Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Well they only tested 3 games, but in the other 2...

here it has the highest average FPS
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/01/25/intel-gma-hd-graphics-performance/4

and here it wins outright, with the caveat that there's supposedly some double secret unlocks by nvidia for an nvidia card...but no way to quantify that.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/01/25/intel-gma-hd-graphics-performance/5

And then it proves superior in a lot of media applications with cpu utilization, power efficiency, etc...the review is only a few pages, surely you saw all this already?
Did you read the review? It isn't better than 9400m, that is 2 years old.
It isn't crap like X3100, but is nothing to be happy about
 
Did you read the review? It isn't better than 9400m, that is 2 years old.
It isn't crap like X3100, but is nothing to be happy about

you asked for the test benches...

For me, on a 13" 12x8 screen on a computer that is not made for gaming, I'll take equal performance, less power, less heat, less space, and call it a day.
 
Ok one, the new on die Intel graphics chip is no slouch. In fact, I'm pretty sure the GMA HD will out perform the 9400M, especially with graphics turbo. If they don't increase the resolution on the 13", it will have ZERO issue with the snow Leopard UI, and there won't be anything for you to get your panties in a twist about. A 13" MBP is not a gaming computer. For all else, it should be able to handle with ease.

Now that you have read the above benchmarks, I will be accepting your apology.

And go buy the air, stop justifying a gimped macbook pro because thats all YOU need.
 
Now that you have read the above benchmarks, I will be accepting your apology.

And go buy the air, stop justifying a gimped macbook pro because thats all YOU need.

the benches that the GMA HD wins in 2 out of 3 tests??? Oh yea, with drivers that are in their infant stages versus mature nVidia drivers. You'll be waiting all day for an apology from me for being right...:rolleyes:

Go back to your XBOX and leave the pro computers to professional work. You don't need to play Call of Duty Modern Warfare on a 13" MBP...
 
the benches that the GMA HD wins in 2 out of 3 tests??? Oh yea, with drivers that are in their infant stages versus mature nVidia drivers. You'll be waiting all day for an apology from me for being right...:rolleyes:

Go back to your XBOX and leave the pro computers to professional work. You don't need to play Call of Duty Modern Warfare on a 13" MBP...

You can really say with confidence that Apple's MBP line is still "professional"? I mean, the 15" and the 17" maybe but the 13" at 1280x800 with no option of matte?

Ever since the unibody redesign it is 100% a consumer computer.

That aside, you need to realize that some people have different needs than you, and if that offends you, you probably shouldn't be on an internet forum. Some people would like to play games, so be it.
 
you asked for the test benches...

For me, on a 13" 12x8 screen on a computer that is not made for gaming, I'll take equal performance, less power, less heat, less space, and call it a day.

The mobile version won't be clocked at 900 Mhz, but around 700. So will be LESS PERFORMANCE.
after two years nothing to be happy
 

Attachments

  • graphicsturbo.jpg
    graphicsturbo.jpg
    181 KB · Views: 203
That aside, you need to realize that some people have different needs than you, and if that offends you, you probably shouldn't be on an internet forum. Some people would like to play games, so be it.

Doesn't offend me at all, except for your dictating whether or not I should be on an internet forum. If I want to compete in the next Indy race in a Volkswagen bug, you'd look at me crosseyed. If someone wants their 13" MBP to be able to compete in PC games, that puzzles me. One, these computers are never about gaming performance. Two, the PC game market is primarily Windows driven...if that's your driving force behind getting a laptop, then clearly your choice of a 13" MBP is a bit odd, don't you think? People can have different needs all they want, but at a certain point, you have to hold up on the ridiculousness factor.

That being said, you clearly can game with the GMA HD, as the short preview shows. As long as the resolution doesn't change, I doubt there be any current game you couldn't play at minimum settings at the very least. But if you want max bells and whistles and 100 FPS...I'm sorry, doesn't matter what your needs are, it's not a realistic request.
 
The performance that you saw in the test were at the highest frequency reachable by the 900 Mhz version (the desktop version).
The mobile version won't be better, no matter what you say

actually, the Arrandale can hit 900mhz too. (not sure where I said the mobile version will be "better" than the desktop...unless you mean better than the 9400M)

http://hothardware.com/Articles/Intel-Arrandale-Core-i5-and-Core-i3-Mobile-Unveiled/?page=3

"The GPU core clock has also been turned up to 900MHz with dynamic clock gating support or "graphics turbo" that, like the processor core itself, allows clock speeds to be ramped up or down based on workload."

Best part about this in my opinion? No additional cooling. You have one cooling solution for both the CPU and graphics. That either can cut down on weight, size, or maybe even allow the MBP to hold two HD's without having to fit an additional fan in the chassis for a discrete graphic solution.

And even if you did go with a discrete option, it's still a win-win, since you're still cutting down on cooling needed for a cpu/onboard graphics/discrete to just two solutions instead of 3.
 
How can you see a good solution in a vga that AT BEST can be on par with a 2 years old 9400m is a big mistery
 
Arrandale chips will get rid of the southbridge. Does this mean that there could be enough room for a mid-range GPU in the 13 inch MPB?

There has been no "Southbridge" in a MBP since Apple switched to the 9400m chipset. It combines the North and South bridges in one chipset.

And you're technically wrong, it eliminates the need for the Northbridge. The southbridge is what controls peripheral device like SATA, USB, etc, etc. The northbridge contained the memory links and contained the graphics core, typically.
 
Apple's computers are more or less designed for a balanced performance. It's not ALL about power. Apple's computers are more than enough for heavy video editing, and graphic designing. If you want something powerful, you're going to get something hot, bulky, and a 2 hour battery life -- which goes against everything Apple wants for a notebook.

Shorter battery life probably, but I don't use the battery. Not hot or bulky though.

And sure it's technically fine for anything still, but you can get vastly more performance on other notebooks that are fine-er.

Regarding Intel's graphics-they're a joke, however you slice it, and shouldn't be in a <$650 computer.

That might very well be true; considering the fact that the 13" MBP comes with only one fan, whereas the 15" MBP with a discrete GPU comes with two (please correct me if I am wrong).
Seeing as they don't place the fan itself on top of the logic board, but rather in a "cut-away-fjord", making room for another fan would imply considerable shrinking of other parts.

Oh, and does anyone know if they're using these fancy new magnetic fans on all of their notebooks now?

There are lots of systems with both a CPU and GPU with one fan, and heck, there's an 11" notebook now with a GPU that's over twice as good as in a 17" Macbook Pro .
 
There are lots of systems with both a CPU and GPU with one fan, and heck, there's an 11" notebook now with a GPU that's over twice as good as in a 17" Macbook Pro .

So what? The thermal envelope needed to support the high end systems you neglected to provide us with a link to, is not something you will ever find in an Apple notebook.

Silence and battery life = balanced performance.

I am pretty sure they'll put in a low wattage GPU, with the integrated Intel one running as much as possible. As long as they don't have to put in another fan.
Mind you, this GPU must not cost more than the 9400m-chip, because nothing is allowed to get in between Apple and profit.

Edit: I forgot to mention that whatever GPU comes with the 13" MBP, will most likely be the same as the MBA. That puts even further thermal constraints.
 
How can you see a good solution in a vga that AT BEST can be on par with a 2 years old 9400m is a big mistery

I met some intel people that were working on Larrabee at last year's GDC. the way they talked, even defending GMA950's...they sounded like they were in a cult. and oh yeah, larrabee was cancelled :D

defending intel GPUs....gfiz definitely provided some lulz :D

after all the marketing Apple did of OpenCL and then using the crappy intel GPU of arrandale....i bet steve loves the sound of that!
 
I met some intel people that were working on Larrabee at last year's GDC. the way they talked, even defending GMA950's...they sounded like they were in a cult. and oh yeah, larrabee was cancelled :D

defending intel GPUs....gfiz definitely provided some lulz :D

after all the marketing Apple did of OpenCL and then using the crappy intel GPU of arrandale....i bet steve loves the sound of that!

you've provided nothing but your opinion...I've tried providing data, benches, and common sense. If you choose to ignore them then that is your prerogative.
 
So all this waiting has given me a chance to surf the web and read all about the heat and horrible battery life of the 1st-generation Core i7 notebooks.

1. Makes a lot of sense that these issues would be holding up the launch of the Arrandale MBPs

2. Makes me wonder if I'm better off with a C2D.
 
yes

So all this waiting has given me a chance to surf the web and read all about the heat and horrible battery life of the 1st-generation Core i7 notebooks.

1. Makes a lot of sense that these issues would be holding up the launch of the Arrandale MBPs

2. Makes me wonder if I'm better off with a C2D.

I agree. I'm starting to feel the same way.:(
 
With all the buzz around the internet about the heat issues and really low battery life with the new i7 laptops, I can't imagine Apple adopting right now, unless they are magical enough to fix it... After all, Apple has surprised me for the better before:D

I would love to have an i7 in a laptop, but I would not take it if I had to give up the 7 hour/1000 charge battery life, which is insane. I don't have a particular need for that kind of computing power personally, as I mainly use my Mac for word processing, web browsing, and occasional Photoshop and video editing.

Still, I'll be thrilled if Apple can pull this off soon. How cool would that be?

SOURCES: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/257923-28-intel-core-massive-heat-issue, http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=173613, http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=162778, http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Core-i7-laptop-workstation-Eurocom,7188.html
 
So all this waiting has given me a chance to surf the web and read all about the heat and horrible battery life of the 1st-generation Core i7 notebooks.

1. Makes a lot of sense that these issues would be holding up the launch of the Arrandale MBPs

2. Makes me wonder if I'm better off with a C2D.

The initial Core i7 laptops were power hungry beats of machines intended for gaming. Not only is there an emphasis on efficiency with Arrandale, but if I'm not mistaken there is also the change from the original 45nm to 32nm die, which should cut power consumption significantly.
 
The sad thing about those Alienware contraptions is that some desktops weigh less than them...I realize the want to pack as much power as humanly possible into a "mobile" platform. But...86C air coming out the back and 1.5 hour battery life just don't cut it. This is what Apple is trying to avoid.
 
you wouldnt want to put all your hopes and dreams into a process going into sleep mode though,

Threads effectively go to sleep all the time. If a thread asks for a block off of a hard drive that isn't in case you can wait 1,000 - 2,000 cycles waiting for that to show up in memory to the point that the CPU can do something with it. That's being idle too. the thread calls the OS to get the block and the OS puts it to sleep. There is no "go to sleep" in the code... it just does.

Going to memory is rule of thumb order of magnitude slow and disk is a order past that. That's is why processors spend such a large percentage of time bored out of their skulls. The only way to get the utilization higher is to find something that does NOT need anything from memory or disk and start it up. That one reason don't want to spread threads out toooooooo widely because no individual thread can keep a CPU busy for long extended periods of time (that's CPU relative time, not user perception time). Only by jumping between them can you get the utilization up high.

If just had people logged into command line sessions on the average Mac you could probably put 5-10 folks on there all happy (running vi/emacs , text chat, lynx text web browsing, etc. ) if they individually were not doing crazy things. Minicomputers of the 80's didn't have as much horsepower as many PCs do now and had lots of folks logged on.
 
Seriously...can't Intel just physically sever or disable the iGPU? They used to do similar things to help them increase yields. 80486SX=80486DX with defective FPU, for example. Maybe Apple will be getting the Arrandale cores with defective GPUs...

The Arrandale iGPU isn't even on the same die as the CPU !!!
There are two dies inside the Arrandale packages. One has the CPU cores/Memory controller (and most likely PCI-e link management). Most likely connected to the Graphics die with QPI link that can't "see" because inside the package to the CPU die. The CPU is the new .28 process and the GPU die is the older .45.

It is one chip package with two dies in it. And no ..... Intel isn't going sell you one without the other die inside. No cheaper version. The next iteration those two will likely collapse onto same die. That's why just want folks to adjust to it now.

You cut some thermal dissipation by turning off the iGPU (perhaps) but still going to be there.

The issue is what is "good enough". if not particularly interested in high end 3D graphics. The Arrandale iGPU does OpenGL 2.1 , hardware video decode , and is about 60-70% of the 9400M. If have games/CAD/etc. that needs OpenGL 3 then would be screwed unless Apple goes with AMD/ATI. If used the laptop and only pushed the 9400 to 60-70% then this will do just fine in the discretess version and perhaps get better battery life.

Will the entry level models be "future proof" ? Probably not. 4-5 years from now probably won't be 100% happy. However, 4-5 years there will be something that blows away the rest of the machine, not just the iGPU.

As for being a professional or not ... that is more so indicative of whether you business activities pay for the machine or not. Someone could be a software developer, doctor, etc. and not push the 3D graphics to the wall. In fact, almost all 3D benchmarks are driven by games. Games are not indicative of someone who is using the laptop in a professional capacity unless a games developer or gaming professional .... which are narrow subclasses Apple isn't going to build a machine for.

The Apple "+ Discrete" versions are usually only $200-300 more. If your productivity over 2 years doesn't improve to justify that kind of price increase.... questionable whether it is "professional" output is truely the driver of crying about intel iGPU performance. The productivity jump is only higher if the gap is bigger between the discrete and iGPU.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.