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

Apple's Mac Lineups to See Significant Graphics Upgrades as New GPU Launches Loom

You only have to run a game on Steam from your mac and compare it to running on bootcamp under windows (with all the latest GPU/NVIDIA drivers) to see how poor Apple are in maintaining latest GPU drivers etc.

Has anyone ever tried playing Portal 2? As a comparison, run it on Windows/Bootcamp on the same Mac and you'll be very surprised! In my case, Apple are facing me to use 3 year old NVIDIA drivers. Just horrible.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AlexGraphicD
There are already plenty of GPU options out there that Apple could be using. Apple just seems always a couple of years behind on this kind of stuff.
 
  • Like
Reactions: thequietaussie
^It doesn't seem like Apple has ever really been about "keeping up" with graphics. That seems to be something aimed at gaming machines, which Apple computers traditionally aren't.
 
I am really hoping for better video card in Macs and would love more VRAM, windows laptops are coming with 4GB, 6GB or even 8GB graphic cards at lower cost than MacBooks while MacBooks are stuck at 2GB????, Apple please release something better and you don't have to make it thinner.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AlexGraphicD, Synchro3, nvmls and 1 other person
Chupa Chupa said:
I think everyone ignores it b/c Apple screwed the pooch on it and made it not worth looking at for most. It's an ultra-niche machine now. I always bought the MP until the "new" one. I'm really depressed how Apple has not walked away, but sprinted, from it's traditional customers/fans in not making at least one decent, somewhat user upgradable, headless Mac. Laptops are also a disaster of mediocrity, but I can more easily deal with that since my MBP was never my go-to computer for video or photo editing.
Click to expand...

The problem here is that you are thinking about technology as you knew it in the past. To make any reasonable performance advancements components have to get smaller. The new Mac Pro is simply a machine that will be suitable for a decade or so of high performance computing machinery.

If you don't believe me then start to consider what is happening in the high performance Arena. For the GPU market RAM is being integrated into the GPU package. This is not being done to screw the customer as some idiots imply but rather because they need the performance increase to drive the advancements made to the GPUs. In other words to increase bandwidth in a reliable way RAM has to be built in package. The same thing is being done by Intel for the next generation XEON PHI. Intel isn't using HBM but rather a Memory Cube variant. Again the rational is the same, the close coupling is needed to drive performance.

It should be noted that this tech is showing up first in high performance components and eventually will get filtered into machines like the Mac Pro. One day the amount of RAM in a machine will be based on the processor chips you select as there will be no external memory buses. You might also consider Intel's Crystal Well technology that is sort of half way there when it comes to embedding RAM in a processor chip.

So the direction is clear here we will have higher performance chips with much denser packaging. Eventually the Mac Pro will looks spacious inside.

While I don't agree with all of Apples design decisions you are way off base in calling the current machines "mediocrity".
 
  • Like
Reactions: page404, ebatalha, koyoot and 1 other person
xkam1x said:
I am really hoping for better video card in Macs and would love more VRAM, windows laptops are coming with 4GB, 6GB or even 8GB graphic cards at lower cost than MacBooks while MacBooks are stuck at 2GB????, Apple please release something better and you don't have to make it thinner.
Click to expand...

Seriously. I'm tired of sacrificing power for thinness. I have an iPad for thinness. I don't need my laptop to be super thin and less powerful.
 
  • Like
Reactions: thequietaussie
Apples drivers are worst than some open sourced Linux GPU drivers. That is a reality however we are actually seeing some effort by Apple to improve things. Metal for one is getting the ball rolling. In the end Apple has a lot of work to do to over come the stigma of its drivers.

In any event comparing gaming performance is senseless because Apple has never failed caused on that segment until the Rrival of Metal. Even with metal it appears to be a forward looking thing only.

acedout said:
You only have to run a game on Steam from your mac and compare it to running on bootcamp under windows (with all the latest GPU/NVIDIA drivers) to see how poor Apple are in maintaining latest GPU drivers etc.

Has anyone ever tried playing Portal 2? As a comparison, run it on Windows/Bootcamp on the same Mac and you'll be very surprised! In my case, Apple are facing me to use 3 year old NVIDIA drivers. Just horrible.
Click to expand...
 
i wonder if they will use amd or nvidia in any other macs other than 27" imac and mac pro ?!
 
linuxcooldude said:
3D failed long ago, if you mean VR,
Click to expand...

My comments have nothing to do with VR or 3D rendering. Even if some forms of 3D "failed", the companies that had a lot of GPU hardware were the ones making advances in DNN and machine learning such as AlphaGo and Facebook's image captioning for blind users. Cancer screening is turning out to be another area. High-end GPUs / Graphics Processing Units turned out to be useful for a lot more important stuff than 3D graphics.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AlexGraphicD
wizard said:
The problem here is that you are thinking about technology as you knew it in the past. To make any reasonable performance advancements components have to get smaller. The new Mac Pro is simply a machine that will be suitable for a decade or so of high performance computing machinery.

If you don't believe me then start to consider what is happening in the high performance Arena. For the GPU market RAM is being integrated into the GPU package. This is not being done to screw the customer as some idiots imply but rather because they need the performance increase to drive the advancements made to the GPUs. In other words to increase bandwidth in a reliable way RAM has to be built in package. The same thing is being done by Intel for the next generation XEON PHI. Intel isn't using HBM but rather a Memory Cube variant. Again the rational is the same, the close coupling is needed to drive performance.

It should be noted that this tech is showing up first in high performance components and eventually will get filtered into machines like the Mac Pro. One day the amount of RAM in a machine will be based on the processor chips you select as there will be no external memory buses. You might also consider Intel's Crystal Well technology that is sort of half way there when it comes to embedding RAM in a processor chip.

So the direction is clear here we will have higher performance chips with much denser packaging. Eventually the Mac Pro will looks spacious inside.

While I don't agree with all of Apples design decisions you are way off base in calling the current machines "mediocrity".
Click to expand...

Yes!!!

Increasing integration is the way forward, not going backward toward discrete components.
 
  • Like
Reactions: koyoot
mcarling said:
Yes!!!

Increasing integration is the way forward, not going backward toward discrete components.
Click to expand...

There seems to be this attitude that because there's something better in the future, Apple should just ignore what's going on now. Yes, it would be nice if you didn't need discrete GPUs for more power, but that's the way it is right now. That doesn't mean that Apple should eschew discrete graphics.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AlexGraphicD and thequietaussie
TallManNY said:
I'm still using my 2011 iMac at home. Nice machine with the integrated DVD player. Every five years is about my desktop upgrade cycle. I'm going to hold off until end of year to see if I can get these better GPUs.
Click to expand...
If you read the article, these won't be going into the iMac as it uses mobile gpu chips. This is destined only for the Mac Pro.
 
The iMac should have a proper, top spec, desktop GPU! Not the mobile versions.

I prefer the iMac to be a fatter, no points for it being thin Apple! It is a desktop, not fighting for a 1-2 cm thickness space. Start with a powerful GPU at the entry model and go up, see how well the sales increase, and the gaming industry comes calling.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: AlexGraphicD and nvmls
meh, I'll just sit here impatiently awaiting a quad-core 13" Macbook so I can ditch my 15".
 
mcarling said:
I'm waiting for the luddites who want integrated circuits to be discrete, not integrated, to demand a discrete GPU for the Apple Watch.
Click to expand...

The current reason for a separate discrete GPU is allow for another heatsink. So those luddites can get the same effect by dropping a lit match on their wrist.

If you want it cool, it's got to go in the same package with the CPU and main memory.
 
Schwyz said:
meh, I'll just sit here impatiently awaiting a quad-core 13" Macbook so I can ditch my 15".
Click to expand...

Yeah the main reason why I wanted the 15" was the quad-core processor and discrete GPU. I'd rather have those things in a 13" than have it be "mega thin". 15" laptops seem to be sort of on the way out in other brands.
 
Too bad you'll have to get the most expensive version since we all know Apple no longer puts dedicated GPU's in their base and mid models anymore. RIP 21.5" iMac. Apple, you've officially priced me out of your market.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AlexGraphicD
I wonder if this has anything to do with Oculus Rift bashing Apple's GPU hardware.
 
KPandian1 said:
The iMac should have a proper, top spec, desktop GPU! Not the mobile versions.

I prefer the iMac to be a fatter, no points for it being thin Apple! It is a desktop, not fighting for a 1-2 cm thickness space. Start with a powerful GPU at the entry model and go up, see how well the sales increase, and the gaming industry comes calling.
Click to expand...
since the gap between a desktop gpu and a dgpu is so small, i prefer a desktop slim and lighter and good looking
 
I have an early 2012 rMBP and don't plan to upgrde it unless Apple combines:
  1. Add a significantly better GPU
  2. Skylake
  3. Improved battery life 12+ hours
 
koyoot said:
In what measure? HD6750M Is nowhere near HD5200 Iris Pro both in gaming and compute performance.
Click to expand...

Ah correct. I was looking at numbers for the 13-inch macbook pro.
I'll change my point - which I think is still worth making, the fact that the video card in my 5-year old laptop beats the card on the current 13-inch model is pretty ***** pathetic anyway.
 
  • Like
Reactions: thequietaussie
I run a hackintosh with a GTX 970.

With this in mind, I can assure you all that graphical performance in OS X simply sucks. Trust me, the graphics cards aren't the bottleneck. OS X just isn't even remotely optimised for gaming.

Running Windows on the same hardware will get you substantially better gaming performance, and this isn't likely to change any time soon.

The simply truth is, gamers aren't Apple's target market and it's not a market that Apple has any interest in.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AlexGraphicD
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