick-in-the-pants(ouch! kick in the ass would be less painful) replaceable components:

powermac g5 dualcore or g5 quad
cpu: hmm.. not so upgradeable but powermac g4s are very cpu upgradeable...
ram: upgradeable
hard disk: upgradeable
graphics card: upgradeable (not sli though)
optical drive: probably
audio: yes, external or (eventually? pci express internal audio expansion)
no on wireless, cooling system...

reasonably priced: probably no

the upgradeable components is okay there.... now, will apple ever make a reasonably priced powermac? i think not, ppc, intel, amd or otherwise

btw, my educated guess is that the graphics cards for macintels will not require different firmware on the graphics card themselves, its more of a matter of whether mac osx86 has drivers for your particular off-the-shelf third party card....

unless apple is extra evil and made it so that the graphics cards have special firmware to allow it to run well on mac osx86, forcing you to only buy graphics cards from apple and apple dealers... wait a minute, that's what apple is going to do !!!!!!!!! ARGHGHGHHGGHHGH

edit: which means if they do the latter, then you could get a leaked/hacked copy of the firmware for your graphics card, and then flash the third-party cheaper graphics card yourself, possibly rendering your beautifully clocked "golden sample" 7800gtx-512mb-ddr3-ram** useless should something get screwed up.

**http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...0gtx_gs/1.html

Read it carefully. That quote does not say shipping products will use a different video card, or anything else FTM, different from the developer systems.

You're just a wishful thinker like the rest of them. The single "thing" (not a product? that's pure RDF) Apple has shipped with an Intel processor in it has shared memory video. The only video chipsets Intel makes are shared memory video chipsets. Ergo, it is a near certainty that Apple will ship shared memory video, and there is no evidence whatsoever to the contrary.

You guys can be wishful thinkers if you like, I have no objection. I'm sick of pointing out to people that they're dreaming. You guys can all crash in disappointment when the products come out - like you always do.

Seriously, did you even read my origonal post? I don't think the mini is going to have an X1300. I think it's certainly possible apple will ship a product with an intel shared memory graphics chip.

What I DON'T think is that it's a forgone conclusion, which you evidently do; pointing out the developer machines as "evidence" is a huge crock. That's just as silly as the X1300 people.

You are just as delusional as the people you allege to demonize.

You really think that almost all future Macs will have shared video? Do you realize just how crippled QE, Q2DE and CI/CV will be with shared video? Do you realize that even Windows Vista strongly benefits from non-shared video?

I tend to agree with your position that Intel integrated video will play a part in at least a few of Apples new machines. That or similar integrated video ship sets from other vendors.

This is something that should not upset people though. First these integrated approaches have improved vastly of recent times. Second the new hardware should provide significantly faster access to that video hardware. I suspect that people will be please with video peorformance relative to the old low cost PPC hardware.

Not really something for people to get excited about in my mind. What is exciting is the prospect for a middle of the road "MAC" that provides very good performance at a reasonable price. The potential is there lets just hope that Apple realizes there is a market there.

Dave

Integrated chipsets, sure. But he's actually talking about integrated chipsets with shared memory. Shared memory means dramatically lower performance, unless you have a vastly different implementation than what's traditionally used (and even then, shared memory definitely does not mean an advantage, other than cost-cutting, compared to separate CPU and GPU memory).

I can see shared video happening on the Mac mini; perhaps even the iBook or whatever new low-end laptop they'll have. I'd hate to see it happen but it wouldn't be unrealistic. However, on the vast majority of Macs, I absolutely don't see shared video. As for integrated video chipsets, that's another matter altogether; in many ways, they will probably be more than good enough.

How do you know? Do you have any data or personal experience to back up your statements?