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Can the 9400M be replaced?

I

iAlexG

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 15, 2009
509
1
UK
I have the new Macbook Pro 13 and I play a few games. I cannot remember wether you can replace intergrated or dedicated? I would love to upgrade the 9400M to a 512MB Card but is that possible? If so can someone point me in the right direction please
 
No. It's 100% impossible: it's a part surface mounted to the logic board: it's not a card, it's not removable, it's not upgradable you are stuck with it for the life of the machine.
 
Ok thanks. Can the 9600GT or whatever in the 15" and 17" be replaced?
 
No way I wouldn't give up my :apple:Macbook:apple: for the world I love it. I was just curious because if it was possible I would go for it. I'm currently waiting for 4gb ram sticks to go down in price then I can upgrade to 8GB:D
 
Apple eliminated sockets, and the cards, basically soldering most everything to the logic boards.

Even the machines with GPU cards, like the iMac, people haven't had much luck upgrading without an Apple part.
 
Not to mention the 9400m isn't just the graphics card on the 13" MBP. It's the controller for the entire system, SATA, processor, USB, etc... No way you could just pull that off and replace it.
 
The 9600 is a separate chip, and the 13" logic board doesn't have space for it.

Here's he 13":
http://s1.guide-images.ifixit.com/igi/XaPYhlwqukefDI4j.large

Here's the 15" (I think this one is not the newest refresh, but it's close enough):
http://images.appleinsider.com/ifixitmbpalum15-6.jpg
The top chip is the CPU, the middle one is the chipset and 9400, and the botom one is the 9600.

The 13" also doesn't have enough cooling capacity to handle an extra GPU, unless you want a frying pan sitting on your lap.
 
Ok I understand. Maybe I will upgrade to a new Macbook Pro next year
 
Even if you could dedicate more memory, I don't think the 9400 is fast enough to really take advantage of it. There would be almost no performance increase with more memory.
 
m85476585 said:
Even if you could dedicate more memory, I don't think the 9400 is fast enough to really take advantage of it. There would be almost no performance increase with more memory.
Click to expand...

Video memory in general really never gives much of a performance boost unless you were running out of VRAM in the first place.

You see a lot of people buying the 1 gig of VRAM versions of GPU's over the 512 meg versions thinking that it will make all their games faster, when really most games don't use more than 200-300 megs of VRAM at once, at most.

It's kind of like how if you have 8 gigs of RAM, and you buy 16 gigs, unless you're really filling up RAM, you're not going to see much difference...
 
iAlexG said:
I don't know how to tell?
Click to expand...

Applications>Utilities>Activity Monitor and then click on system memory in the lower portion. I never seem to use more then 3GB for the most part so 4GB is perfect for me as it has a little extra head room.
 
Why didn't Apple fit a discrete GPU in the 13.3" uMBP e.g 9300M GT in the Dell Vostro 1320 or 9500M GT in the Dell XP 13. Yes size is a factor increasing thickness to accommodate the GPU as well as cooling solution, but it would make it a more viable choice.
 
goMac said:
Video memory in general really never gives much of a performance boost unless you were running out of VRAM in the first place.

You see a lot of people buying the 1 gig of VRAM versions of GPU's over the 512 meg versions thinking that it will make all their games faster, when really most games don't use more than 200-300 megs of VRAM at once, at most.

It's kind of like how if you have 8 gigs of RAM, and you buy 16 gigs, unless you're really filling up RAM, you're not going to see much difference...
Click to expand...

Define "most games."

I like to jack up the texture size on games because its prettier. You can find a lot of high rez textures for a LOT of games.

But yeah, 512MB VRAM is overkill for most people. Most games will choke on polygons before they choke on textures.
 
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