I have seen over the years that apple tends to use lower end video hardware in there stuff compared to the pc. I see they now have 2GB video cards out with quad cords but the imac top of the line only gets 512MB 1 core. Is it that mac's do not need as much video power as the pc does? or were macs not made for high end games etc?
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why do macs use lower end video chips etc?
- Thread starter ranmart
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On my portable Mac (17" Macbook Pro 2009) i can play Call of Duty 4 and 5 in maxed out graphics settings without any lag or jading or sharp edges, infact it almost looks like real life, and they are both pretty graphically intensive games. Infact they run far better on my MBP than on my $4000 pc, so you cant say they arn't exactly good at playing games, they just dont fall for consumerist statistics such as "2GB of graphics RAM" when really those specs mean nothing. Added to that most non portable Macs are in line for a major update soon including graphics, so if your thinking of buying an iMac or Mac Pro for gaming i'd advise waiting.
Macs were not made for high end games. But the Mac Pros have some interesting video card options (they are a bit outdated, but so is the Mac Pro - I would wait for the refresh to see what comes).
The MacOS Snow Leopard is supposed to take full advantage of the GPUs for general purpose computing with its OpenCL technology. So, a high end graphics card will become something truly useful in a Mac.
you are actually comparing a two year old machine to 2009 MBP?
not to mention.. you spend $4000 for that? thats not the machine's problem then.
I would answer that two ways.
First, yes, Apple generally chooses low to mid-level cards for most of its machines. Only the towers get top of the line cards, and even then they are updated less than half as often as in the PC world.
On the other hand, ATI/AMD and NVIDIA have been pretty successful in convincing the computer buying public that they need the latest, multi-GPU, stuffed with VRAM, heavily overclocked cards they can possibly afford - and that they need to upgrade them often. Internet forum wiseguys snicker at you if you can't produce 300fps in Crysis or whatever the latest hardware-killer game is.
Don't listen to those people. Find out which apps you want to run and look up benchmarks with various video card to see if you'll get the performance you want. In most cases Macs are more than adequate - though I do wish they updated their GPU lineup more often and offered more GPU options than they do.
And anyway, if all you want to do is play computer games build a PC.
I'm interested in this, and whether or not there is some truth to it: is there? Is it not true that more memory means better performance?
A Mac Pro for gaming? I shudder to think.
'Most' desktops? Aren't updates 'coming' for all of them?
Im not comparing anything, im just saying it has better graphics performance while playing Call of Duty 4 and 5 in Windows 7 than my PC, which makes me happy
Im not comparing anything, im just saying it has better graphics performance while playing Call of Duty 4 and 5 in Windows 7 than my PC, which makes me happy
well, try fill this in, for your alienware
CPU Type:_______
CPU SPEED:________
RAM TYPE:_______
RAM SIZE:_______
GPU type:_______
GPU RAM SIZE_______
GPU SPEED:_______
again, you spent $4000 for that? all i can find is $1400...
No, more memory doesn't mean more performance.
Its the whole Ghz game over again, a 3Ghz 8 years old Pentium 4, wouldnt not perform as fast as a new 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo, so you see, Ghz and numbers mean nothing really.
For example with graphics cards the same thing applies:
A Cheap ATI Radeon 2400 with 1GB Graphics RAM
http://ati.amd.com/products/Radeonhd2400/index.html
Is no where near as good as an ATI Radeon 4870 with 512MB Graphics RAM
http://ati.amd.com/products/hd4000series.html
But the 2400 has 512MB more RAM than the 4870, so RAM doesn't really mean anything.
no kidding
or from what year?
a desktop card in a computer at that cost should run circles around a mbp in terms of playing games
ok how bout i compare my mb to a 5000 computer from the 80's lol
of course a newer computer will outperform an older computer playing the most current games when each had somewhat up to date cards at the time
2006.
It should, but it doesn't, and its running on an intel x-25 drive i put in there, only 80GB i know, but on Windows 7 the Macbook still owns, and its running the 320GB 7200.
What argument? Im not stating that a portable machine can outrun a desktop in any way whatsoever, i was just making a passing comment on how good i think the 9600M graphics card is and that im rather impressed with it.(i was really expecting gaming on my new MBP to be a joke!) I'm no pro gamer at all, just a bit of Left 4 Dead in Steam and COD 4, 5 Multiplayer keeps me happy, and my Macbook's 9600 can handle both in fully graphics mode smoothly, which makes me impressed
Telling people that his new MBP can game better than a laptop from 2006 was pretty silly, but we realize this by now, no? What's the point of even knowing the specs of his crappy gaming PC from 2006 at this point in the convo?
Regardless of whether we "need" a better video card really shouldn't be the question. For the price we pay, we should either expect better computers all the time, or expect prices to drop in relation to what we're getting now when compared to the competition. However, we don't get either often enough, and it's too bad.
I guess we get worse video cards because not enough people complain, or we do complain but are willing to spend the money on a Mac regardless.
Regardless of whether we "need" a better video card really shouldn't be the question. For the price we pay, we should either expect better computers all the time, or expect prices to drop in relation to what we're getting now when compared to the competition. However, we don't get either often enough, and it's too bad.
I guess we get worse video cards because not enough people complain, or we do complain but are willing to spend the money on a Mac regardless.
PC from 2006, and its a bit obvious which is why i dont see the issue. I just think some people are being fickle...
Someone mentioned something a while back about Apple having issues with newer GPU's overheating, especially in their Pro lineup, but i guess this is an area Apple can never win in, they either use water cooling and have coolant leaks like the G5's had, or cut back on CPU/GPU speed. I dread to even imagine what the next Mac Pro's are going to be like with a Core i7 lineup (maybe dual i7 due Q3 '09?) and an even more powerful set of GPU's. My office is going to be turned into a sauna.
Ok, but why? They use cheaper components but 'add' more memory, thus making it more attractive? That's what I get from this.
Pretty much, it appeals to people who havn't done much research before purchasing, because big RAM numbers sound pretty, like 1GB and 2GB etc...
So they might hypothetically look at a $3000 Mac and see it only has a 512MB graphics card, and then look at a $2000 Dell and see it has a 2GB card and think immediately "Oh the Dell must have better graphics" when this isn't always true.
no need to know specs?
so what did he mean when he said:
now thats total misinformation, apple makes no graphic card chips, GPU you get in pc is just the same you get from apple computers. what is "cheap components"?
and who said memory size has no affect? Im not saying its super important, once you get above 512MB, I consider it enough, but there are big difference between 128MB, 256MB, and 512MB.
so what did he mean when he said:
now thats total misinformation, apple makes no graphic card chips, GPU you get in pc is just the same you get from apple computers. what is "cheap components"?
and who said memory size has no affect? Im not saying its super important, once you get above 512MB, I consider it enough, but there are big difference between 128MB, 256MB, and 512MB.