Correct me if I'm wrong, but AMD is in the CPU business, not the graphics accelerator cards or other higgledy-piggledy (sorry if I'm getting too technical ) business.
I'm sure I'm not the first, but yeah, consider yourself corrected.
AMD owns ATi so some people will refer ATi to AMD nowadays.
By the way, I don't get it, why people want to play high-end games on a notebook that is not meant for gaming? If you wan to play games get a Windows Notebook or PC, much more variety and wayy cheaper. Besides portable gaming notebooks is categorized under Desktop Replacement Notebooks, its heavy, its big, its battery life sucks and its expensive but its portable. The MBP was never meant to be categorized under DRN.
Oh yea, don't forget that mobile GPUs are weaker then their desktop counterparts so there is no way you can play high-end games on a notebook unless you are willing to sacrifice a lot of stuffs.
Besides if playing high-end game is so important why go for notebook? You know notebooks are not meant to play high-end gaming. Get a real desktop gaming rig, or if you are like me get a Playstation 3.
Quote:
Apple just doesn't like "Centrino" because every man and his dog makes laptops off that. Apple is tired of competing on specs with such a wide range of competitors, IMO.
Yup and people like to say you are paying extra for a PC internals.....
P.S: Take note that I play games but I consider my self as a casual gamer and the 8600M GT is already sufficient.
Thanks. Is that data from NotebookCheck? There is some variance in the data, since 3DMark06, especially, is influenced strongly by RAM and CPU. Nonetheless, thanks for the info.
IMO, the most important thing to look at is the 3DMark06 score. I know it's not perfect, but in my view it is the most relevant in modern graphic card comparisons.
Let's take the 8600M GT. By mobile gaming standards, it is really not bad, and pushes 3000 3DMark06. The 9600M GT, goes up to 5000 3DMark06s. That's really pretty impressive for mobile. If you've got Hybrid mode, then that reduces power drain in MBPs a lot.
The 9300, while not great, does 1000 to 2000 3DMark06s. Which means reasonable, acceptable performance on Medium settings for Mac games, and Low-to-Medium settings for latest hardcore 3D Windows games. That really ain't that bad.
Could Apple actually be reversing its haughty stance on games? With the iPhone and iPod become game platforms in and of themselves, now portable Macs??? *shocked*
Yep, notebookcheck.com. I agree, the data can be somewhat weird, like how certain cards outperform cards that they shouldn't based on the clocks and number of SPs, but oh well what can you do.
Anyways, do you know anything more about the integrated chip in the new motherboard? Do you think it will be very similar to a 9300M G discrete card, better, or worse? It will almost certainly not have any dedicated memory, right? So perhaps it will be a bit slower than the 9300M G discrete if the specs are the same.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008
Guys, for mobile gaming, 9300 on a 13", and a 9600 on a 15", is pretty darn good already. *snip*
Can you imagine, for the first time, GRAPHICS AND GAMING on the MACBOOK is going to be an Apple Advantage, if this is all true! This is HUGE! *snip*
Yeah, not bad at all. I've been grumpy about the Intel GMA nonsense since day one of the Macbook. Coming from PC land, I have always been used to significant configuration and having the freshest components, so It's been difficult to adjust to the Mac way of things.
On another note, is there a reason why Apple doesn't offer a mobile Quadro card on the Macbook Pro? Since the Mac Pro has one, I assume the drivers have already been worked out for the extended OpenGL features. Given the fact that nVidia seems to cripple parts of the OpenGL performance of the GeForce line to get you to upgrade (At least on Windows), a Quadro 2700/3700M would certainly be nice... Anyone else know anything about this?
AMD owns ATi so some people will refer ATi to AMD nowadays.
By the way, I don't get it, why people want to play high-end games on a notebook that is not meant for gaming? If you wan to play games get a Windows Notebook or PC, much more variety and wayy cheaper. Besides portable gaming notebooks is categorized under Desktop Replacement Notebooks, its heavy, its big, its battery life sucks and its expensive but its portable. The MBP was never meant to be categorized under DRN.
Oh yea, don't forget that mobile GPUs are weaker then their desktop counterparts so there is no way you can play high-end games on a notebook unless you are willing to sacrifice a lot of stuffs.
Besides if playing high-end game is so important why go for notebook? You know notebooks are not meant to play high-end gaming. Get a real desktop gaming rig, or if you are like me get a Playstation 3.
I just responded to this same exact inquiry....
1) Graphics acceleration is NOT limited to gaming. First of all, the entire OSX interface runs on OpenGL. More importantly, professional video/graphics applications (based on CoreImage and other frameworks) utilize OpenGL for accelerated graphics processing and rendering. Remember the "Pro" in Macbook Pro?? 3D modeling, animation, CAD/CAM, video editing, compositing, etc all need decent graphics acceleration. Even Photoshop is supposedly going to be hardware accelerated in CS4.
2) Apple's OpenCL will make it much easier for applications to utilize the parallel processing capability of modern GPUs to offload certain types of processing.
3) Many people CAN'T AFFORD buying a dedicated computer just for gaming AND a Macbook/MB Pro. They want ONE device that can do it all.
4) nVidia's graphics chipsets have much better hardware HD video decoding than Intel's GMA. The image quality and enhancement features are better (iDCT, deinterlacing, upscaling, etc) and they use a lot less CPU power during decoding. (Even hardware video decoding uses some CPU time.. and the amount depends on the implementation. AMD's GPUs are even better than nVidia in this regard)
I'm not a gamer, but why would you need more power than that? Why wouldn't you just get a desktop? If there are more powerful gpu's out there, there is probably a good reason Apple doesn't include one: too much heat would require a larger heatsink and Apple doesn't want to make a thicker laptop, it is not compatible with the current hardware on the MBP, it is too hard/not possible to write drivers for it, etc. At any rate, you can be certain it will not be finding its way into a MacBook!
? Growing popularity of Second Life and other types of MMO type games that demand high res
? Growth in using avatars (like in Second Life) to make purchases - expectation is that we'll use avatars to make more and more purchases online
? Growth in demand for Blu-ray/HD video
? Shift from text to video messages over the next 5 years (text will become like email - something for old people )
? Advances in high band width Internet access (developing in UK, and Cern in Geneva, Switzerland) will bring holographic iChat
? Rapid growth in the personal use of HD video to post to YouTube, and other sites
and, well, for those who know/care, there is Crysis....
My 17" PB is now running Leopard - I've been able to stay well below the cutting edge in hardware yet current on OS upgrades. Nice job Apple! Keep pushing the hardware specs when you release new products.
The demand on mobile graphics will grow steeply in the near future. Again, I hope Apple pushes the edge here. Yes, you can have a desktop with large GPU yet why? I want fewer computers, not more.
The Geforce 9100M is the currently known integrated/motherboard graphics chipset for nVidia laptop motherboards. According to the information known, the macbook 'MCP79' board will have a new integrated graphics chipset based on some version of their discrete Geforce 9300M/9400M cards, but it will depend on the specific motherboard model that Apple uses. If I were to guess, I'd bet the performance will be a bit better than the existing "9300M G" (which would be nearly 2X as fast as the latest Intel GMA). Hopefully the Macbook Pro also uses an nVidia board and Apple implements their "Hybrid Power" technology. It will allow the Macbook Pro to turn off it's discrete GPU when not in heavy use and use the integrated chipset instead to save power.
I put together this graphic just to server as a rough performance comparison between nVidia's latest mobile GPU generation.
notes:
- On the graph I included the 8600GT which is the current Macbook Pro card to show as comparison. I believe the current Macbook uses the GMA X3100.
- SP stands for "Stream Processors" (shaders) which are the SIMD processing units that make up a nVidia's modern GPUs.
- Nvidia GPUs have three separate clock frequencies -- one each for the main clock, shader processor clock, and memory clock. On the graph, only the shader clock is listed.
- 3DMark05 and 3DMark06 are standard graphics performance benchmarks.
- I did the best I could and double-checked the data, but I can not make *ANY GUARANTEES* about the accuracy of the information on the chart.
To add to some of the pieces that that are missing from the chart above...
PS: Looking at these results, unless NVIDIA -and- Apple have something previously unannounced and significant to offer for the future of Apple I just doesn't see move to NVIDIA as being very likely scenario come next Tuesday.
AMD owns ATi so some people will refer ATi to AMD nowadays.
By the way, I don't get it, why people want to play high-end games on a notebook that is not meant for gaming? If you wan to play games get a Windows Notebook or PC, much more variety and wayy cheaper.
If I were a betting man, I'd wager that Apple has discovered the long sought manna that has finally paid of from their tireless systems integration design... apps and games sold through iTunes! They will likely scale up with more high-end games and apps that will play on larger, more powerful Apple computers, and they will sell of of it to you over Wi-Fi, Internet and cellular networks.
Apple builds upon successes, and I've a feeling they will let us know exactly how many millions of apps and games they've pushed to users. This will break wide open the next frontier for all software sales via iTunes... just in time also, since the digital movie sales and rentals thing has not rolled out quite as rapidly as they'd hoped.
Graphics acceleration is beneficial to MUCH more than just gaming, particularly with professional media applications that use OpenGL/CoreImage for transforms and rendering...
So what are the chances of the Mac Pro getting SLI capability? SLI would provide more bang for the buck than a single Quadro card. SLI can also support 2 Quadro cards. Surely, 2 Quadro cards running SLI would be more powerful than a single Quadro card.
Questions and concerns I have about ising NVIDIA over Intel chipsets:
Is NVIDIA's track record in this area strong enough to make it a valid choice for Apple? Remember, Apple uses very few top end components from each supplier so they need to have sufficient supply,which also means that any manufacturing issues may result in excessive recalls hurting the company in the long run.
How much smaller is this North and Southbridge combined chipset over Intel's offerings? Combining ships into one is great, but if the result is only a couple percent difference it becomes a futile reason for the change.
How much faster GPU performance can we expect over Intel's GMA X4500? What about other the other chipset options like lower-power WiFi, WiMAX, H.264/VC1 encoding/decoding, and other nifty aspects to Montevina?
I've read plenty of pros regarding GPU performance with NVIDiA, but even GMA950 was never an issue for me, so what potential cons are there in Apple moving to NVIDIA chipsets?
3) Many people CAN'T AFFORD buying a dedicated computer just for gaming AND a Macbook/MB Pro. They want ONE device that can do it all.
Then get a Windows notebook? Its cheap and you get better specs then MB or MBP. Except that you will lose the beauty of OS X but hey, its a compromise.
Quote:
2) Apple's OpenCL will make it much easier for applications to utilize the parallel processing capability of modern GPUs to offload certain types of processing.
True but you don't need the best GPU for that.
Quote:
1) Graphics acceleration is NOT limited to gaming. First of all, the entire OSX interface runs on OpenGL. More importantly, professional video/graphics applications (based on CoreImage and other frameworks) utilize OpenGL for accelerated graphics processing and rendering. Remember the "Pro" in Macbook Pro?? 3D modeling, animation, CAD/CAM, video editing, compositing, etc all need decent graphics acceleration. Even Photoshop is supposedly going to be hardware accelerated in CS4.
True, again you don't need the best GPU. And so far Intel GMA is doing well coping with OSX interface.
Im not saying that the MB shouldn't have a proper GPU or that the MBP could have improved GPU but its not a big deal not having the best GPU. Most people seem to make a big deal about it, and sadly most of these people give their reasoning is to play high-end games.
I understand the need of a good GPU for certain softwares but you usually don't need the best. Maybe Apple should offer it as a buy to configure option (that is not going to be cheap). Well there is one thing that I still wonder though, like some user says, how come there is no Nvidia Quadro M for MBP users? The only reason I can think of is the lack of popular Windows engineering software like SolidWorks?
So what are the chances of the Mac Pro getting SLI capability? SLI would provide more bang for the buck than a single Quadro card. SLI can also support 2 Quadro cards. Surely, 2 Quadro cards running SLI would be more powerful than a single Quadro card.
Zero. There is zero chance of the Mac Pro getting SLI capability. I'll go out on a short limb and say that there is zero chance of Apple using SLI in any capacity on any of its machines, the only possible exception being HybridPower.
What a rude response. Any idiot should have been able to reason that the person asking the question did not know that the de facto meaning of the term "chipset" is that of the set of chips that support graphics and I/O into and out of the CPU. As such, what sort of jerk responds to an innocent question of that sort with a response such as "Does it say otherwise anywhere"? You have provided reinforcement for the stereotype of a computer nerd who is pathologically lacking in the basic cognitive skills that are required for normal social interaction with people. You need to get away from your computer for a while and learn how to interact with people instead.
The question asked by newtomac08 and also by Elixer was a perfectly reasonable question for anyone not familiar with the de facto meaning of the term "chipset" to ask. Someone needed to ask it in order that someone else (Mr. H) would be prompted to provide some clarification. Mr. H was also unnecessarily rude. He wrote:
"No, that's why it's called a 'chipset' not a processor. Look at that word: 'chipset'. It's what it says on the tin: a set of chips."
What sort of garbage reasoning is that? He implicitly proposes that by virture of the word "chipset", it should be obvious to anyone who reads English that the processor is excluded. That is absurd. To anyone who is not familiar with the de facto meaning of the word, it is perfectly logical to assume that "chipset" includes the processor, which is a chip, and which is certainly included in the set of chips on the circuit board. Duh. That is precisely why the question was asked. Mr. H also needs to walk away from his keyboard for a while and learn something about people and how to interact with them.
I just have no patience for emotionally retarded twits whose parents allowed them to spend most of their developmental years sitting in front of a computer without ever recognizing the need for their social development. It is truly pathetic that today we have an entire generation of these types that, notwithstanding their technological capabilities, will never be worth a plug nickle to anyone other than themselves.
Are you done for now? The kid just gave a response, so what if it was a little snotty? I think it is you who needs a little "social developement" if you think that eveyone in the world is peachy and wants to be your best friend. Just let it go.
A 9600M GT would be kind of disappointing. It is an improvement over the 8600M GT, but really not that much considering the MBP already used the GDDR3 version and the 9600M GT still only has 32 Stream Processor, just clocked higher. I was hoping for a 9700M GT.
Apple really should incorporate an ATI Mobility Radeon 4670. Especially with all this talk of OpenCL. Only ATI's HD3xxx and HD4xxx series and nVidia GT2xx series supports 64-bit double precision floats. nVidia's 8xxx and 9xxx series only do 32-bit floats, so while they may be fast in games, they would be more limited in GPGPU applications. Although it may not show through in games due to driver limitations in exploiting ATI's 5-way architecture, the 4670's 320 Stream Processors really should show their power in GPGPU applications over the higher clocked 32 Stream Processors in most of nVidia's mainstream mobile lineup. The Mobility Radeon 4xxx series is supposed to launch before the year is out and I can think of no bigger event for ATI to gain momentum than to be in Apple's MBP and take part in the upcoming Apple event.
And in terms of switching between integrated and discrete graphics cards, Intel's Montevina also supports this feature if OEMs decide to use it. Intel's implementation is also GPU agnostic between ATI and nVidia GPUs, which is beneficial to avoid locking into one vendor.
EDIT: In terms of switching between integrated and discrete graphics card, I mean the feature that nVidia calls Hybrid Power where the discrete GPU can be shut off to save power and the screen is fed by the IGP. Montevina supports this feature and can work between Intel IGPs and ATI GPUs or Intel IGPs and nVidia GPUs. Intel doesn't support Hybrid SLI of course, but I don't think it matters anyways since Hybrid SLI or what nVidia calls GeForce Boost won't work with anything higher than a GeForce 9500M G anyways. Only Hybrid Power works with mainstream or high-end GPUs, which Montevina supports.
I do hope you're getting LittleBigPlanet when it comes out this month!
Quote:
Originally Posted by kaiser_soze
What a rude response.
Hahahahaha
Relax man. Sorry to have burst a fuse of yours. If you noticed, I just responded to Elixir, not the other guy. Me and Elixir bicker all the time on here, (well we used to, the Blu-ray thread isn't as active anymore) it's always fun! It'd be weird if I was too kind to him.
And I'm far from a nerd. In fact, I'm rather lacking in knowledge as opposed to all these people on here, there's a lot that people say that I don't grasp, as I've not read up on the stuff.
Sorry to have bugged you.
In fact, feel free to read through other posts I've made.
Hmmm... What the rumours seem to say are a 9300 or 9400 discrete GPU for the MacBook. Apple may or may not use GeForce Boost/ Hybrid Power, as the 9300 and 9400 may not be that insanely power draining... We'll see.
As for the MacBook Pro, that could have Hybrid Power so it turns off the 9600 GPU whenever more basic operations are going on.
As for mobile Quadro, Apple seems to be very cautious about its pro offerings, so I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. It is a bit unfair because mobile and desktop Quadro, like you say, are just uncrippled or somehow more stable GeForces anyways.
Quote:
Originally Posted by winterspan
Yep, notebookcheck.com. I agree, the data can be somewhat weird, like how certain cards outperform cards that they shouldn't based on the clocks and number of SPs, but oh well what can you do.
Anyways, do you know anything more about the integrated chip in the new motherboard? Do you think it will be very similar to a 9300M G discrete card, better, or worse? It will almost certainly not have any dedicated memory, right? So perhaps it will be a bit slower than the 9300M G discrete if the specs are the same.
Yeah, not bad at all. I've been grumpy about the Intel GMA nonsense since day one of the Macbook. Coming from PC land, I have always been used to significant configuration and having the freshest components, so It's been difficult to adjust to the Mac way of things.
On another note, is there a reason why Apple doesn't offer a mobile Quadro card on the Macbook Pro? Since the Mac Pro has one, I assume the drivers have already been worked out for the extended OpenGL features. Given the fact that nVidia seems to cripple parts of the OpenGL performance of the GeForce line to get you to upgrade (At least on Windows), a Quadro 2700/3700M would certainly be nice... Anyone else know anything about this?
For those of you who say that most people can't afford to buy two computers for separate uses, you might be surprised by how inexpensive a decent gaming PC is these days.
For $600, you can build a pretty solid gaming machine, and $899 (rumored price) buys you a MacBook with an integrated or low-end dedicated chip. $1500 for PCs is not too shabby. I paid that much just for my MBP.
I think that the biggest issue with the integrated Intel GPUs is not 3D graphics performance but HD decoding. The 4500HD supposedly does a solid job with HD content.
Contrary to some claims, most budget notebooks under $899 still use integrated graphics or low-end stuff from nVidia/ATi. There is no serious gaming PC laptop under $1000. In fact, most serious gaming laptops are over $1500.
For those of you who say that most people can't afford to buy two computers for separate uses, you might be surprised by how inexpensive a decent gaming PC is these days.
Very true. Building it yourself is so much more inexpensive. I built my friend's computer, it cost about that much, and is a great gaming machine.
Comments
Correct me if I'm wrong, but AMD is in the CPU business, not the graphics accelerator cards or other higgledy-piggledy (sorry if I'm getting too technical
I'm sure I'm not the first, but yeah, consider yourself corrected.
By the way, I don't get it, why people want to play high-end games on a notebook that is not meant for gaming? If you wan to play games get a Windows Notebook or PC, much more variety and wayy cheaper. Besides portable gaming notebooks is categorized under Desktop Replacement Notebooks, its heavy, its big, its battery life sucks and its expensive but its portable. The MBP was never meant to be categorized under DRN.
Oh yea, don't forget that mobile GPUs are weaker then their desktop counterparts so there is no way you can play high-end games on a notebook unless you are willing to sacrifice a lot of stuffs.
Besides if playing high-end game is so important why go for notebook? You know notebooks are not meant to play high-end gaming. Get a real desktop gaming rig, or if you are like me get a Playstation 3.
Apple just doesn't like "Centrino" because every man and his dog makes laptops off that. Apple is tired of competing on specs with such a wide range of competitors, IMO.
Yup and people like to say you are paying extra for a PC internals.....
P.S: Take note that I play games but I consider my self as a casual gamer and the 8600M GT is already sufficient.
Thanks. Is that data from NotebookCheck? There is some variance in the data, since 3DMark06, especially, is influenced strongly by RAM and CPU. Nonetheless, thanks for the info.
IMO, the most important thing to look at is the 3DMark06 score. I know it's not perfect, but in my view it is the most relevant in modern graphic card comparisons.
Let's take the 8600M GT. By mobile gaming standards, it is really not bad, and pushes 3000 3DMark06. The 9600M GT, goes up to 5000 3DMark06s. That's really pretty impressive for mobile. If you've got Hybrid mode, then that reduces power drain in MBPs a lot.
The 9300, while not great, does 1000 to 2000 3DMark06s. Which means reasonable, acceptable performance on Medium settings for Mac games, and Low-to-Medium settings for latest hardcore 3D Windows games. That really ain't that bad.
Could Apple actually be reversing its haughty stance on games? With the iPhone and iPod become game platforms in and of themselves, now portable Macs??? *shocked*
Yep, notebookcheck.com. I agree, the data can be somewhat weird, like how certain cards outperform cards that they shouldn't based on the clocks and number of SPs, but oh well what can you do.
Anyways, do you know anything more about the integrated chip in the new motherboard? Do you think it will be very similar to a 9300M G discrete card, better, or worse? It will almost certainly not have any dedicated memory, right? So perhaps it will be a bit slower than the 9300M G discrete if the specs are the same.
Guys, for mobile gaming, 9300 on a 13", and a 9600 on a 15", is pretty darn good already. *snip*
Can you imagine, for the first time, GRAPHICS AND GAMING on the MACBOOK is going to be an Apple Advantage, if this is all true! This is HUGE! *snip*
Yeah, not bad at all. I've been grumpy about the Intel GMA nonsense since day one of the Macbook. Coming from PC land, I have always been used to significant configuration and having the freshest components, so It's been difficult to adjust to the Mac way of things.
On another note, is there a reason why Apple doesn't offer a mobile Quadro card on the Macbook Pro? Since the Mac Pro has one, I assume the drivers have already been worked out for the extended OpenGL features. Given the fact that nVidia seems to cripple parts of the OpenGL performance of the GeForce line to get you to upgrade (At least on Windows), a Quadro 2700/3700M would certainly be nice... Anyone else know anything about this?
AMD owns ATi so some people will refer ATi to AMD nowadays.
By the way, I don't get it, why people want to play high-end games on a notebook that is not meant for gaming? If you wan to play games get a Windows Notebook or PC, much more variety and wayy cheaper. Besides portable gaming notebooks is categorized under Desktop Replacement Notebooks, its heavy, its big, its battery life sucks and its expensive but its portable. The MBP was never meant to be categorized under DRN.
Oh yea, don't forget that mobile GPUs are weaker then their desktop counterparts so there is no way you can play high-end games on a notebook unless you are willing to sacrifice a lot of stuffs.
Besides if playing high-end game is so important why go for notebook? You know notebooks are not meant to play high-end gaming. Get a real desktop gaming rig, or if you are like me get a Playstation 3.
I just responded to this same exact inquiry....
1) Graphics acceleration is NOT limited to gaming. First of all, the entire OSX interface runs on OpenGL. More importantly, professional video/graphics applications (based on CoreImage and other frameworks) utilize OpenGL for accelerated graphics processing and rendering. Remember the "Pro" in Macbook Pro?? 3D modeling, animation, CAD/CAM, video editing, compositing, etc all need decent graphics acceleration. Even Photoshop is supposedly going to be hardware accelerated in CS4.
2) Apple's OpenCL will make it much easier for applications to utilize the parallel processing capability of modern GPUs to offload certain types of processing.
3) Many people CAN'T AFFORD buying a dedicated computer just for gaming AND a Macbook/MB Pro. They want ONE device that can do it all.
4) nVidia's graphics chipsets have much better hardware HD video decoding than Intel's GMA. The image quality and enhancement features are better (iDCT, deinterlacing, upscaling, etc) and they use a lot less CPU power during decoding. (Even hardware video decoding uses some CPU time.. and the amount depends on the implementation. AMD's GPUs are even better than nVidia in this regard)
I'm not a gamer, but why would you need more power than that? Why wouldn't you just get a desktop? If there are more powerful gpu's out there, there is probably a good reason Apple doesn't include one: too much heat would require a larger heatsink and Apple doesn't want to make a thicker laptop, it is not compatible with the current hardware on the MBP, it is too hard/not possible to write drivers for it, etc. At any rate, you can be certain it will not be finding its way into a MacBook!
As a non-tech guy, here's why I'm hoping we get top of the line nVidia 9800m GTX (http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_m_series.html):
? Growing popularity of Second Life and other types of MMO type games that demand high res
? Growth in using avatars (like in Second Life) to make purchases - expectation is that we'll use avatars to make more and more purchases online
? Growth in demand for Blu-ray/HD video
? Shift from text to video messages over the next 5 years (text will become like email - something for old people
? Advances in high band width Internet access (developing in UK, and Cern in Geneva, Switzerland) will bring holographic iChat
? Rapid growth in the personal use of HD video to post to YouTube, and other sites
and, well, for those who know/care, there is Crysis....
My 17" PB is now running Leopard - I've been able to stay well below the cutting edge in hardware yet current on OS upgrades. Nice job Apple! Keep pushing the hardware specs when you release new products.
The demand on mobile graphics will grow steeply in the near future. Again, I hope Apple pushes the edge here. Yes, you can have a desktop with large GPU yet why? I want fewer computers, not more.
<soapbox>
The Geforce 9100M is the currently known integrated/motherboard graphics chipset for nVidia laptop motherboards. According to the information known, the macbook 'MCP79' board will have a new integrated graphics chipset based on some version of their discrete Geforce 9300M/9400M cards, but it will depend on the specific motherboard model that Apple uses. If I were to guess, I'd bet the performance will be a bit better than the existing "9300M G" (which would be nearly 2X as fast as the latest Intel GMA). Hopefully the Macbook Pro also uses an nVidia board and Apple implements their "Hybrid Power" technology. It will allow the Macbook Pro to turn off it's discrete GPU when not in heavy use and use the integrated chipset instead to save power.
I put together this graphic just to server as a rough performance comparison between nVidia's latest mobile GPU generation.
notes:
- On the graph I included the 8600GT which is the current Macbook Pro card to show as comparison. I believe the current Macbook uses the GMA X3100.
- SP stands for "Stream Processors" (shaders) which are the SIMD processing units that make up a nVidia's modern GPUs.
- Nvidia GPUs have three separate clock frequencies -- one each for the main clock, shader processor clock, and memory clock. On the graph, only the shader clock is listed.
- 3DMark05 and 3DMark06 are standard graphics performance benchmarks.
- I did the best I could and double-checked the data, but I can not make *ANY GUARANTEES* about the accuracy of the information on the chart.
To add to some of the pieces that that are missing from the chart above... PS: Looking at these results, unless NVIDIA -and- Apple have something previously unannounced and significant to offer for the future of Apple I just doesn't see move to NVIDIA as being very likely scenario come next Tuesday.
AMD owns ATi so some people will refer ATi to AMD nowadays.
By the way, I don't get it, why people want to play high-end games on a notebook that is not meant for gaming? If you wan to play games get a Windows Notebook or PC, much more variety and wayy cheaper.
If I were a betting man, I'd wager that Apple has discovered the long sought manna that has finally paid of from their tireless systems integration design... apps and games sold through iTunes! They will likely scale up with more high-end games and apps that will play on larger, more powerful Apple computers, and they will sell of of it to you over Wi-Fi, Internet and cellular networks.
Apple builds upon successes, and I've a feeling they will let us know exactly how many millions of apps and games they've pushed to users. This will break wide open the next frontier for all software sales via iTunes... just in time also, since the digital movie sales and rentals thing has not rolled out quite as rapidly as they'd hoped.
Graphics acceleration is beneficial to MUCH more than just gaming, particularly with professional media applications that use OpenGL/CoreImage for transforms and rendering...
So what are the chances of the Mac Pro getting SLI capability? SLI would provide more bang for the buck than a single Quadro card. SLI can also support 2 Quadro cards. Surely, 2 Quadro cards running SLI would be more powerful than a single Quadro card.
3) Many people CAN'T AFFORD buying a dedicated computer just for gaming AND a Macbook/MB Pro. They want ONE device that can do it all.
Then get a Windows notebook? Its cheap and you get better specs then MB or MBP. Except that you will lose the beauty of OS X but hey, its a compromise.
2) Apple's OpenCL will make it much easier for applications to utilize the parallel processing capability of modern GPUs to offload certain types of processing.
True but you don't need the best GPU for that.
1) Graphics acceleration is NOT limited to gaming. First of all, the entire OSX interface runs on OpenGL. More importantly, professional video/graphics applications (based on CoreImage and other frameworks) utilize OpenGL for accelerated graphics processing and rendering. Remember the "Pro" in Macbook Pro?? 3D modeling, animation, CAD/CAM, video editing, compositing, etc all need decent graphics acceleration. Even Photoshop is supposedly going to be hardware accelerated in CS4.
True, again you don't need the best GPU. And so far Intel GMA is doing well coping with OSX interface.
Im not saying that the MB shouldn't have a proper GPU or that the MBP could have improved GPU but its not a big deal not having the best GPU. Most people seem to make a big deal about it, and sadly most of these people give their reasoning is to play high-end games.
I understand the need of a good GPU for certain softwares but you usually don't need the best. Maybe Apple should offer it as a buy to configure option (that is not going to be cheap). Well there is one thing that I still wonder though, like some user says, how come there is no Nvidia Quadro M for MBP users? The only reason I can think of is the lack of popular Windows engineering software like SolidWorks?
So what are the chances of the Mac Pro getting SLI capability? SLI would provide more bang for the buck than a single Quadro card. SLI can also support 2 Quadro cards. Surely, 2 Quadro cards running SLI would be more powerful than a single Quadro card.
Zero. There is zero chance of the Mac Pro getting SLI capability. I'll go out on a short limb and say that there is zero chance of Apple using SLI in any capacity on any of its machines, the only possible exception being HybridPower.
Does it say otherwise anywhere?
In other words, yes.
What a rude response. Any idiot should have been able to reason that the person asking the question did not know that the de facto meaning of the term "chipset" is that of the set of chips that support graphics and I/O into and out of the CPU. As such, what sort of jerk responds to an innocent question of that sort with a response such as "Does it say otherwise anywhere"? You have provided reinforcement for the stereotype of a computer nerd who is pathologically lacking in the basic cognitive skills that are required for normal social interaction with people. You need to get away from your computer for a while and learn how to interact with people instead.
The question asked by newtomac08 and also by Elixer was a perfectly reasonable question for anyone not familiar with the de facto meaning of the term "chipset" to ask. Someone needed to ask it in order that someone else (Mr. H) would be prompted to provide some clarification. Mr. H was also unnecessarily rude. He wrote:
"No, that's why it's called a 'chipset' not a processor. Look at that word: 'chipset'. It's what it says on the tin: a set of chips."
What sort of garbage reasoning is that? He implicitly proposes that by virture of the word "chipset", it should be obvious to anyone who reads English that the processor is excluded. That is absurd. To anyone who is not familiar with the de facto meaning of the word, it is perfectly logical to assume that "chipset" includes the processor, which is a chip, and which is certainly included in the set of chips on the circuit board. Duh. That is precisely why the question was asked. Mr. H also needs to walk away from his keyboard for a while and learn something about people and how to interact with them.
I just have no patience for emotionally retarded twits whose parents allowed them to spend most of their developmental years sitting in front of a computer without ever recognizing the need for their social development. It is truly pathetic that today we have an entire generation of these types that, notwithstanding their technological capabilities, will never be worth a plug nickle to anyone other than themselves.
Are you done for now? The kid just gave a response, so what if it was a little snotty? I think it is you who needs a little "social developement" if you think that eveyone in the world is peachy and wants to be your best friend. Just let it go.
Apple really should incorporate an ATI Mobility Radeon 4670. Especially with all this talk of OpenCL. Only ATI's HD3xxx and HD4xxx series and nVidia GT2xx series supports 64-bit double precision floats. nVidia's 8xxx and 9xxx series only do 32-bit floats, so while they may be fast in games, they would be more limited in GPGPU applications. Although it may not show through in games due to driver limitations in exploiting ATI's 5-way architecture, the 4670's 320 Stream Processors really should show their power in GPGPU applications over the higher clocked 32 Stream Processors in most of nVidia's mainstream mobile lineup. The Mobility Radeon 4xxx series is supposed to launch before the year is out and I can think of no bigger event for ATI to gain momentum than to be in Apple's MBP and take part in the upcoming Apple event.
And in terms of switching between integrated and discrete graphics cards, Intel's Montevina also supports this feature if OEMs decide to use it. Intel's implementation is also GPU agnostic between ATI and nVidia GPUs, which is beneficial to avoid locking into one vendor.
EDIT: In terms of switching between integrated and discrete graphics card, I mean the feature that nVidia calls Hybrid Power where the discrete GPU can be shut off to save power and the screen is fed by the IGP. Montevina supports this feature and can work between Intel IGPs and ATI GPUs or Intel IGPs and nVidia GPUs. Intel doesn't support Hybrid SLI of course, but I don't think it matters anyways since Hybrid SLI or what nVidia calls GeForce Boost won't work with anything higher than a GeForce 9500M G anyways. Only Hybrid Power works with mainstream or high-end GPUs, which Montevina supports.
or if you are like me get a Playstation 3.
I do hope you're getting LittleBigPlanet when it comes out this month!
What a rude response.
Hahahahaha
Relax man. Sorry to have burst a fuse of yours. If you noticed, I just responded to Elixir, not the other guy. Me and Elixir bicker all the time on here, (well we used to, the Blu-ray thread isn't as active anymore) it's always fun!
And I'm far from a nerd. In fact, I'm rather lacking in knowledge as opposed to all these people on here, there's a lot that people say that I don't grasp, as I've not read up on the stuff.
Sorry to have bugged you.
In fact, feel free to read through other posts I've made.
And you know more about chipsets than I do haha
As for the MacBook Pro, that could have Hybrid Power so it turns off the 9600 GPU whenever more basic operations are going on.
As for mobile Quadro, Apple seems to be very cautious about its pro offerings, so I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. It is a bit unfair because mobile and desktop Quadro, like you say, are just uncrippled or somehow more stable GeForces anyways.
Yep, notebookcheck.com. I agree, the data can be somewhat weird, like how certain cards outperform cards that they shouldn't based on the clocks and number of SPs, but oh well what can you do.
Anyways, do you know anything more about the integrated chip in the new motherboard? Do you think it will be very similar to a 9300M G discrete card, better, or worse? It will almost certainly not have any dedicated memory, right? So perhaps it will be a bit slower than the 9300M G discrete if the specs are the same.
Yeah, not bad at all. I've been grumpy about the Intel GMA nonsense since day one of the Macbook. Coming from PC land, I have always been used to significant configuration and having the freshest components, so It's been difficult to adjust to the Mac way of things.
On another note, is there a reason why Apple doesn't offer a mobile Quadro card on the Macbook Pro? Since the Mac Pro has one, I assume the drivers have already been worked out for the extended OpenGL features. Given the fact that nVidia seems to cripple parts of the OpenGL performance of the GeForce line to get you to upgrade (At least on Windows), a Quadro 2700/3700M would certainly be nice... Anyone else know anything about this?
For $600, you can build a pretty solid gaming machine, and $899 (rumored price) buys you a MacBook with an integrated or low-end dedicated chip. $1500 for PCs is not too shabby. I paid that much just for my MBP.
I think that the biggest issue with the integrated Intel GPUs is not 3D graphics performance but HD decoding. The 4500HD supposedly does a solid job with HD content.
Contrary to some claims, most budget notebooks under $899 still use integrated graphics or low-end stuff from nVidia/ATi. There is no serious gaming PC laptop under $1000. In fact, most serious gaming laptops are over $1500.
For those of you who say that most people can't afford to buy two computers for separate uses, you might be surprised by how inexpensive a decent gaming PC is these days.
Very true. Building it yourself is so much more inexpensive. I built my friend's computer, it cost about that much, and is a great gaming machine.
There's absolutely no word on the MBP, which sucks ass.