The GPU Does NOT Matter

[Demosthenes X]

As of OPENCL performance. You all seemingly seem to think it's going to make a monumental difference in everything, and also auto-assume that OPENCL performance between 9400 - 9600 is going to be drastic. Let's wait until REAL WORLD BENCHMARKS show us what the benefit is rather than just assume a radical difference. I predict were going to get a sh*t load of people whining on this forum that OPENCL performance isn't as big as they thought it would be with graphics card A, as opposed to graphics card B.

Exactly. Apple updated all of its machines recently, and the 9400M is now the base card in every one of their product lines except the Mac Pro. Only two machines are available without it: the 17" MBP, and the Mac Pro.

That's a very clear statement on Apple's part that they have every confidence that the 9400M can handle the needs of OpenCL. I highly doubt the GPU is going to become a major part of any computer's processing prowess, at least not in the near future. The "9600M will be better with OpenCL" claim is not only completely unsupported right now, but probably wrong. I wish people would stop falling back on it, especially when they advise "buy the better card, OpenCL might use it". $300 for a maybe is an awfully steep guess...

 

[getz76]

Photoshop is really a cpu-intesive app. Photoshop CS4's GPU accelerated features are actually just for zooming, and panning as well as display. The actual image processing and running of filters uses cpu power exclusively.

Right, but my workflow involves more panning and zooming than filters. I am not snap-happy, but I will do an event with 500+ captures looking for the dozen or so keepers. I know Bridge handles better with the 9600M GT vs. the integrated 9400. Whether it is due to the actual GPU power or the fact that the 9600M is not sharing resources is really moot to me in a real-world use.

Is that worth the bump in price? For me, the answer is yes.

 

[neteng101]

Yea, really, this is pointless. Let people decide for themselves how to live their lives.

OP probably is just trying badly to compensate for inadequacies, either that or for rather inexplicable reasons, seems to have a fixation on IGPs.

9600GT 512MB VRAM and I paid less than the latest 15" with 9400M only. Oh wait, I didn't get an SD card slot, the horrors!

 

[Finlandboy]

9600GT 512MB VRAM and I paid less than the latest 15" with 9400M only. Oh wait, I didn't get an SD card slot, the horrors!

i did the exact same thing....and im loveing it

 

[vista.john]

OP probably is just trying badly to compensate for inadequacies, either that or for rather inexplicable reasons, seems to have a fixation on IGPs.

9600GT 512MB VRAM and I paid less than the latest 15" with 9400M only. Oh wait, I didn't get an SD card slot, the horrors!

plus one more!!! hahaha

 

[bajee]

@getz

good for you, that you can justify the cost , I don't personally see the difference between the performance of a 9400m vs 9600m for bridge.

@neteng101

yeah indeed, refurbs are the best

 

[Firefly2002]

OpenCL is going to change all that, and the reason why the educated user is somewhat annoyed.

Lol fail... no it's not.

I dunno, the whole VRAM thing has been kind of amusing for the last six or seven years since people became aware of video cards... have more VRAM when you don't need it can actually slow you down a bit.

You can't really say the difference is "only 5%," though, as it's usually either 0%, or fairly significant if you run out of texture (and .. I guess these days... shader...) memory, and it can be as bad as 300% (more on older computers with slower memory architectures).

Anyway, point well made. Integrated GPUs simply lack dedicated memory. Their cores are still reasonably fast, and more than enough for GUI tasks.

Actually if anything you should be whining that it's nVidia and not ATI, as the pro apps that take advantage of GPUs tend to favor ATI, at least on OS X.

I'd really love to see a Radeon 4750 in the next-gen MBPs coupled with the dual-core 32nm Nehalems. The 4750 is already almost as fast as the 4850, has a 128-bit memory architecture, and is based on 40nm fabrication.... sounds good =)

Course I'm not sure they're gonna make a 4750 mobile variant...

 

[Maven1975]

Lol fail... no it's not.

I dunno, the whole VRAM thing has been kind of amusing for the last six or seven years since people became aware of video cards... have more VRAM when you don't need it can actually slow you down a bit.

You can't really say the difference is "only 5%," though, as it's usually either 0%, or fairly significant if you run out of texture (and .. I guess these days... shader...) memory, and it can be as bad as 300% (more on older computers with slower memory architectures).

Anyway, point well made. Integrated GPUs simply lack dedicated memory. Their cores are still reasonably fast, and more than enough for GUI tasks.

Actually if anything you should be whining that it's nVidia and not ATI, as the pro apps that take advantage of GPUs tend to favor ATI, at least on OS X.

I'd really love to see a Radeon 4750 in the next-gen MBPs coupled with the dual-core 32nm Nehalems. The 4750 is already almost as fast as the 4850, has a 128-bit memory architecture, and is based on 40nm fabrication.... sounds good =)

Course I'm not sure they're gonna make a 4750 mobile variant...

Well, it's highly unlikely we will see that exact configuration, but it seems that Apple is giving nVidia the boot. ATI woul be the next logical choiice.

Apple, being Apple, will stick in some 1+ year old video card that beats out the 9600m GT. They never will get the demand for cutting edge cards.

 

[Punker]

OP, look at this page:

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs/

where it says:

Min Req to run FINAL CUT STUDIO PRO

* An AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Studio is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)

I think we can assume that the GPU is definately being used by this application and makes the process much smoother. By the look of this, it might not even be possible to install final cut without a GPU...

I i think you are definately wrong (OP)

 

[akbc]

The sad truth is, 9600m is still a piece of crap for a pro machine.

If they need significantly more power than the 9400m, then windows laptops are the way to go.

 

[eXan]

OP, look at this page:

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs/

where it says:

Min Req to run FINAL CUT STUDIO PRO

* An AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Studio is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)

I think we can assume that the GPU is definately being used by this application and makes the process much smoother. By the look of this, it might not even be possible to install final cut without a GPU...

I i think you are definately wrong (OP)

Uhh, there's no such thing as FCSPro...

If you meant FCS, then Motion and Color don't work with Intel graphics indeed, but the rest work just fine (tested by myself on my GMA950 MacBook).

And currently discussed laptops don't have Intel graphics, they have NVIDIA....

 

[bajee]

integrated Intel graphics processors)

You do know that 9400M is an integrated Nvidia graphics processor right? And it was chosen by apple since the integrated Intel graphics processors, just won't cut it anymore

 

[Demosthenes X]

OP, look at this page:

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs/

where it says:

Min Req to run FINAL CUT STUDIO PRO

* An AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Studio is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)

I think we can assume that the GPU is definately being used by this application and makes the process much smoother. By the look of this, it might not even be possible to install final cut without a GPU...

I i think you are definately wrong (OP)

Maybe you should look at the page your citing... integrated Intel graphics processors. All new Macs use NVIDIA graphics, which runs FCS just fine.

 

[throttlemeister]

Try this:

Connect a MBP to a 24" ACD or similar high resolution screen. Enable the 9400. Set or create your/a application stack to list and start scrolling. You will see tearing all over the place, indicating the graphics cannot keep up.

Second, open up for instance Lightroom with a few hundred photographs showing as thumbnails. Notice how sluggish and dog slow Lightroom responds to scrolling through your photographs and basically any UI tasks.

Now switch to the 9600GT, and do the same things. No more tearing and Lightroom is now operating normally and scrolling smooth.

Note these are not 'graphics tasks', but UI tasks. Simple interface display. Nothing heavy. On the 13", you will not see any difference due to the low resolution. On the 15", you will notice some tearing when quickly scrolling through large menus. On the 17" or external high resolution displays, you will easily tax the 9400 to its limitation by simply using the interface.

The GPU DOES matter, and it does so with the most benign task of navigating your OS, unless you are working at very low resolutions. With the price of 24" screens starting at below $200, anyone can afford a high res screen and anyone who does will quickly run into the limitations of the 9400. If they then try to do something that IS gpu intensive like gaming, graphics manipulation, video encoding, they will wonder what the hell is wrong with their computer as it will get slow as a dog. I myself (as a new Mac user) was like WTF? when I was working with Lightroom (after all, mac's are supposed to be good at graphics stuff, don't they?), until I did so again with the 9600GT turned on. Then I was quick to realize what was going on.

So unless you are using a 13" MB(P) and never connect an external display, yes it does matter. It matters a lot. And as UI's get more demanding on GPU, it will matter more and more.

 

[Ploki]

hey, dwalls90, have you seen the benchmarks? and the fact that it can use any GPU at any time? meaning, it can use both at the same time for OpenCL