Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
If vram has absolutely jack **** to do with the performance of driving an external monitor, then why do some bigger monitors require a certain amount of vram to drive it in the first place?? AND why does the 23" acd run so much faster in closed (shell) mode? Maybe its due to the fact that in closed mode its not dividing the vram in half and the full 256vram goes to the 23" acd?? Its common sense.

First off. You Fail.

Second, You need more Ram for "bigger" monitors for high res textures in games. You'll barely use 10% of 256mb driving a 1920x1200 display for daily operations such as EXPOSE.

Third, You need to re-read my post. I'm not saying that there isn't a difference between the 15inch you had and the new 17 inch in speed. I'm simply correcting your uneducated, unscientific, and unproven finds of the 256mb jump to 512mb speeding things up.

Like I clearly stated in my previous post.
1. HIGHER CLOCKED GPU
2. PENRYN BENEFITS

End of story. Stop feeding bull poop about video ram helping your situation out.

Edit: Side Comment: Let me guess, you think your 160 7200 rpm drive is faster than my 320gb 5400. :)
 
First off. You Fail.
Um no your not my teacher. And a real world idiot doesnt have the ability to fail anyone in the first place, you special special person, you.

Second, You need more Ram for "bigger" monitors for high res textures in games. You'll barely use 10% of 256mb driving a 1920x1200 display for daily operations such as EXPOSE.
umm no, its quite easy to fill up that 128mb ram on the external monitor from such apps,even yes small windows on your desktop can take up as much as 10mb each (proven). Also without a certain amount of ram you cannot even drive a 30" monitor.

Third, You need to re-read my post. I'm not saying that there isn't a difference between the 15inch you had and the new 17 inch in speed. I'm simply correcting your uneducated, unscientific, and unproven finds of the 256mb jump to 512mb speeding things up.
um no as well here, I have proven by testing out real world usage, and you have not done any of this and just claiming your stubborn opinions, which is utterly WRONG. Then ask me why the mbp runs so much ****ing faster when you have it in closed mode?????? you still have NOT ANSWERED this question because you know deep down I am right that vram has a significant impact on the performance/ability to drive an external monitor, END OF STORY, DONE DEAL WHOADY~~


Like I clearly stated in my previous post.
1. HIGHER CLOCKED GPU
2. PENRYN BENEFITS

Ok like that extra .100mhz ok excuse me .100x2 is going to make a HUGE impact :rolleyes: but look at the tests done with a previous 2.6 (merom vs. a new 2.5ghz penryn... umm why is the lower clock penryn with a lower clocked cpu have better fps?? can you explain that?? Maybe because of the 512mb vram??!?? Also just because a gpu is slightly higher clocked doesnt mean that its going to improve this dramatically even with the same exact gpu! Maybe in a video game you could notice 2-4 more fps =/

And no the only difference from penryn to merom is the 6mb cache as to 4mb (gives about 2-3% speed benefit, not huge been tested and proven), 45nm (much cooler <~~ I'd say only real advantage), and an SSE4.1 instruction set, which no programs so far utilizes to benefit anyway, and if you look at alot of benchmarks the merom is actually performs slightly faster in benchmark tests than the penryn and the penryn mbp are touted for their much cooler and efficient way of processing as to a speed bump. So the penryn chipset alone has really nothing to do with the speed increase I see on the external monitor.

End of story. Stop feeding bull poop about video ram helping your situation out.
All I can say is YOU ARE ONE STUBBORN SON OF A BITCH, I have tested this and saw first hand and still own both machines as I have the 15" on ebay right now. Please, Please dont say anything anymore (your just embarassing yourself as everyone can clearly see you are wrong and no proof to your claim that vram has nothing to do with how well it performs in driving an 23" ACD). I did all the testing and confirmed the differences and as proof even you can see for yourself when you close the mbp in closed mode which runs overall so much ****in faster. And if 256vram is more than enough, why does it run all so much faster and more responsive with the mbp in closed mode not splitting 256mb/2 for 128mb on each individual monitors??? Maybe your partially right about 256vram is good enough and 512mbvram is the one you should have so it could be used in dual mode for a 512mb/2 for a 256mb vram to each individual monitors and that's what I'm seeing with the 17" 512mbvram mbp??? And I even owned a previous 17" sr 2.4ghz mbp with 256vram that ran pretty much identical to the 15" (but were talking about external monitors here) and you who have not played/tested this with the new 2.5ghz mbp penryn 512mb vram models. I'd say your the uneducated one here.

Edit: Side Comment: Let me guess, you think your 160 7200 rpm drive is faster than my 320gb 5400. :)
No but my hitachi travelstar 7k200 <~~ which means 200gb not 160gb IS faster than your 320gb 5400 and no if your thinking that density of the 320gb has it over edge to the 7200rpm of a hitachi drive your wrong (been proven as well) + WD isnt a very reliable company as it was 10 years ago, a lot of hdd failure rate and even a 9 year old kid on an eepc knows this because it is COMMON SENSE ;)



Also on a side note please please stop trying to protect your theory about vram having nothing to do with the performance of driving a monitor. I dont know if your still in denial about your 2.4ghz sr mbp not being new anymore and is outperformed in this external monitor task, just that long as you think the performance driving your external monitor is good enough, hey I got nothing against you. Was it horrible with the 15" mbp 256vram driving the external 23" ACD, I'd say no but was it not running at its full speed and have room to be much better, I'd say yes to this, and I saw this first hand with extensive hours and hours of usage of multitasking and everyday stuff that I do.~~

It is utterly stupid to believe that, its like believing the world is still flat, its also like believing that santa claus is real. why do you think there are more vrams in the first place and requirements for monitors to have certain amount to be able to drive a bigger monitor as well. Its the same thing as having a 500mhz cpu require to run windows and if you have 500mhz exact cpu and running windows, sure it runs it but not at its best, I rather have a 1ghz (notice 500mhzx2= 1gb as to 256vramx2=512mbvram?) to run the os and of course would run MUCH better. Same goes with RAM as well, minimum to run windows xp 512mb but would it run much better with 1gb or even 2gb with better performance, YES.
 
This has got to be the most bizarre thread I've ever read. The new 17" is a great machine no question.

Is it tons better than the previous 15"? I think it depends on your needs, but the idea that it's so much better and doesn't get beachball slow downs is silly.

The idea that extra vram (alone) is somehow increasing performance of an external monitor is silly. Not worth participating in this thread with all the rants going on.

To the OP, you have a great machine but give it a rest, you are going off the deep end here.
 
This has got to be the most bizarre thread I've ever read. The new 17" is a great machine no question.

Is it tons better than the previous 15"? I think it depends on your needs, but the idea that it's so much better and doesn't get beachball slow downs is silly.

The idea that extra vram (alone) is somehow increasing performance of an external monitor is silly. Not worth participating in this thread with all the rants going on.

To the OP, you have a great machine but give it a rest, you are going off the deep end here.

I'm not saying that the newer penryn 17" mbp is 10x or even 2x better if using the laptop you wont even notice any difference. BUT all I'm saying is that I do notice from real world usage with an external monitor, specifically to the 23" acd it runs the 23" acd that much faster.

I mean its no BS, when I had the 15" mbp I used it with the 23" acd and was going to sell the mac pro since the mac pro obviously drove the 23" acd so well and quick and the 15" had a bit of a lag I'd say half a second lag on doing anything on the 23" acd just doesnt seem right, or same speed as using the 15" mbp without the 23" acd and on its own 15" screen's speed.

But I do notice that the 17" connected to the 23" acd is fast in response as to just using the 17" monitor itself without the external monitor, so now it seems like there is no excuse to sell my mac pro and currently have it selling on ebay.

Its that much faster for me to even sell my mac pro on my sig. I'm selling the mac pro + the 15" mbp.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.