Aperture: 9400M vs. ATI Mobile X1600 (late 2006 MBP)

[jqc]

I’m thinking about “upgrading” from a late 2006 MBP to a Alu MB, mainly for portability. My main concern is how the 9400M will handle Aperture relative to the ATI x1600/256MB ram I currently have. I have seen 3D benchmark scores which give the 9400M the edge, but how does this translate to a program like Aperture?

Thanks in advance!

[Dale Cooper]

I have the exact same question, except that I'm currently using a 2007 imac with the x1600. How does Aperture perform on the Macbook with 9400m?

[iGary]

You'll be fine. RAM is the real issue with Aperture - It will take as much as you can give it, then beachballs.

[Dale Cooper]

Thanks! "More memory" is always the easiest/cheapest thing to deal with:)

[Richard1028]

Aperture itself seems to be a resource hog on my early 2008 C2D macbook even with 4gb ram. Especially with large RAW files from a Canon 50D (15mp). CPU temp and fan speeds run high for me.

I have since switched to Adobe Lightroom and what a difference it's made for me.

[iLog.Genius]

Was playing around with it and noticed that GPU doesn't really help for performance, instead it's more RAM/CPU intensive. Like others have said, more RAM would help more than GPU regardless of 9400M or 9600M GT.

[Cave Man]

Was playing around with it and noticed that GPU doesn't really help for performance, instead it's more RAM/CPU intensive. Like others have said, more RAM would help more than GPU regardless of 9400M or 9600M GT.

This is not correct. Aperture leverages the gpu and its dedicated RAM for its processing. The better the gpu, the better Aperture should perform. If it's not, then there's something else that is negatively impacting Aperture's performance.

[Shiner]

I’m thinking about “upgrading” from a late 2006 MBP to a Alu MB, mainly for portability. My main concern is how the 9400M will handle Aperture relative to the ATI x1600/256MB ram I currently have. I have seen 3D benchmark scores which give the 9400M the edge, but how does this translate to a program like Aperture?

Thanks in advance!

Just so you know, the macbook is only a pound lighter than the macbook pro you have.

[iLog.Genius]

This is not correct. Aperture leverages the gpu and its dedicated RAM for its processing. The better the gpu, the better Aperture should perform. If it's not, then there's something else that is negatively impacting Aperture's performance.

Could be, but I'm not feeling it or seeing it. I find that no matter what I use 9400M or 9600M GT, CPU usage is the same. Like you said, I should see a difference when I use the 9600M GT but nothing. I do notice a slight difference when using CS4 though and drawing 3D models and I don't even know if CS4 is using the GPU or if it's just a coincidence. I can't really complain because I don't plan on using Aperture a lot, probably will play with it and then delete it.

EDIT: GPU support for CS4 is limited to just basic canvas adjustments, but with that said, there is a slight performance increase when I use 9600M GT over the 9400M. Not an Aperture pro, but does it matter how big an image is? Will I need to work with a large file to actually see a difference?