Macbook Pro & SLI (Gaming topic)

[pacman7331]

I've been looking at the Macbook pro's... for gaming mostly.

decided to compare to see if their graphics abilities for gaming are worth the money, saw that the that one of the best mobile GPUs is a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M SLI: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-580M-SLI.56637.0.html, which is used in the Alienware Gaming Laptops:
http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-m18x/fs

Alienware Laptop price is comparable if not more expensive than Macbook Pros.

But looks like these laptops would blow a Macbook Pro out of the water,
in terms of GPU gaming performances...

As always Macs can't keep up with the best of them of PC gaming technologies...

Didn't know what SLI was, until I looked it up, Apparently one can connect two graphics cards together to work together, boosting performance. Crossfire is apparently another version of this.

Both of which I see no Apple support on in any of it's models.

Do you think Apple will ever offer this, perhaps in it's newer Macbook Pros? There are two graphics cards sitting in every MacBook Pro I know of, why not wire them together? Why would Apple lag behind on this?

Do you think Apple cares that their Macbook Pro's aren't as good as Alienware for gaming? Do you think Apple will ever try to take the lead in the gaming market? Apple does seem to want to sell people on the idea that their laptops are good for games at least by looking at their marketing: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/features.html

 

[mobilehaathi]

They won't do it in a laptop: too much heat and power.

 

[pacman7331]

They won't do it in a laptop: too much heat and power.

Good point, I can understand that. While Alienware or other PC Laptops might, Macbook Pros are very slim, and get hot enough as it is.

They should at least do SLI / crossfire in a Mac Pro, if that line isn't being canceled.

Anyway according to this:

http://computers.toptenreviews.com/gaming-laptops/list-gaming-laptops-computers-2.htm

Current top end model MacBook Pro ranks in top 15 at #12.

Nice to see it even rank, but I can't help but wonder, if that was just inclusion out of thoroughness of the article instead of really being in the top 15...

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Nice to see it even rank, but I can't help but wonder, if that was just inclusion out of thoroughness of the article instead of really being in the top 15...

Thoroughness? I didn't know the 13" MBA had a Quadro GPU with 2 GB RAM, and three USB ports. I guess, I know, what my next notebook will be then.

 

[pacman7331]

Thoroughness? I didn't know the 13" MBA had a Quadro GPU with 2 GB RAM, and three USB ports. I guess, I know, what my next notebook will be then.

Well there you go, that can't be right, because the MBAs Apple store is selling now uses the Intel HD 3000,http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air/select "As the GeForce GTX 480M, the Quadro 4000M is specified at 100 Watt TDP and therefore only very large laptops, like the Clevo D901F, are able to house this high end card." - http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Quadro-4000M.47295.0.html

 

[pacman7331]

" currently, enabling SLI if the speed differential is large than two would be detrimental to rendering speed.

Now, since the 9600 GT has twice the pipelines of the 9400M, the latter being, furthermore, an integrated chip with shared memory, it is clear that he first is twice as fast than the latter. Therefore, with Nvidia's current implementation of SLI (NOT because of apple), SLI with this configuration would be in fact SLOWER than using just the 9600 GT." - http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=159065

So maybe it's not because of the heat after all?

Who knows maybe it will be done in the next MBP update in 2012?

 

[malman89]

There's a handful of laptops from each ASUS, Alienware, Sager, MSI, etc. that are way better than the MacBook Pro at gaming. The fact that the MBA is included should shun the rankings of this website completely. I don't even think they could justify including a thin/netbook category to put the MBA in the top 15 - a fusion AMD laptop/netbook would be better.

If you want true gaming performance in a laptop, look at the options from the companies mentioned above.

 

[thundersteele]

Apple will never have dual SLI graphics cards in their portables. The high end models usually have two graphics cards, one integrated for light workload, and one dedicated for more graphics intense tasks. They are not being used together at the same time, and it wouldn't make sense to do so.

If you care about gaming performance to the point that you want a dual SLI graphics setup, a Macbook is the wrong choice - even an Alienware laptop is the wrong choice here - you should buy a desktop.

 

[cirus]

To know more I would really advise looking up so more information. SLI and Crossfire only work with GPU's made by the same company (intel hd 3000 does not work). SLI=nvidia--nvidia. Crossfire=AMD--AMD.

Look at how thin a macbook pro is. Do you really think they can fit two graphics cards in there let alone deal with the heat, terrible as it is now?

how the hell did a mpa get #15? It's incredibly weak in terms of CPU and graphics (and it does not have a 2GB quadro gpu) pretty much any laptop with a standard voltage processor will beat it.

I honestly have to ask whether you really don't know or are simply trolling. Look at the apple website, they sell Mac Pros with two 5770 --> YES CROSSFIRE!!!

 

[makaveli559m]

I have SLI running on my 2.1 Mac Pro with a couple of GT 7300 anything is possible. Which makes me think there could be a patch made maybe later on for MacBook pros to be able to use the integrated graphics card.

 

[leman]

The retina MBP already provides adequate gaming performance. To pack anything faster in there means severely compromise the portability/battery of the machine. Portability is one of Apples most important goals, they will never make SLI based monsters.