Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

9600M GT worse than 8800M GTX

pyromaniaque said:
They could have given us the 9800M which still is a BEAST and runs relatively cool, but nooooooo, let's pay 2K and get a piece of **** gfx card, that only runs intense games (like crysis) on medium. I want a card where I can turn shaders to max, anti-aliasing to max and all that good stuff...We want to pay for quality.
Click to expand...
Then buy a computer that offers what you want? :confused:
 
pyromaniaque said:
If that were to happen, I gray apple would not be the startup icon....
Click to expand...

And that matters why? If you're really that into getting computers that have the very latest/fastest components, don't buy Apple.

Apple is high mid range hardware, in a pretty/sleek casing, with a fancy operating system.
 
pyromaniaque said:
They could have given us the 9800M which still is a BEAST and runs relatively cool, but nooooooo, let's pay 2K and get a piece of **** gfx card, that only runs intense games (like crysis) on medium. I want a card where I can turn shaders to max, anti-aliasing to max and all that good stuff...We want to pay for quality.
Click to expand...

Not that the gaming community is any less important than any other, but Apple has never focused on building gaming machines. They don't even have commercials to attract gamers. While I agree if they made a high end MBP setup for gaming, such as a high end video card, SSD, 8 gigs ram etc.. It would probably sell. The downside is the limited number of games that run native on the OSX. While Apple supports running Windows, it's not the ideal situation and lord knows Apple refuses to do anything half way.

They have attracted most of their growth of new customers from the iPhone. Those same customers then see their commercials are all about green, environmentally friendly laptops. The ease of use, a family friendly computer for photo's, video etc.. Gaming just hasn't been a focus for the obvious lack of support form the major developers. I'm guessing the video card is something they think about photo and video editors more than they do gamers.

They day Apple focuses on gaming I think we will see that machine between a mini and the MacPro, until I just don't think they see the MBP as a gamer's computer. Sure it runs games pretty well, but to meet their price points and their profit margins the GPU's are held back a bit. (not to mention the head and power the higher end GPU's eat up, just not worth it to them)
 
The GPUs aren't held back because of price points. They purposely underclock them so that they can keep their fans AT THE SLOWEST SPEED, and not have people complain, "ouch too hot"
 
pyromaniaque said:
The GPUs aren't held back because of price points. They purposely underclock them so that they can keep their fans AT THE SLOWEST SPEED, and not have people complain, "ouch too hot"
Click to expand...

So the 9600 GT is he same chip underclocked as the 9800 GT would be? I do get the heat thing, but figured it was a entirely different chip too.
 
pyromaniaque said:
I think you're missing the point. The 9800GT/X is BETTER than the 9600. Even the 8800M GT from two years ago is better than the 9600.
Click to expand...

I get the fact the 9800GT/X is a better chip, what I was asking after you said they are underclocking the 9600GT is IF it was in fact the same chip as the 9800GT just underclocked? I honestly don't know and haven't researched it. I also get your point that the 8800GT is faster than the 9600GT, but thinking about how Apple markets their machines, gamers are not their target market, 99% of the population reads 8800GT is less powerful than a 9600GT, so they think they are getting a more powerful machine and happy to pay for it.

I haven't done any gaming in several years that requires anything more then the 9400m really so it's not been something I have kept up with. I was just trying to point out the logic that Apple will likely never be on the cutting edge in GPU or CPU's for that matter as it's nice profit margins benefit by lagging behind the tech curve.

i7 laptops don't make sense for Apple when they are not focused on people buying them that would ever take advantage of the quad core chips. The MBP's have stayed at the same price level as each gen passes while Apple keeps trailing the latest and greatest and keeps raking in the cash.

I wasn't doubting what you were saying was true, the number speak for themselves, just looking at it from what I know of how Apple has put it's product to market. :)
 
pyromaniaque said:
The GPUs aren't held back because of price points. They purposely underclock them so that they can keep their fans AT THE SLOWEST SPEED, and not have people complain, "ouch too hot"
Click to expand...

Apple's main focus is consumers and professionals, not gamers, and most consumers would rather have a quieter, slimmer, and cooler machine then have a 2" brick with fans that run at 4000 rpm constantly. Many pros also aren't interested in gaming cards as they wouldn't increase performance that much, but would cause the machine to be much bigger and louder. There are machines out there that are 2" thick and have much better cards, so if you don't like the 9600m, then why don't you just go and buy one of those machines?
 
pyromaniaque said:
Do ya'll realize that the 8800M GT outperforms the 9600M GT? No I'm not talking about the 8600M GT..

Why would nVidia make something with a bigger number, and have Apple try to pass it off as "the next best thing"?

The 8800 GT revolutionized graphics cards with nVidia's first unified shader architecture in my opinion, and Apple returns us with this piece of crap on the Macbook Pro? When will we start paying for actual quality components?

Code: 
                     8600M GT..............8800M GT..............9600M GT

Stream Processors:    32                    96                    32
Core Clock:           475MHz                500MHz                500MHz
Shader Clock:         950MHz                1250MHz               1250MHz
Memory Clock:         800mhz                1600MHz               900MHz
Memory:               512MB                 512MB                 512MB
Memory interface:     128bit                256bit                128bit
Memory Bandwidth:     22.4 GB/s             51.2 GB/s             25.6 GB/s
Shader Process Rate:  91.2 gigaflops        360 gigaflops         312 gigaflops
As you can see with your own eyes, the 9600M isn't even that much of an improvement than the 8600GT, and can't even beat the 8800GT.

Apple, please stop putting February 2008 GPUs in Late 2008 products.
Click to expand...

If you bothered to read up about ATIs and Nvidias naming schemes......

The very first number tells you about which generation the card belongs to, which means all GPUs that start with 9 are newer than all of those that start with 8. The second number tells you how powerful the card is. x100/x200 usually means integrated, x300/x400 usually means low-end card, x500/x600 is mid-range, x700 is higher end of the mid range, and x800/x900 is the high-end.

pyromaniaque said:
They could have given us the 9800M which still is a BEAST and runs relatively cool, but nooooooo, let's pay 2K and get a piece of **** gfx card, that only runs intense games (like crysis) on medium. I want a card where I can turn shaders to max, anti-aliasing to max and all that good stuff...We want to pay for quality.
Click to expand...

It's because of the simple fact that such powerful GPUs only fit in fat-ass huge laptops that are able to house huge cooling systems sufficient for the 9800M. Even the 15" or 16" notebooks from other manufacturers such as Dell, HP, Acer aren't big enough to house sufficient cooling for the 9800M, so how do you think the ultra-slim MBP would fare?

Comparing the dimensions of the Alienware m15x (15.4" gaming notebook) and the Apple Macbook Pro:

Alienware m15x: 14.50 x 10.8 x 1.7 (7.8 lbs)
Macbook Pro: 14.35 x 9.82 x 0.95 (5.5 lbs)

Pictures for comparison:
http://i38.tinypic.com/205fs09.jpg
http://i34.tinypic.com/zu0ex4.jpg
http://i38.tinypic.com/98afmb.jpg
 
The gaming laptop is a more retarded idea than the netbook. (Which actually has a use in practice)

Gaming laptops are absurdly heavy, and get poor battery life. They cannot handle the heat, and live a short life. Their GPUs are limited in capablity, and soldered on, so their useful lifespan as a gaming machine is generally only 1-2 years, tops. As opposed to a gaming tower, where a simple card upgrade can often keep the same machine on the field for 3-4 years, or more (provided the owner was thinking ahead when choosing a CPU)

Yes, the 9600M GT is slower than the 8800M GTX. The desktop 8800 GT is also faster than the desktop 9600 GT (a bit step up from the mobile 9600, I might add). For someone who supposedly cares about PC gaming, I find it odd you didn't know that. It shows you don't read benchmarks (Tom's Hardware has a great monthly feature for this), nor do you know about the numbering schemes ATI and Nvidia use for their designs.

As for the MBP...

I want a computer that is actually mobile. The MBP is meant as a compromise; something that has enough power and expansion to do professional work on the go/in the field, yet is still portable enough to get out there in the first place. If you wanted performance, but didn't really care about portability, get the Mac Pro.


OP, if you want a gaming machine, go build yourself a tower, and slap Vista Home Premium x64 on there. There are many people willing to help you, including myself and others in this thread. Go over the general discussion board and start up a thread asking advice. There are many other communities to help you as well.


-Summer Glau :p
 
J the Ninja said:
The gaming laptop is a more retarded idea than the netbook. (Which actually has a use in practice)

Gaming laptops are absurdly heavy, and get poor battery life. They cannot handle the heat, and live a short life. Their GPUs are limited in capablity, and soldered on, so their useful lifespan as a gaming machine is generally only 1-2 years, tops. As opposed to a gaming tower, where a simple card upgrade can often keep the same machine on the field for 3-4 years, or more (provided the owner was thinking ahead when choosing a CPU)

Yes, the 9600M GT is slower than the 8800M GTX. The desktop 8800 GT is also faster than the desktop 9600 GT (a bit step up from the mobile 9600, I might add). For someone who supposedly cares about PC gaming, I find it odd you didn't know that. It shows you don't read benchmarks (Tom's Hardware has a great monthly feature for this), nor do you know about the numbering schemes ATI and Nvidia use for their designs.

As for the MBP...

I want a computer that is actually mobile. The MBP is meant as a compromise; something that has enough power and expansion to do professional work on the go/in the field, yet is still portable enough to get out there in the first place. If you wanted performance, but didn't really care about portability, get the Mac Pro.


OP, if you want a gaming machine, go build yourself a tower, and slap Vista Home Premium x64 on there. There are many people willing to help you, including myself and others in this thread. Go over the general discussion board and start up a thread asking advice. There are many other communities to help you as well.


-Summer Glau :p
Click to expand...
My friend's gaming laptop has lasted him five years. The only thing that he's ever had to replace is the battery.. So your point?

Sorry for having an opinion guys...
 
pyromaniaque said:
My friend's gaming laptop has lasted him five years. The only thing that he's ever had to replace is the battery.. So your point?

Sorry for having an opinion guys...
Click to expand...

It doesn't play Crysis anymore though, does it? And the point still stands that gaming laptops are bulky and tend to be short lived. The plural of anecdote is not data.
 
It's not a perfect world. If you want performance, you need to sacrifice form. If you want form (the sleek design of the MacBook Pro), you need to sacrifice some performance.
 
Pyromaniaque, what do you think about ATI Radeon 4850 in the iMac and ATI Radeon 4870 in the Mac Pro? Would those options be good enough for you?
 
Agreeing with what everyone else said, nVidia and ATi both have their own naming for their cards. And they are similar. The x100-x400 series are the low end, while the x500-700 are the mid range and the x800-x900 are the enthusiast platform. The x in front of those numbers mean the generation of the card. The x800-900 of two generations ago could sometimes easily smoke the x500-x700 range cards (of course the x100-x400 are left behind).

pyro - This is one of the things about buying Apple products. We are left to pay the Apple "tax". For instance, Intel released their new notebook platform (I believe it was Santa Rosa), but Apple hadn't adopted it until 6-8 months later.

Now you tell Apple to add a 9800M graphics card in this .95in enclosure, it will be impossible. If you had ever seen the internals of the MBP, you'd be amazed that they could fit a 9600MGT in here, taking into consideration the heat and thermal capacity of a .95in enclosure. Any other laptops I have seen with graphics cards faster than the 9600M GT, it is awkwardly big, 2 - 3 in thick plastic laptops that aren't "laptops". And the heat that comes off of the 9800M is insane.

Apple underclocks the 9600M GT for heat reasons. You don't want your laptop to be turning off every 10 minutes now would you? I personally wouldn't. Name me one laptop that is as thin as a Macbook Pro but has a 9600M GT running at full power.

If you are so worried about gaming performance, than the MBP isn't the right laptop for you. Go ahead and build yourself a XP or Vista gaming tower that would cost much less than a Macbook Pro.

As the other poster put it together, to have a beautiful, thin design from Apple, one must sacrifice on performance.
 
pyromaniaque said:
My friend's gaming laptop has lasted him five years. The only thing that he's ever had to replace is the battery.. So your point?

Sorry for having an opinion guys...
Click to expand...

Yeah? You have an opinion? I have an opinion also. Its Apple, its what they want to do. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Stop complaining about something there's no way you can change whatsoever.
 
i have an asus with a 1 gb 9650 GT in it. i paid like 900. they sell a different asus with 9800 for 1k. it is about an inch thicker then a mac. the build quality isnt even close to my mac, but it has decent hardware under the hood for the money.

I think heat restrictions play a part in apples decision to use the chip that they did. a 9800 would have been useless if it just overheated half the time.
 
Eidorian said:
I love Apple a lot but they don't always sell hardware that I want.

Getting a non-Apple machine was acceptable for the hardware that I got with it.

In before the mess of ASUS, Acer, and MSI laptops around ~$900 with 9600M GTs.
Click to expand...

Sorry, just because it uses the same graphics chip hardly makes it a comparable laptop.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back