X1800 soon in Macbook Pro?

[Kasper Winding]

Hi all

Well ive used a windows based computer for over 10 years now.....but now iam changing my religion and kickin out out my old god, Mr. Gates.

Iam still gonna make a dualboot cause my work still havent seen the light.

Ive been looking on the Macbook Pro 17" and it looks great, just one little problem. Why does it come with a Ati X1600 graphic card. In the windows based world this graphic card is old old news and not very fast.

Ive heard rumors, that the Macbook Pro is soon gonna have a x1800 installed. Is this rumor true? ( Abit of a wow fan)

Sincerly Kasper Winding Denmark

 

[Kingsly]

Probably at MWSF in January.

 

[Kasper Winding]

And MWSF is ?

Probably at MWSF in January.

And MWSF is ?

Kasper

 

[daneoni]

And MWSF is ?

Kasper

January 9th 07. Although i'd have to disagree MWSF would be focusing on iTV/Mini updates and iPhones and possible Leopard release. Afterall the MBPs just got updated. My prediction would be June when Santa Rosa would've been released

 

[mmmcheese]

Maybe they are waiting for something new...as it is, the X1600 is run at a lower clock speed than the maximum it is spec'ed for. The X1800 isn't that much of an improvement if they have to keep it clocked back due to heat as well.

Who knows, maybe the next version will be nvidia.

 

[QCassidy352]

And MWSF is ?

Kasper

MacWorld San Francisco

I agree with you about the graphics in the Macbook Pro - they lag badly behind the rest of the computer. That said, if all you need the graphics for is WoW, you'll easily top 60 fps with the current macbook pro.

 

[ToastMaster]

Yeah, the x1600 is a little behind but it still does ok with just about anything I throw at it.

 

[e12a]

I hope they go nvidia.

 

[prism]

I dont know about you guys but I dont consider a 3DM05 score of 3800+ (without overclocking) on my MBP C2D 2.16ghz w/128mb of vram slow at all!!! Im sure you can get above 4000 with the 256mb version.
You have to consider that the MBP is very thin and therefore not very comparable to others such as Dell. I doubt we will see a change in the gpu for Jan.

 

[eXan]

Current MacBook Pros show amazing FPS in WoW, just check out barefeats.com, they have all sorts of Mac benchmarks

 

[topgun072003]

MWSF is going to be sweeeeeet! Is nvidia that much better? I've heard a lot of people say that they wish Apple had/goes with nvidia? I don't think that they're stuck with ATI, but what's special about nvidia?

 

[Kasper Winding]

MWSF is going to be sweeeeeet! Is nvidia that much better? I've heard a lot of people say that they wish Apple had/goes with nvidia? I don't think that they're stuck with ATI, but what's special about nvidia?

Well Nvidia and ATI is equal when it comes to games on a normal PC/MAC
But when it comes to the mobility GPU, Nvidia got the fastest GPU.

But the colour on ATI is best....

Anyone heard more rumors about new graphiccard in MBP

 

[sammich]

I don't think so...

Probably at MWSF in January.

Come on people, do you think apple will upgrade the GPU in a notebook that already kicks a whole lotta asss (especially the DELAYED 17" C2D MBP)?

We did expect apple to upgrade their lines more often since the switch but a mere month after people started getting their 17" MBP? (the most likely cadidate to get a slightly faster, but hotter and more battery draining X1800).

While I wouldn't mind the upgrade myself, plenty of people will be pissed after waiting:
- about 2 months (after many of other PC manufacturers) simply for the announcement of the chip-swapped MBPs
- about another month for the delayed 17 inch version to actually ship

So if we wait ONE MORE MONTH, we get a better MBP, and then what...wait another 2 months before we get it?

 

[mmmcheese]

Current MacBook Pros show amazing FPS in WoW, just check out barefeats.com, they have all sorts of Mac benchmarks

Just the other day I installed Call of Duty 2 (the OSX UB) and turned on all the highest settings except for anti-aliasing, and it ran pretty well at 1440x900. I don't know what the FPS was, but I never felt the need to make it run faster by decreasing a setting. CoD2 may not be the most hardcode graphics game out there, but it shows me that the x1600 is a quite capable chip.

 

[QCassidy352]

Just the other day I installed Call of Duty 2 (the OSX UB) and turned on all the highest settings except for anti-aliasing, and it ran pretty well at 1440x900. I don't know what the FPS was, but I never felt the need to make it run faster by decreasing a setting. CoD2 may not be the most hardcode graphics game out there, but it shows me that the x1600 is a quite capable chip.

yea, it's certainly not *bad,* but IMO, it's the one part of the MBP that lags somewhat behind the (otherwise exceptional) rest of the computer. I'm not saying that it should be a 2" thick brick like a Dell, but the x1600 is a little old now.

 

[Felldownthewell]

While it does lag behind the times I can run BF2142 at medium settings and Half Life 2 at full settings at native resolution. It is certainly not top of the line, but it gives respectable performance for a mobile chip. (And I'm on a Core Duo machince with only a gig or RAM as well!)

I do hope they go nVidea though, change things up a bit.

 

[mmmcheese]

yea, it's certainly not *bad,* but IMO, it's the one part of the MBP that lags somewhat behind the (otherwise exceptional) rest of the computer. I'm not saying that it should be a 2" thick brick like a Dell, but the x1600 is a little old now.

But since there aren't many mac games, and even fewer that really push the limits of the hardware, what motivation does Apple have to provide more graphical horse power?

I'm not saying they shouldn't...I just don't see how they would see it as a required expense (it'll cut into the bottom line since the chip will cost more, and they probably wouldn't raise the price...especially if it has to be clocked at similar speeds to the current x1600).

 

[Eraserhead]

Serious gaming isn't really possible on any laptop, unless you are prepared to buy a new $2000+ laptop every 18 months-2 years as the graphics cards aren't replaceable, basically you have to be very rich to do it, if you want to game I'd recommend buying (or building) a desktop PC and a Macbook for portability on the road, it will probably cost about as much as an MBP and be much more versatile.

 

[e12a]

Well Nvidia and ATI is equal when it comes to games on a normal PC/MAC
But when it comes to the mobility GPU, Nvidia got the fastest GPU.

But the colour on ATI is best....

Anyone heard more rumors about new graphiccard in MBP

Not to mention ATi's drivers are infamously unstable, and they dont support legacy hardware. Nvidia does. (ex: their newest drivers support my good 'ol GF4 Ti4800, and I've never had a driver related problem)

 

[Felldownthewell]

But since there aren't many mac games, and even fewer that really push the limits of the hardware, what motivation does Apple have to provide more graphical horse power?

Now that intel macs can dual boot there is far more motivation. Hopefully Apple has realized that.

Serious gaming isn't really possible on any laptop, unless you are prepared to buy a new $2000+ laptop every 18 months-2 years as the graphics cards aren't replaceable, basically you have to be very rich to do it, if you want to game I'd recommend buying (or building) a desktop PC and a Macbook for portability on the road, it will probably cost about as much as an MBP and be much more versatile.

It is, but you have to be willing to pay a very large amount and get a machine that weighs 12-20lb, gets 45 minutes of battery life and runs hotter than Rev. A MBPs.

(SLI laptop)

 

[eXan]

Not to mention ATi's drivers are infamously unstable, and they dont support legacy hardware. Nvidia does. (ex: their newest drivers support my good 'ol GF4 Ti4800, and I've never had a driver related problem)

I've never had any driver-related problems on my Macs with ATI chips

I still like ATi more, its has an awesome little utility called ATi Displays and ATIccelerator

 

[mmmcheese]

Now that intel macs can dual boot there is far more motivation. Hopefully Apple has realized that....

Last time I checked, OS X was the only x86 compatible OS that Apple made...

(And therefore the only one they would concern themselves with)

 

[GoneFishing]

I do not see an upgrade soon.

ATI x1600 and nVidia Go 7600

These are both the best cards out there for the mainstream notebooks, in other words, they could be top of the line in 14" - 15"; 5lbs - 7lbs category.

Yes, there are newer cards with more power. x1900 and 7900, but those cards need a lot of space to give off their heat.

Given Apple's thin 1" design (the only other companies doing close to this is Samsung, who doesn't sell laptops in the US, and Asus, most Europeans are familiar), there really isn't much room to allow enough air flow to cool the system down. Remember the prevoius MBP that was hot enough to make your eggs for breakfast?

Other factors coming in as well such as battery life. x1800 will drain more power faster. 1" doesn't give a lot of room for battery storage, so again we fall into the design issue here.

The question is, do you want Apple to give up what it has being doing so hard on design or not?

 

[Felldownthewell]

Last time I checked, OS X was the only x86 compatible OS that Apple made...

(And therefore the only one they would concern themselves with)

Right, but since they now provide a utility to install windows on any intel-based mac, it would make sense for them to recognize that a signifigant number of people are taking advantage of this and installing windows. Of the people doing that, there are a good number doing it for gaming and windows-only graphics programs. This means that there is now a greater demand for a more gaming/3D capable chip than there ever was under OS X.

 

[mmmcheese]

Right, but since they now provide a utility to install windows on any intel-based mac, it would make sense for them to recognize that a signifigant number of people are taking advantage of this and installing windows. Of the people doing that, there are a good number doing it for gaming and windows-only graphics programs. This means that there is now a greater demand for a more gaming/3D capable chip than there ever was under OS X.

So you're saying that Apple considers themselves a Windows PC manufacturer and base their designs on the needs of Windows users?