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

Anyone else very disappointed with the 650m with 1GB

Xcelerate said:
This is ridiculous. I am upgrading from my 2008 Dell D630 to this laptop. First Mac I've ever owned. I checked the benchmarking scores of my D630's graphics card (NVS Quadro 135m) and it has a score 10-12 times lower than this new Macbook Pro's GPU. And my laptop can do much more than surf the web and email. Which only means that a 10-12 times better processor can do SIGNIFICANTLY more.
Click to expand...

Remember there's a lot more to playing a game than raw GPU power. For example, a high-res screen requires 4x the GPU power. Since you're using high textures, it also requires more video memory.

What Apple gave was a lower end upgrade. The 650m isn't bad, but most laptops from a year ago (and that cost less than 1/2 the price) have 1gb of VRAM. In a $2000 premium machine, you shouldn't be worried that you can't run a new release. With this MBP, I would be.

case in point: Skyrim, with the high-resolution mod.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
Remember there's a lot more to playing a game than raw GPU power. For example, a high-res screen requires 4x the GPU power. Since you're using high textures, it also requires more video memory.

What Apple gave was a lower end upgrade. The 650m isn't bad, but most laptops from a year ago (and that cost less than 1/2 the price) have 1gb of VRAM. In a $2000 premium machine, you shouldn't be worried that you can't run a new release. With this MBP, I would be.

case in point: Skyrim, with the high-resolution mod.
Click to expand...
Okay.

Did you really think apple would put a gpu in there that can drive games in 2800x1800.

Hell, even a gtx 680 (desktop card) would struggle at that resolution. And if you find the GPU lackluster, there are windows alternatives out there. But then you sacrfice weight, battery, worse screen, and it will be chunky as hell.

I think Apple struck a perfect balance with the new Mbp. Whats the point in a laptop if its 5kg heavy and fat.

I dont get why people dont understand this.
 
No, the pathetic part is that the low end 15 inch MBP has only 512 MB of GDDR5.

That is absolutely pathetic and there really is no reason to buy the card if you are going to be gaming.

You can barely find cheap crap Acer laptops with less than 1 GB. Even laptops with the 620m or 630m have at least 1 GB.

4GB ram is pathetic for a $1800 computer. Could you not spend the $15 extra and give us 8GB standard, especially when crap $500 laptops have 8GB.

Apple's products are always a mixed blessing. They are often amazing (the retina display 15 inch MBP is amazing) but sometimes kinda pathetic.

It would be nice if they gave you a $10 gigabit ethernet to USB dongle with a $2000+ dollar computer.

Price is kinda high, but I guess its reasonable when no other laptop has that kind of screen.

Funny thing though is that the apple store does not list 1440 by 900 as a supported resolution.
 
cirus said:
No, the pathetic part is that the low end 15 inch MBP has only 512 MB of GDDR5.

That is absolutely pathetic and there really is no reason to buy the card if you are going to be gaming.

You can barely find cheap crap Acer laptops with less than 1 GB. Even laptops with the 620m or 630m have at least 1 GB.

4GB ram is pathetic for a $1800 computer. Could you not spend the $15 extra and give us 8GB standard, especially when crap $500 laptops have 8GB.

Apple's products are always a mixed blessing. They are often amazing (the retina display 15 inch MBP is amazing) but sometimes kinda pathetic.

It would be nice if they gave you a $10 gigabit ethernet to USB dongle with a $2000+ dollar computer.

Price is kinda high, but I guess its reasonable when no other laptop has that kind of screen.

Funny thing though is that the apple store does not list 1440 by 900 as a supported resolution.
Click to expand...

Of course u can find old and new laptops with better gpu's, but at what cost. Jesus Christ.

If this is not for you, look elsewhere.

And why do you want 1440x900 when the gt650m can run games at 1680x1050 just fine? Dont get it.
 
D1G1T4L said:
Well given the selection we have now it shouldn't be too hard to find one of the notebooks that do what you want. If not there is always window machines. Find what you want/need and go with it.
Click to expand...

The entire point of this thread, and the dozens of others like it over the last five years or so, is that Apple has not once in that time shipped a laptop with good graphics performance. Not. Once. And I really like using OS X.

So basically, the only way for me to get a laptop that can do what I want (which is perform decently, and better yet, do so without making a noise like a jet engine) is to get a PC and make it a Hackintosh. Because Windows machines don't offer the programming environment I want, and Apple machines don't offer reasonable performance.

Just for comparison, let's compare the ASUS G55 laptop, which just came out, to Apple's lineup.

Base price:
ASUS G55: $1435 at 2.3, $1635 at 2.6, $1835 at 2.7, $2385 at 2.9
MBP 15": $1800 at 2.3, $2200 at 2.6
Retina 15": $2200 at 2.3, $2800 at 2.6, $3050 at 2.7

CPUs appear to be the same models, although ASUS goes one speed bump higher.

GPU:
ASUS G55: Nvidia GT660M, 2GB DDR5
MBP 15": GeForce GT650M, 1GB DDR5
Retina 15": GeForce 650M, 1GB DDR5

Figure GPU is 10-15% faster at raw computation, but a lot of higher-end games will NOTICABLY benefit from the extra gigabyte of scratch space. Also, the MBP doesn't say whether it's the 192-bit configuration; the 128-bit configuration is noticably slower.

Display:
G55: 1920x1080. Options are antiglare with poor color (default), glossy with better color ($60), antiglare with good color ($125).
MBP 15": 1440x900 glossy (default), 1680x1050 glossy ($100), 1680x1050 antiglare ($100)
Retina 15": 2880x1800 glossy (no options)

RAM:
G55: 12GB default, upgradeable to 32GB. 16GB is $175, 24GB is $255. (32GB requires an OS upgrade, d'oh)
MBP 15": 8GB. Can't see any options.
Retina 15": 8GB, or 16GB (+$200) Soldered onto board; not upgradeable.

Hard drives:
G55: Default 750GB IDE drive, DVD burner. Both bays can be used for hard drives or standard flash drives, which are user-replaceable and standard parts.
MBP 15": 750GB IDE drive, DVD burner. Drive can be upgraded as far as a 512GB SSD for $900.
Retina 15": $2200 model has 256GB, $2800 has 512GB, upgradeable to 768GB. No optical drive.

So, here's the thing. I have an ASUS G53 which I play games on. Because it has 1" tall fan vents, with an extra few ounces of heat sink, it runs "slightly warm" under maximal load, while getting excellent performance. The G55 would probably be 20%-30% faster but not necessarily warmer. I bought my G53 off the shelf, for $1300, plus a 240GB SSD for $340, plus sales tax, all retail; the default configuration was fine. (The G53 is arguably nicer in one way -- two drive bays PLUS the optical drive.)

I have a 2010 MBP, which I attempted to play games on. Based on people at this very forum assuring me that Apple's choice of the 330M would be fine, I got a 17" MBP, maxed out specs. It was roughly $3,500 (and I think that includes a friends-and-family discount). Even when I first got it, it couldn't run then-modern games decently; it had to rev its tiny little fans up to about 7kRPM, and even then, it was noticably slower than older systems. Later that year I got an ASUS G73, for about $1100, which had an ATI 5850 and ran just fine. In fact, I have since given the G73 to a guy who is using it to play video games right now and it's still fine.

Now, I won't pretend that the MBP is all a bad deal for me -- it really is a lovely machine. But the absolute top of Apple's line wasn't even close to the performance I got from a machine that cost about half as much. (In Apple's defense, the reason that model G73 was so cheap was that it had an AWFUL display. The G53, by contrast, has a nicer display than my MBP or Air.)

Reason I'm going on at such length: I think people are severely underestimating just HOW bad Apple's laptop performance is right now. If I went and picked up whatever model of G55 was on the shelf at a store, I would almost certainly get something with better resolution than any non-Retina MBP Apple still sells, a faster-or-the-same CPU, noticably faster video, more USB ports, more options for storage, and so on. For half the price.

Now. For work, that doesn't matter, because all the speed in the world can't make me want to work on Windows. But I tell you this: I would rather spend $3500+ on an Apple laptop which did have that performance than spend $2k on a mediocre-performance Apple laptop and $1500 on a gaming PC that runs rings around the Apple but isn't pleasant to use for any other purpose.

----------
henrikrox said:
Okay.

Did you really think apple would put a gpu in there that can drive games in 2800x1800.

Hell, even a gtx 680 (desktop card) would struggle at that resolution. And if you find the GPU lackluster, there are windows alternatives out there. But then you sacrfice weight, battery, worse screen, and it will be chunky as hell.

I think Apple struck a perfect balance with the new Mbp. Whats the point in a laptop if its 5kg heavy and fat.

I dont get why people dont understand this.
Click to expand...

A possibility to consider: Maybe they understand, but disagree.

The point of a laptop is that I can toss it in a backpack, go to the airport, go Somewhere Else, and still have my computer. I can't do that with a full-size desktop machine. I can do it with a laptop even if the laptop is big and heavy.

I would rather have a chunky machine that ran OS X than a machine which ran OS X but couldn't actually handle the workload I have in mind for it.
 
henrikrox said:
Okay.

Did you really think apple would put a gpu in there that can drive games in 2800x1800.

Hell, even a gtx 680 (desktop card) would struggle at that resolution. And if you find the GPU lackluster, there are windows alternatives out there. But then you sacrfice weight, battery, worse screen, and it will be chunky as hell.

I think Apple struck a perfect balance with the new Mbp. Whats the point in a laptop if its 5kg heavy and fat.

I dont get why people dont understand this.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but it can't even drive games at 1440x900 properly, which I believe is the problem that people are having.

niuniu said:
Name one game that the new Retina MBP can't run at a decent framerate.
Click to expand...

Skyrim.
 
henrikrox said:
Of course u can find old and new laptops with better gpu's, but at what cost. Jesus Christ.

If this is not for you, look elsewhere.

And why do you want 1440x900 when the gt650m can run games at 1680x1050 just fine? Dont get it.
Click to expand...

I'm simply using it for comparison. I'm not talking about the GPU but rather the amount of VRAM. 512 MB is really low by modern standards and there is no excuse for a $1800 machine with a relatively good mobile GPU to only have 512 MB when cheap pieces of crap can easily have 1GB on low end GPU's. VRAM is really cheap, so why apple, why, do we only get 512 MB.

I'm using 1440 by 900 because from a 2880 by 1800 laptop, 1440 by 900 is exactly 1/4 the number of pixels. When playing games or such the screen can go to 1440 by 900 mode when one pixel is 4 "retina" pixels. This is going to be much much clearer than 1680 by 1050.
 
niuniu said:
Name one game that the new Retina MBP can't run at a decent framerate.
Click to expand...

I would be pretty surprised if it could run Rift at a decent framerate. (Presupposing bootcamping into Windows or using crossover or something.) I have machines with much more powerful video cards that struggle with it a bit. :p

Note: "Run at a decent frame rate" doesn't mean "with all settings at minimum". Basically, load a game up on something like the ASUS G55 or G75, compare settings and frame rate. There's lots of games which are still GPU-limited even on fairly high-end desktops -- that's why people still do stuff like having two or four video cards! And I totally accept that there's no point in Apple trying to make something as good as a high-end desktop, but there's no reason we should be settling for something slower than a mid-range laptop.
 
cluthz said:
THere is absolutely no point in having 2GB on a 650M.
The games that needs more than 1GB, will not run well on a 650m at those settings anyway.

To push over 1GB you need usually something like 8X AA or more, and tons of other settings.

BF3 uses 800MB on high settings on my system (GTX285).
If i turn it up more than that, i have like 25 fps..

Deus Ex HR uses like 500MB, Borderlands a bit less..

It's a reason why NVidia had 1GB on GTX560Ti and 1.5GB on GTX580, because anything more is usually a waste.

Adding video ram isn't very expensive, and it's mostly a show off to make lowend cards look better.. That's why you see low end laptops with 2GB DDR3 Ram, just so it looks better on paper..
Click to expand...

But isn't the resolution you use a big factor for wanting more VRAM? I was also disappointed the card did not have more the 1GB, you sure it won't make any difference if I crank up the resolution but lower the settings?

That's what i usually do, always try and get the highest resolution possible even if I have to lower the other settings.

Other then tht and hoping for 802.11ac the new pro is exactly what I wanted

I still want a thunderbolt graphics card!
 
Last edited:
cirus said:
I'm simply using it for comparison. I'm not talking about the GPU but rather the amount of VRAM. 512 MB is really low by modern standards and there is no excuse for a $1800 machine with a relatively good mobile GPU to only have 512 MB when cheap pieces of crap can easily have 1GB on low end GPU's. VRAM is really cheap, so why apple, why, do we only get 512 MB.

I'm using 1440 by 900 because from a 2880 by 1800 laptop, 1440 by 900 is exactly 1/4 the number of pixels. When playing games or such the screen can go to 1440 by 900 mode when one pixel is 4 "retina" pixels. This is going to be much much clearer than 1680 by 1050.
Click to expand...

It's an artificial limitation to force people to purchase the more expensive product. Definitely not the first time Apple's used that tactic.
 
Well keep in mind external thunderbolt GPUs could still happen.

I agree 1GB of VRAM is oddly low these days. But perhaps we are just ignorant of the uses of VRAM... Usually when GPUs have llot of VRAM the also advertise multiple monitor support. Perhaps going over 1 GB is just a need for multiple displays, im not sure.

If MSI releases their external GPU thunderbolt dock it may remedy this lower end GPU. A MBP cannot really push the power req of better GPUs at this time.
 
niuniu said:
Name one game that the new Retina MBP can't run at a decent framerate.
Click to expand...

You clearly don't play PC games...

Or, if you do, you have exceptionally low standards.

1GB of VRAM is more or less a minimum for decent-to-good performance.

I'm running an overclocked ATI 5870 (1GB) in my Mac Pro, under Windows 7 ... Running Skyrim on all high @1080P, with ENB, and a few mild high-res texture mods enabled, it averages about 40fps. Not bad, but certainly not great.

The MBP would run the same game with the same settings at a substantially lower framerate. Or, until it's actually tested, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that it would.
 
pacman7331 said:
Well keep in mind external thunderbolt GPUs could still happen.

I agree 1GB of VRAM is oddly low these days. But perhaps we are just ignorant of the uses of VRAM... Usually when GPUs have llot of VRAM the also advertise multiple monitor support. Perhaps going over 1 GB is just a need for multiple displays, im not sure.
Click to expand...

Nope. It's useful for anything that's doing a lot of textures, and having more lets you do additional optimizations, improves options for stuff like anisotropic filtering, and so on.

If MSI releases their external GPU thunderbolt dock it may remedy this lower end GPU. A MBP cannot really push the power req of better GPUs at this time.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting thought. (Disclaimer, though: I once filled out a rebate form for MSI. They stiffed me on the rebate. I complained. They went around submitting the information from my rebate form to a ton of spammers and applying for loans with it. Yes, really.)
 
Realistically speaking, how much of a difference does the video ram effect gameplay? Is 512mb and 1gb that significant?

I'm talking about games like Starcraft 2, Skyrim, Diablo 3, League of Legends, and etc.

For example, I'm sure there's a big difference in high/ultra setting graphics, but what about medium-high to medium-low settings? Is there a difference in that area?
 
mikeo007 said:
How is it bull? Your video shows skyrim running at a tolerable framerate with crappy settings.

With settings maxed and HD textures, it will stutter to hell on the 650m.
Click to expand...

Who care about running games on max? Some kid poser that makes youtube videos to impress his e-friends? :rolleyes:

Competitive gamers run games low/medium to medium so they don't get stutter when another player loads. Try playing a siege in any next-gen game with 100's of people on high settings - just daft.

This MBP will run any game that's out on the market now on medium settings. I challenge anyone here to prove me wrong with a video.
 
niuniu said:
Who care about running games on max? Some kid poser that makes youtube videos to impress his e-friends? :rolleyes:

Competitive gamers run games low/medium to medium so they don't get stutter when another player loads. Try playing a siege in any next-gen game with 100's of people on high settings - just daft.

This MBP will run any game that's out on the market now on medium settings. I challenge anyone here to prove me wrong with a video.
Click to expand...

Do you also buy a car that can only do 50 mph because going any faster is just to impress people? Get a clue.
Also, if you're a competitive gamer using a MacBook, you're doing it wrong.
 
therealseebs said:
Nope. *It's useful for anything that's doing a lot of textures, and having more lets you do additional optimizations, improves options for stuff like anisotropic filtering, and so on.
Click to expand...

Figures... Not surprised really. Most GPUs nowadays have a minumim of 1GB and its rare to see less than 1.5 on any gaming laptop. However some GPUs one NewEgg like the EVGA GTX 580 still has very high ratings today and only 1.5 GB which isnt much more.


therealseebs said:
That's an interesting thought. *(Disclaimer, though: *I once filled out a rebate form for MSI. *They stiffed me on the rebate. *I complained. *They went around submitting the information from my rebate form to a ton of spammers and applying for loans with it. *Yes, really.)
Click to expand...

How odd. Some employees are servile cultists, you will find them in any company.

But MSI is still good for something: http://www.tested.com/news/news/3453-ces-2012-hands-on-with-msis-external-thunderbolt-laptop-gpu/

AMD is joining in:

http://www.dailytech.com/UPDATED+AM...olt+Greenlights+External+GPU/article23793.htm

Apparently Village Instruments is already in the game:

http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-index.php?page=ViDock
 
mikeo007 said:
Do you also buy a car that can only do 50 mph because going any faster is just to impress people? Get a clue.
Also, if you're a competitive gamer using a MacBook, you're doing it wrong.
Click to expand...

What sense did that make? Macs run games at full speed, just lower settings a bit if the game is stuttering. Simples.

All you need to play games competitively is bootcamp, a good mouse, keybinds and decent APM.

Only noobs think competitive gaming is about having a good GPU. That's why they get their mom to buy them a shiny pimped PC. Then they go rage on the forums about balance cos they really they suck.
 
Samjohnson6 said:
My point is that it is supposed to be a high performance laptop... I love OSX, I love the design of the MacBook pro, ect. It just seems odd to me that people who aren't in creative media are so eager to fork over so
Much $$$$ for a laptop that can only surf the web and email in a pretty case. Apple seems to be turning into a company that values form over function, not the best of both
Click to expand...

...wow. Only surf the web and email? With a solid GPU and a quad core Ivy Bridge? The CPU is about as good as it can get in that case. Do you really think that you can't do a TON with that? Furthermore, do you really think that the 650M, a GPU that is significantly faster than the 6770m in the previous model, is not sufficient for just about anyone's needs? If you want a laptop for games then go buy something that's twice as thick, twice as heavy, and with a fraction of the battery life. Otherwise, you compromise like any other person buying a laptop would and get something that performs well enough. Furthermore, who's going to buy a friggin' Macbook Pro to play games? Not to mention heavy gamers are NOT a majority of buyers, nor are they usually looking for a major gaming laptop. Please point out a PC laptop with similar dimensions/weight that has a significantly better GPU. I don't think you can. Anything would be much thicker/heavier.
 
Last edited:
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