17" MacBook Pro GPU clock speed

[robert-a-hudson]

Just wondering if anyone with a MBP 17" could confirm or otherwise if the GPU throtling was really occuring? I mentioned this in my other thread, but have had no replies about the GPU qustion yet, I'm guessing due to lack of exposure. Anyway I see no mention of this on the apple website, or have seen anyone else mention it. Here's the link I found, its the Quick Take from May 19th, or a more indepth note of it here.

Would be real interested to know one way or the other,

Thanks in advance guys and gals!

 

[Makosuke]

Can't confirm for you what's really going on, but I can tell you that, as BareFeats said, Graphiccelerator reports higher clock frequencies for the GPU and its memory when there's more serious 3D rendering going on. I don't game on my computer, but I downloaded the Enigmo 2 demo (UB) to test, and indeed, while the "intro" screen is running (which uses a bunch of fancy lighting and particle effects) the core shows 423MHz and the memory 450, while ordinarily and when the game is actually running (it doesn't hit the card very hard) those numbers are 310.5 and 297, respectively, just as Barefeats reported. The change up and down is almost instant.

Now, for all I know Graphiccelerator is misinterpreting some message from the ATI chip, or the OS, or who knows what else. But at the very least, the numbers it's showing go up when the card is working harder (or, perhaps, when some particular feature of it has been accessed--could be triggered by some advanced shader or something).

There you go.

 

[Coheebuzz]

So this means that the GPU's in MBP's are not really underclocked, as was the case, but only run at full speed when the power is needed?

 

[mmmcheese]

So this means that the GPU's in MBP's are not really underclocked, as was the case, but only run at full speed when the power is needed?

This is typical of ALL modern GPUs...even desktop processors.