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ATI Mobility HD3800 for next iMacs/MacBook Pros?

Concorde Rules said:
I'd love a card that could do 10k 2005 in a MBP before the year is out, then I wouldn't have to get a new PC...

Im seriously close to selling it as it is, sometime install bootcamp and see if Sim City 4 and Live For Speed runs nicely on my MBP :eek:
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I've never considered switching before but if Apple fails to provide this card or something like it in the new MBPs I would be a moron as a consumer to stick with the MBP. I have extreme brand loyalty, but I'm getting really, really sick of low/mid end GPUs in a supposedly high end laptop.
 
Yixian said:
I've never considered switching before but if Apple fails to provide this card or something like it in the new MBPs I would be a moron as a consumer to stick with the MBP. I have extreme brand loyalty, but I'm getting really, really sick of low/mid end GPUs in a supposedly high end laptop.
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I agree, but i've always said we don't need a stupidly high power GPU chip in them... but when we are at 5k 2005 and the top end GPUs are now pushing 20k... half the power should be possible at-least by the end of the year with this powerplus and 55nm etc.

Im getting a new MBP the end of this year with the top spec CPU for engineering work, I want either a 2.4 Quad or a 2.8 Dual.. that has to be possible by the end of the year, at-least in the 17"
 
The 9650M GS is around the mid 9k in 3dmark, and I consider that the very least Apple could give us. There are cards out there like the 3800 that are low power consumption, MXM-III and 55nm, already supplied in PC laptops of similar form factor and price as the Pro.

Even a 9650M GS would be disappointing if you ask me, we pay a LOT for our MBPs, but we get very little return for our cash as consumers in the GPU department.
 
Yixian said:
The 9650M GS is around the mid 9k in 3dmark, and I consider that the very least Apple could give us. There are cards out there like the 3800 that are low power consumption, MXM-III and 55nm, already supplied in PC laptops of similar form factor and price as the Pro.

Even a 9650M GS would be disappointing if you ask me, we pay a LOT for our MBPs, but we get very little return for our cash as consumers in the GPU department.
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OK, I'm gonna go ahead and say that the 9650 is definitely not going to happen. I'm pretty sure they are just the 8700M with a different name, ie. what the MBP has now, just clocked higher. I think it would be a waste of Apple's time to go for the 9650. I still reckon it's a competition between the 9600M and one of the 3600s, with a slight possibility of the 3800 if we are really lucky. Probably heavily underclocked, but I am impressed by the fact that the picture of it on the ATI/AMD website has no active cooling.
 
The MacBook Pro's currently have the 8600M, which is less powerful than the 8700M :D
 
More powerful does = best card if it has the ability to switch to integrated gpu when running on battery power. Nvidia and ATi both have come out with this feature. Nvidia calls it hybrid SLi and ATI calls it something else.

So yeah....more power. I said more.
 
Yixian said:
The MacBook Pro's currently have the 8600M, which is less powerful than the 8700M :D
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I am aware, seeing as I have one. But the 8700M is just an overclocked 8600M, and everyone knows how much Apple hates overclocked GPUs. This means the 8700M is hardly going to perform much better than the 8600M, but will use a lot more power. So, maybe the 9650M is slightly better than the 8700M, so two small gains add to a modest gain, but you still get stuck with a lot of heat, and bad efficiency. We want a whole new card, either a HD 3600 or a seriously underclocked 3800.

This is why the 4800 series are so good. They are so big, and use such a small lithography process so that they have way more pipes than the 3 generation. This means they don't have to be clocked anywhere near as high, and you get massive power savings. This is a GOOD THING for the MBP! Lets hope the 4 series comes out soon(ish)!
 
Hmm, the HD 3600.. I thought this was more or less equal in power to the 8700M GT, but I can barely find any numbers.

One of these switcheroo power saving cards like the HD3800 would obviously be ideal for the MBP, but that's exciting, and when it comes to GPUs Apple doesn't do exciting. I'm gonna continue exploring the possibilities but ofc, chances are like 90% that we'll end up with some mediocre.
 
and its sad. They put the top of the line CPUs and mediore GPUs. If it's a Core 2 duo then it's going to meet every one of my needs, regardless if its 2.2 or 2.5 ghz.

But then I guess you could say the same thing about GPUs. HD3800 gives me some hope that apple will go for this evolutionary technology rather than nvidia's regurgitation of the 8600m.
 
I couldn't be more happy with a HD 3800, that thing will smoke any kind of video editing, HD video or games you could throw at it. It'd even have Crysis running buttery smooth on High.

That's what I call Pro.

If I wanted an HD 3600, why would I pay almost 3 times more for a MBP when I could get this http://emioni.com/product_info.php?currency=GBP&products_id=6541 AND an iMac for the same price?

CPU doesn't bottleneck anything right now, I couldn't care less about Montevina, the only thing I'm ever waiting for from Apple revision is GPU. Literally the only thing.
 
Would Apple ever put a different GPU in the 17" MBP to the 15"?

I'd get a 17"er if it had a 3800 card, is that likely?
 
I doubt whether Apple would put a 3800 in the 17" and a 3600 in the 15" MBP. More likely 3800's all round with the one in the 17" underclocked less.

I think a 3800 is a certainty in an iMac, maybe even the desktop version.

Oh, and "evolutionary" suggests 'small change'. "Revolutionary" suggests large change. ie. NVIDIA 9000 series is evolution of 8000 series, but the AMD 3000 series is revolutionary over the 2000 series.

Damnit, why can't graphics card makers just put the stock clock TDPs of their graphics cards on their websites?
 
I know!! Jesus christ, this is the deciding factor for the MBP and I can't find that data on almost any of these cards..

EDIT: Maybe a 3800 in the 17" would be possible via. BTO?
 
Nope. Apple won't put an 8800M GTX into the MBP, and they're not putting in the ATI version of it either. Expect mid range, because the cards in the MBP and powerbook have always been mid range.
 
Well... what the hell am I supposed to do with a mid range card on a 17" monitor? If it ran games to mid range standards at 15" resolutions, it's just gonna make the 17"er less powerful to me...

Jesus Apple need to right themselves. The 17" MBP is big enough for high end cards WTFwtfWTFW!!?! :(
 
Hmm... not seen this card before... I'll do some research, find out the specs.

EDIT: Only gonna be an overclocked 8700M, still 256bit. If I got this in my $3000 17" MBP I'd be humiliated.
 
maybe a new case will allow for better cooling :)

I personally don't think a few air vents would ruin the aesthetics of the laptop.
 
If Apple uses an nVidia chip (9-series) in the next revision I wont be buying one and will be looking for a different machine..they would be stupid for putting that heat hogging piece of trash in a MBP...steve i hope you are listening!...
 
The problem is that it's 1" thick. Look at all of the notebooks with faster GPU's, they're all much thicker. Stop being unrealistic.:rolleyes:
 
m1stake said:
The problem is that it's 1" thick. Look at all of the notebooks with faster GPU's, they're all much thicker. Stop being unrealistic.:rolleyes:
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If I was obsessed with thickness I'd get a MacBook Air. I want a high end Mac, I'm obsessed with performance, as far as I'm concerned, sacrificing that for 1" thickness and calling it a MacBook Pro is false advertising..
 
Yixian said:
If I was obsessed with thickness I'd get a MacBook Air. I want a high end Mac, I'm obsessed with performance, as far as I'm concerned, sacrificing that for 1" thickness and calling it a MacBook Pro is false advertising..
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I could not agree more.
 
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