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It's Official... 128mb vram is a must have upgrade

MacTruck

MacTruck

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 27, 2005
1,241
0
One Endless Loop
Just got a new 15" powerbook on Aug 11th. Wouldn't you know they anounce tiger the next day and it is using core image. Not new news really but now after investigating in depth about core image and core video I see that OS X tiger is going to utilize the video card vram ever so intensly. So now on top of Quartz Extreme using the video card for os rendering Tiger will use the vram in the video card to render images and video. You might be able to get away with 64mg but with this kind of utilization 128mb vram seems like a must have upgrade to me. I was able to return my powerbook yesterday for the 15" upgraded one with the 128mb vram and the 100gb hd. I feel much better now. On top of that the 128mb version supports apple 30" display. THat might not mean anything now as I am not going to dump $3000 on a monitor but as prices fall they will become more viable. Before we know it that 30" will be below $1000.
 
If you buy two of those Dell 2005FPW's, can you hook them into the two DVI ports on your PB and run three screens? How sweet would that be? You could put one on either side of your machine and plaay ready on the left, ready on the right! 😀
 
Thats funny you say that. I have 2 Dell 2005FPWs and 2 2405fpws. You can still only hook up 1 monitor to the dvi port but someone will come out with an adapter. You see the dvi port of a regular computer has 12 pins, there are 24 holes. The new dual link has 24 pins, thats how they get the 30 incher running. So it stands to reason that it would be possible for belkin to come out with an adapter to use 2 monitors off of that. We shall see.

What I did do is buy the DVI PCMCIA video card the VTBook. It allows for that and it works good but it does slow down the mac so I stopped using it. I thought the card was a godsend but got tired of the slow down from it.
 
The only time you'll need that 128mb is if you plan to run dual monitors. 64 is going to work just fine for CoreImage. I think you freaked about nothing honestly, unless you plan to do a ton of video editing or what have you using Apple's pro tools (FCP, DSP, Motion, etc). Otherwise you won't notice a dang bit of difference.
 
So nothing is actually official then 🙄

I think it's still important to remember that yes, memory is important, but so is the chipset and the features of it. Some 64MB cards will be better than some 128MB cards.
 
mkrishnan said:
That's *insane*! 😱 I envy you! 😀

So how many computers do you run on all those LCDs?
Click to expand...



I run the 2 24in dells on the powerbook 1.67ghz, when I need it and I have the 20in next to them for Playstation 2. I have another 20in in my sons room as the tv. Got the 20in for $486 each and the 24in for $750 each from Dell. They have awesome deals on those things.
 
MacTruck said:
I run the 2 24in dells on the powerbook 1.67ghz, when I need it and I have the 20in next to them for Playstation 2. I have another 20in in my sons room as the tv. Got the 20in for $486 each and the 24in for $750 each from Dell. They have awesome deals on those things.
Click to expand...

MacTruck said:
Thats funny you say that. I have 2 Dell 2005FPWs and 2 2405fpws. You can still only hook up 1 monitor to the dvi port but someone will come out with an adapter.
Click to expand...

So let me get this straight.. you use the 2 on the powerbook, but... the DVI port only allows one... yet you're using 2 LCD's... yet.. wait.. what? *raises the BS flag* unless i'm misunderstanding something, you're full of it
 
Logik said:
So let me get this straight.. you use the 2 on the powerbook, but... the DVI port only allows one... yet you're using 2 LCD's... yet.. wait.. what? *raises the BS flag* unless i'm misunderstanding something, you're full of it
Click to expand...

Exactly. Even with the Dual-Link 128Mb option you get a SINGLE DVI port. It can supply twice the normal data to a SINGLE screen. It cannot drive 2 external screens.
 
mkrishnan said:
He said above that he uses this.
Click to expand...

MacTruck said:
What I did do is buy the DVI PCMCIA video card the VTBook. It allows for that and it works good but it does slow down the mac so I stopped using it. I thought the card was a godsend but got tired of the slow down from it.
Click to expand...

except he also said that. 🙄
 
Yeah, got 3 monitors on desktop. 1 for playstation and 2 24in for powerbook. I don't use the second 24in all the time only when I am doing a project. When I am needing it I use the VTBook card and it works great but slows down redraws on both monitors so I don't use it all the time. That is why I was hoping for the ability to use 2 monitors out of the dual link dvi on this thing. Its really not a big deal. I spent just as much money on all these monitors as I would have buying 1 apple 23in monitor. Heres a pic:

http://www.coldfusionwebsites.com/CIMG5176.jpg



You can drool if you want to. 🙂
 
Looks good, but I have to ask....why do you have all 3 sets of speakers still on the Dells? You can't possibly use them all, and they make the screen look ugly IMO.
 
edesignuk said:
Looks good, but I have to ask....why do you have all 3 sets of speakers still on the Dells? You can't possibly use them all, and they make the screen look ugly IMO.
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Well I need one for the playstation, 1 for the mac and just got the other one to make it uniform. I think those speakers look cool.
 
Personally I don't like the sound bars either. If you were worried about it looking uniform you should have had all 24" screens 😉
 

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robbieduncan said:
Personally I don't like the sound bars either. If you were worried about it looking uniform you should have had all 24" screens 😉
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I had to draw the line somewhere. My pockets have a bottom. Ordering the third 24in hit that hard. What is wrong with the sound bars? Find another pair of speakers that don't sit on the desk that look that nice. I still like em.
 
so, for example...

A 450 Sawtooth with an added ATi 8500 64MB will go like the brown stuff off a shovel when using Tiger and Core Image?

...or will older systems be limited by system bus bandwidth when the system sends all this extra data to the GPU? I'm thinking that system band width is an important factor here.... 100mhz v 1000mhz bus anyone.

Is my thinking on track with this?
 
A developer I know who has been using the Tiger builds told me that if the machine can't handle the effects in core image it just doesn't do them, so there is no slow down at all. He's under NDA so this was as much as he could tell me, as soon as he said that I really stopped worrying about all this core image stuff and just got excited about the rest of the features in Tiger.
 
MacTruck said:
I had to draw the line somewhere. My pockets have a bottom. Ordering the third 24in hit that hard. What is wrong with the sound bars? Find another pair of speakers that don't sit on the desk that look that nice. I still like em.
Click to expand...

I think that the screens look better without them. They would look better if they extended to the whole width of the screen (although obviously Dell would need to make different ones for different screens then) and with black speaker grills. I think that they remove the natural balance that the screens have with the same size bezel all around.

I agree that desktop speakers normally look pretty bad and these are probably a good compramise. Out of interest how good (especially at high volumes) do they sound? Are they usable for music? Also do you need the stand to mount them (I have the a 2005FPW, but it's VESA wall mounted)?

Edit: ignore the last question. Looked at your picture again and realised that you are not using the Dell stands either.
 
MacTruck said:
Just got a new 15" powerbook on Aug 11th...I was able to return my powerbook yesterday for the 15" upgraded one with the 128mb vram and the 100gb hd. I feel much better now.
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Let me get this straight... You had a Powerbook for 7 MONTHS and were still able to return it??? You gotta let me know where you buy your Mac stuff!!!!!!!
EDIT: Ooooh, I think you probably meant April... drat.
 
LeeTom said:
Let me get this straight... You had a Powerbook for 7 MONTHS and were still able to return it??? You gotta let me know where you buy your Mac stuff!!!!!!!
EDIT: Ooooh, I think you probably meant April... drat.
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Typo, yep April 11th.
 
MacTruck said:
Yeah, got 3 monitors on desktop. 1 for playstation and 2 24in for powerbook. I don't use the second 24in all the time only when I am doing a project. When I am needing it I use the VTBook card and it works great but slows down redraws on both monitors so I don't use it all the time. That is why I was hoping for the ability to use 2 monitors out of the dual link dvi on this thing. Its really not a big deal. I spent just as much money on all these monitors as I would have buying 1 apple 23in monitor. Heres a pic:

http://www.coldfusionwebsites.com/CIMG5176.jpg

You can drool if you want to. 🙂
Click to expand...
Nice setup - but aren't you worried about a lack of heat dissipation, keeping the PB lid shut all the time like that?? Wouldn't want to burn out the CPU early...
 
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