Santa Rosa-Based MacBook Pro 'Very Soon'... Next Week?

[bryng]

Ah, good. That's what I was wondering as I was reading your and his/her posts. Were they the same specs even in the PowerBook days?

Yup. On at least some recent MBPs the Radeon x1600 has been clocked higher in the 17" than the 15". On at least some of the last revs of the Powerbooks (not sure if all), the 17" had 128mb RAM as standard on the Radeon 9700, though this was available as a BTO on the 15", which otherwise had 64mb.

 

[kingofkolt]

Yup. On at least some recent MBPs the Radeon x1600 has been clocked higher in the 17" than the 15". On at least some of the last revs of the Powerbooks (not sure if all), the 17" had 128mb RAM as standard on the Radeon 9700, though this was available as a BTO on the 15", which otherwise had 64mb.

Cool.. Is it possible for one to clock up the 15 incher's x1600 to match the 17" GPU? Does that void the warranty?

 

[bryng]

Cool.. Is it possible for one to clock up the 15 incher's x1600 to match the 17" GPU? Does that void the warranty?

Some people were finding ways through Windows. Results were mixed. Some reports of it working really well, others of crashes and so on. It would void the warranty though, yes.

The underclocking was likely to be to match Apple's heat and power envelope for the MBPs. But it's certainly also possible that the parts supplied were cheaper on the basis that they were not required to clock up to full speed.

 

[JFreak]

Ah, good. That's what I was wondering as I was reading your and his/her posts. Were they the same specs even in the PowerBook days?

Usually, yes. The exception being first revision of aluminum 17" which initially had nVidia chip (the same one 12" had) that was later changed to same ATI chip 15" had.

But those were exceptional times; last 15" titanium powerbook came out 11/2002, first aluminum powerbooks (12 and 17 inchers) came out 01/2003 and the aluminum 15-incher finally 09/2003. It was "the year of the laptop" as Steve Jobs put it.

 

[bryng]

Usually, yes. The exception being first revision of aluminum 17" which initially had nVidia chip (the same one 12" had) that was later changed to same ATI chip 15" had.

But those were exceptional times; last 15" titanium powerbook came out 11/2002, first aluminum powerbooks (12 and 17 inchers) came out 01/2003 and the aluminum 15-incher finally 09/2003. It was "the year of the laptop" as Steve Jobs put it.

So true. I forgot about that, and how! All the bitching about waiting for Santa Rosa is NOTHING compared to the outrage about the wait for the first 15" AlBook ...

 

[kingofkolt]

Some people were finding ways through Windows. Results were mixed. Some reports of it working really well, others of crashes and so on. It would void the warranty though, yes.

The underclocking was likely to be to match Apple's heat and power envelope for the MBPs. But it's certainly also possible that the parts supplied were cheaper on the basis that they were not required to clock up to full speed.

Usually, yes. The exception being first revision of aluminum 17" which initially had nVidia chip (the same one 12" had) that was later changed to same ATI chip 15" had.

But those were exceptional times; last 15" titanium powerbook came out 11/2002, first aluminum powerbooks (12 and 17 inchers) came out 01/2003 and the aluminum 15-incher finally 09/2003. It was "the year of the laptop" as Steve Jobs put it.

Thanks for the answers guys! This is good, because I really am hoping for a 512MB GPU (not getting my hopes up, though), and the thought occurred to me that they might only offer that option in the 17" and not the 15". I'd definitely prefer the 15", so hopefully they'll offer the same option in that one too.

 

[fblack]

We're still talking about hardware that's over a year old...

They still fall under mainstream graphics processors.

Was not debating that technology is a year old. I was just responding to your premise that the 7600GT is "a small bump over the X1600". It seems much faster and in this mid range line up only the X1650XT released this past December competes with it.

But hey don't get me wrong I'm not rooting for a 7600GT I hope we will get a faster GPU than that.

However with Apple's track record I'm not sure if we will see a card faster than the current midrange GPUs in the Macbook pros 1" sandwhich. I mean in the first macbook pros they even underclocked the GPU.

Oh well we'll see soon enough I guess...