I hope to god that they have at least a 75% performance boost over the 330 that is being used right now. If not, I can use nTune in Windows to get that boost.
I think apple will most likely continue using nvidia due to their gpu switching. I'm thinking they might use 400 based chips, particularly 435m. It's listed as just under the performance of the mobility 5730 (which is the 5670 in the iMacs) in the current iMac lineup, and has a TDP of 45 (when including the whole mxm board and memory) So if apple solders it onto the mobo like they usually do, it's going to be lower, but I'm not sure how much lower.
My guess is that 435m is the most optimistic of ideas though, Apple could very well continue with 330m, or they might give a slight speed boost to 335m.
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/11/09/amd-talks-new-mobile-parts/
Don't know whether they'll be ready for early 2011 MBP though.
For VRAM it will either be 256/512 or 512/1024I'm going to put my optimistic hat on...
* Apple has been including higher spec graphics cards in recent updates (e.g. Radeon 5770/5870 in Mac Pro)
* All recent new designs (excluding integrated graphics) use AMD graphics
I'm therefore pinning my hopes on a Mobility Radeon 5830 with 1GB of memory in the high-end 15"/17".
It's much faster than the Geforce 330m in the current MacBook Pro and keeps to a reasonable 24W TDP (I think the 330m is 23W TDP, but I haven't found an authoritative source to prove this).
You can see a summary of both chips on notebookcheck.net:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-330M.22437.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5830.24733.0.html
We should also bear in mind that Sandy Bridge integrated graphics are significantly faster (~2x in early tests) than the integrated graphics in the current Arrandale MacBook Pros. If Apple can make their graphics switching technology a little more sophisticated this could mean longer battery life for basic graphical work with the Radeon available for serious 3D or OpenCL.
Of course it's quite possible Apple will go for something slower. I'm not claiming this as a prediction, just a reasonable optimistic guess.
If they remove ODD, but that is hoped forthe mysteries of next gen MBP are the version of video card and what apple going to do with the newly-opened up space from the removal of optical drive....
because of TDPIt's great to know that I am not the only person somewhat unsatisfied with the 330M. Not to say that is it not a performance card per say, but like I said in another thread. It's like running while seated on a bicycle, in time to come, for me specifically, Diablo 3.
Although all we can really do here is guess optimistically, it will gives me a better idea if the refresh is worth the wait. I am actually not that worried about Sandy Bridges. Arrandale itself is already a beast.
The bottleneck for the final decision now is just the graphics card.
Been whining too much lately. >.<
Anyone noticed that somehow, MBP's have always been fitted with somewhat lower mid ranged cards for their period? Or is it just me.
No, it is quite unlikely considering they've never done it before and they are starting to get interested in gamingWirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A306 Safari/6531.22.7)
Any chance of a mobile quadro?
Not happeningI hope to god that they have at least a 75% performance boost over the 330 that is being used right now. If not, I can use nTune in Windows to get that boost.
Hopefully if Apple switches to AMD it will be the Mobility 6830 or better
Assuming of course that the 6830 is released in the next couple of months, and that it's anything like the 5830. Hopefully there will be a GPU (whatever it is called) that is capable of pulling over 800 GFlops (what the 5830 can do now) for 23W. I have a feeling that that won't happen with NVIDIA.
In terms of underclocking, at least in terms of the physics, it's better to take a big card and underclock it than take a small card and run it at a high clock speed. Power consumption is (theoretically) proportional to the square of the clock speed, so a small underclock should still give a large decrease in power consumption, while only decreasing processing power a small amount. Which is why I'm not bothered with underclocking.
And I will also be very disappointed if I can't get a gig of VRAM (GDDR5, anyone?) in the next MBP.
P.S. I have a feeling the Mobile Quadro suggestion was supposed to be a joke.
P.P.S. In summary, I will be ecstatic if Apple take what is in the present Envy 15", and give it some Apple Magic.
If Apple wants to keep growing in appeal for gaming. They will have to stay with Nvidia. The major developers who are building the blockbuster games are building on an Nvidia platform, meaning the suggested graphics will be Nvidia as they will perform better than ATI all day.
Besides... Nvidia graphics are almost a year ahead of ATI performance wise... When ATI released their top of the line 4870 almost a year after the 8800GTX, the 8800 was annihilating the performance of the 'newer' technology with GDDR5. The theme has continued, most high performance gaming computers are based off Nvidia (with ATI as a BTO option for the faithful)... ATI builds their cards and chips for certain price points, not true performance. I have connections in the medical imaging diagnostics industry, I asked some of the guys what systems they use and most of their systems are based on Nvidia builds, because they are so superior to anything that exists by ATI.
If Apple wants to keep growing in appeal for gaming. They will have to stay with Nvidia. The major developers who are building the blockbuster games are building on an Nvidia platform, meaning the suggested graphics will be Nvidia as they will perform better than ATI all day.
Besides... Nvidia graphics are almost a year ahead of ATI performance wise... When ATI released their top of the line 4870 almost a year after the 8800GTX, the 8800 was annihilating the performance of the 'newer' technology with GDDR5. The theme has continued, most high performance gaming computers are based off Nvidia (with ATI as a BTO option for the faithful)... ATI builds their cards and chips for certain price points, not true performance. I have connections in the medical imaging diagnostics industry, I asked some of the guys what systems they use and most of their systems are based on Nvidia builds, because they are so superior to anything that exists by ATI.
Based on available specifications and laptops in production, I believe the Mobility 5830 (24W TDP*) is the closest thing to the ideal GPU for the 15" MacBook Pro at present. If anyone has information on a similar or better NVIDIA GPU I'd be very interested to read it.
Notebookcheck says that GT 445M is similar to 5830M in terms of TDP.
It's somewhat confusing, the page you reference says "According to rumors, the power consumption of the GeForce GT 445M should be about 45 Watt (TDP including the MXM board and memory), which is about the level of the Mobility Radeon HD 5830."
However, the notebookcheck.net page on the 5830 (http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5830.24733.0.html) and AMD's own specs (referenced in my previous post) show 24W. Though the 445M figure apparently includes MXM board and memory? There must be concrete figures on the 445M TDP somewhere. I'd be delighted if it were in the ~20W range. Why can't NVIDIA just include them on the spec sheet?
Personally I'd like to see the next MBP have graphics performance around twice that of the current 330M model and support 1GB of graphics memory. I don't care whether it's NVIDIA or AMD.
Yes the 330m will be "old" by then, laptops with the 400m series cards are beginning to trickle out and it's not unreasonable to expect the current model, I would not be suprised if Apple keeps the 330m though.
425m isn't that much better than the 330m but I can't imagine Apple putting anything much better in. Sandy bridge drastically improves IGP performance so I would expect even the 13" model to do away with the 320m for good.
Which laptop is this?Don't say that!
The 13" mbp is the perfect size for a laptop.
BUT - - - - The only problem is you can get something from another company with:
i7 740qm (quad with hyperthreading) (vs 2.4 c2d),
2gb graphics (vs shared 256mb)
640gb 7200rpm (vs 250gb 5400rpm)
and 8gb ram 1333 (vs 4gb 1066)
and a full hd screen
with blu ray and usb 3 (vs just dvd and usb 2.0)
- - - - - ALL FOR THE SAME PRICE!!! as the macbook pro.
The battery life, design, weight, etc are AWESOME on the 13" mbp, but when you buy one, you get 4 year old hardware. Just getting that point out there.
2gb vram gpu is obviously a marketing scheme, I'd feel bad for anybody who paid a premium for one.
yup, anything over 1GB is utter rubbish unless it is controlling something very large/hi-res
Even 512MB is pretty useless for 330M as seen in the benchmarks. The difference is negligible.
I could see the iMac 27 using 1.5GB VRAM.
Hopefully next iMac's gpu has 256bit bus so it can fully take advantage of that 1gb of gddr5.