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Why does Apple keep putting 1gb vRam GPU's?

M

mark28

macrumors 68000
Original poster
MBP are supposed to be professional laptops, professionals using CUDA for example do need a lot of VRAM. 1 gb isn't enough. So it's just an other laptop with gaming capabilities again.

It's not expensive to put 2 gb of VRAM for your GPU Apple.
 
mark28 said:
MBP are supposed to be professional laptops, professionals using CUDA for example do need a lot of VRAM. 1 gb isn't enough. So it's just an other laptop with gaming capabilities again.

It's not expensive to put 2 gb of VRAM for your GPU Apple.
Click to expand...

I think because cutting corners on GPUs is part of making thin machines.
 
mark28 said:
MBP are supposed to be professional laptops, professionals using CUDA for example do need a lot of VRAM. 1 gb isn't enough. So it's just an other laptop with gaming capabilities again.

It's not expensive to put 2 gb of VRAM for your GPU Apple.
Click to expand...
If you're going to use laptops for CUDA apps, just buy an HP EliteBook or Dell Precision.
 
It's really not hard to put in 3GB of GDDR5. I don't know why Apple refuses to do it, as more RAM would not increase heat or bulk.
 
Of course but every single company over inflates the prices. Even the "cheap" PC's are over inflated as they are using cheap brittle plastic and cheap parts in their builds.

w00t951 said:
Not significantly. NAND memory is about $1/GB, and even if you inflate that to, say, $15, Apple would be seeing a large increase in sales that would make up for the lost $30 from putting in more vRAM.
Click to expand...
 
w00t951 said:
It's really not hard to put in 3GB of GDDR5. I don't know why Apple refuses to do it, as more RAM would not increase heat or bulk.
Click to expand...
That is just wrong.

You need more physical space, cooling, and power to accommodate the additional video memory. All of these cost money. Also, more video memory alone does not equate to better performance.
 
jcpb said:
That is just wrong.

You need more physical space, cooling, and power to accommodate the additional video memory. All of these cost money. Also, more video memory alone does not equate to better performance.
Click to expand...

Hey, you know they make different capacities of the same memory? HOLY DUMPLINGS you mean I can buy a micro SD card in either 4 or 16 GB? But won't the 16GB take more power and space? Nope! Won't the 16GB explode into white hot fire without liquid nitrogen cooling? Nope!

You can pack more video memory into the same card. Its why there's multiple versions of the same model of GPU that have vastly different memory capacities.

And 1GB is definitely too small.

I can't tell if you're trolling or what, but your assertion is not true.
 
w00t951 said:
Hey, you know they make different capacities of the same memory? HOLY DUMPLINGS you mean I can buy a micro SD card in either 4 or 16 GB? But won't the 16GB take more power and space? Nope! Won't the 16GB explode into white hot fire without liquid nitrogen cooling? Nope!

You can pack more video memory into the same card. Its why there's multiple versions of the same model of GPU that have vastly different memory capacities.

And 1GB is definitely too small.

I can't tell if you're trolling or what, but your assertion is not true.
Click to expand...
If you need more than that, buy yourself an Alienware, a Clevo i.e. Sager, or a bona fide workstation notebook. There is nothing trolling about it.

If you're buying laptops for serious gaming, stay away from Apple, simple as that.
 
jcpb said:
If you need more than that, buy yourself an Alienware, a Clevo i.e. Sager, or a bona fide workstation notebook. There is nothing trolling about it.

If you're buying laptops for serious gaming, stay away from Apple, simple as that.
Click to expand...

There's nothing keeping Apple from putting in more video RAM. It's a cheap, simple process of ordering a different version GPU from NVIDIA or whatever manufacturer Apple sources from.

Some applications, particularly in 3D modeling, etc., require a decent amount of vRAM.
 
jcpb said:
If you need more than that, buy yourself an Alienware, a Clevo i.e. Sager, or a bona fide workstation notebook. There is nothing trolling about it.

If you're buying laptops for serious gaming, stay away from Apple, simple as that.
Click to expand...

What if I wanted to buy a laptop that would be used for more than one purpose, and one was gaming, but I also wanted the much nicer user experience of OS X for everything else?

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w00t951 said:
There's nothing keeping Apple from putting in more video RAM. It's a cheap, simple process of ordering a different version GPU from NVIDIA or whatever manufacturer Apple sources from.
Click to expand...

In Apple's defense, RAM does consume power. The reason SD cards don't suddenly overheat when they're 10 times bigger is that they're flash media -- they are only using power for the reads and writes themselves. Video RAM, like system RAM, uses power all the time when it's on, so it would increase heat and power consumption by some non-zero amount.

... Not that I think it'd be a large amount.
 
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