Why doesn't Macbook Pro not offer Nvidia Quadro FX graphic cards?

[cubbie5150]

Your hostility is leading you to exagerate a bit. The workstation latops that a dozen or so vendors offer with the Quadro graphics card will get around 90 minutes on a charge, not 5 minutes. I need to do my 3d modeling and animation away from a desk much of the time. It's to bad that seems to threaten you. Like I said earlier, I hope Apple offers the Quadro as an option. If they do, it won't be the end of your svelte, fashionable, laptop world.

Dude, don't evah question the Steve 'round these parts!! In all seriousness, I get a kick out of seeing people here overreact when someone questions a decision out of Cupertino. FWIW, I agree w/ you: more options would be nice. As far as additional costs created by allowing choices--make those choosing the additional option bear the cost.

 

[m1stake]

The Montevina laptop platform is supposed to be 25-40% smaller than the current Santa Rosa board, maybe you'll see some things like this incorporated.

Also seems like a great chance for a 13" MBP

 

[Pukey]

Well, maybe Apple should come up with a different name instead of MacBook "Pro". If it is a professional computer it should have professional options.
It's possible that sometimes professionals need to do things on the go when a workstation is not an option.
Also, where did Apple get the idea their laptop had to be no more than an inch thick? People demand a thinner laptop then complain when there's overheating issues. I don't see what the big problem would be if the case was thicker to accommodate more powerful components and run cooler. Certainly Apple has the industrial design skill to make even a slightly thicker laptop look cool if that is a big concern.
If Apple can't include the options of more powerful components like this is it really a "professional" laptop?

 

[Stridder44]

Well, maybe Apple should come up with a different name instead of MacBook "Pro". If it is a professional computer it should have professional options.
It's possible that sometimes professionals need to do things on the go when a workstation is not an option.
Also, where did Apple get the idea their laptop had to be no more than an inch thick? People demand a thinner laptop then complain when there's overheating issues. I don't see what the big problem would be if the case was thicker to accommodate more powerful components and run cooler. Certainly Apple has the industrial design skill to make even a slightly thicker laptop look cool if that is a big concern.
If Apple can't include the options of more powerful components like this is it really a "professional" laptop?

 

[cobbe1]

maybe because the fx 3600 M sucks 70watts of power? compared to 22watts for the 8600GT M

but sure if you only want an hour of battery life then yeah a 3600 M is definitely an option for the MBP

"BUT WAIT!!" you might say

other OEMs have higher battery life than that..ok sure, their notebooks are also 3" thick and have batteries that weight 10lbs

Not sure about that. BTO a Lenovo T61P a while back and set it up I think two weeks ago. That thing's only 1.1" thick, and definitely not 10 pounds. At about $2100 it got T9500 2.6GHz, 3GB Ram, 200GB HD and Quadro FX570m. This machine is for an engineer who needs to run Solid Work and OneSpace.

With that said, the possibility is there for Apple to offer the Quadro as an option. There are professionals out there would love to have that.

 

[wk127001]

I think what a lot of people forget is that Apple doesn't offer countless options for their hardware because OS X is not windows. Apple is not interested in designing OS X to run universally on any hardware. The fact that windows actually can mostly do this is actually impressive but the point is Apple and Microsoft are trying to solve two different problems. Microsoft wants everyone to use their OS and therefore must design their system to be compatible with all kinds of different hardware. Apple instead has a more narrow view in which they select just a few good components and write great software for them. This naturally gives them a much tighter reign on all the facets of designing OS X. Which keeps their complexity down and in turn they get a better, more integrated, stable system out of it.

Ultimately, if it means Apple can't offer a work station graphics card in a notebook, then so be it. Apple doesn't want to make every single person happy. Just mostly everybody.

 

[latestmonkey]

I think what a lot of people forget is that Apple doesn't offer countless options for their hardware because OS X is not windows. Apple is not interested in designing OS X to run universally on any hardware. The fact that windows actually can mostly do this is actually impressive but the point is Apple and Microsoft are trying to solve two different problems. Microsoft wants everyone to use their OS and therefore must design their system to be compatible with all kinds of different hardware. Apple instead has a more narrow view in which they select just a few good components and write great software for them. This naturally gives them a much tighter reign on all the facets of designing OS X. Which keeps their complexity down and in turn they get a better, more integrated, stable system out of it.

Ultimately, if it means Apple can't offer a work station graphics card in a notebook, then so be it. Apple doesn't want to make every single person happy. Just mostly everybody.

That about sums it up. Good post.

AS for the Ford Focus doing 0-60 in 3 secs, it actually can.... downhill... in a hurricane. (Hello everyone old enough to remember Isuzu.)

 

[Bubba Satori]

WOW! you realized that i was exaggerating, congratulations!

it is still never going to happen, i doubt it would even fit into the thin inclosure. plus, apple would never offer it as a bto option, because then everyone who gets it will start complaining about no battery life and how it has to be plugged in to use it. plus the amount of redesign that apple would have to do will not be worth the 5 laptops sold!

I was just havin' fun. You're right, it's doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Which is a shame, cause it would be nice to have another model in the laptop lineup to complement the Mac Pro for content creators who need the fastest possible mobile workstation. Heck, the laptop pro chassis are out there being offered by HP, Lenovo, Dell and Boxx. It would be so nice to have one running OS X. Maybe in the future. Course I could always grab an iluggable bag and get myself a good workout hauling around the Mac Pro.

 

[BlueScreenX]

build yourself a Hackbook................

 

[Bubba Satori]

build yourself a Hackbook................

I think I'll try that if there isn't a quadro or blu-ray drive offered with the next Mac book PRO update. In the meantime I'll just stay close to my desk as much as possible.

 

[Imhotep397]

Digging this thread out of the grave for a minute. It's kind of frustrating that Apple never addressed this but now it's almost as if it's a non-issue. A lot of software devs saw that the market just wasn't buying into the "Pro GPUs for Professionals" philosophy or were buying those Pro GPUs sparingly. A lot of those companies rewrote their software to to take advantage of the "Consumer GPUs" to the extent that today there are more than a few applications where you'll actually get more performance out of a high end consumer "gaming GPU" than you will out of a Quadro or Fire Pro card.

The thing that annoys me about Apple is that they had no idea this trend was happening, but they made their arbitrary decision on GPUs based solely on internal metrics and larger profit margins. Personally with this new board shake up I hope Apple gets a much needed push towards doing significantly more to support fro creative/tech professionals via new hardware/software and newly acquired hardware/software. Apple is still a computer company and a computer company that owes it's life to the creative professional community and their staunch loyalty to Apple products over the past several decades their lack of innovation/development in these areas, because of their new found success in the consumer sector has been and continues to be shameful.

 

[Mato-11]

External

So , what about an external graphics card ? I think the one you can plug in via the Thunderbolt 2 interface , i know its only 20Gb/s but maybe this is the way for professionals , obviously not the best.I have seen one that works with MBA , in the future there may be more alternatives.

 

[pragmatous]

Get the mac pro then. That has the firepro professional graphics card.

Sorry about the double negative, didn't read the subject before I posted it. I'd be nice if they offered options with the PRO. It kinda sucks that the Macbook Pro is so limited in its build. It's a sweet looking machine, thats why i'm buying one. I just wished they'd offer more bleeding edge kit BTO.

 

[librarian]

The new mac pro does not support cuda, wich is becoming the standard for 3d production and editing, it is not a good investment.
External gpu solutions for a mbp are a waste of money.
There are better solutions than the mbp for this segment but the most workable ones come with a 17" format wich apple no longer provides, because it was no longer their market, and they never actually invested much on it ( usually same specs of he 15") they kept te same thin design of the 15" wich of course limited these machines in what components they could use. A current 17" workstation It is Of course less portable and ticker but they still outclass the mbp in performance and expandibility by a huge margin.
The ticker design is needed for cooling, there are no other ways around that. Powerful gpus needs a lot of energy and heat dissipation wich cannot be provided on a thin form factor.
Check an asus rog j750z for example, its thick as 3 rmbp in the back, but it comes wih 2 individual cooling system ( one for cpu one for gpu) wich allow the machine to operate silently (under30-35 db i guess) under stress. It also has a gtx 880m but the external temperatures dont go past 35c. Internals dont go past 70c. Keyboard feels barely warm. Because of the size the machine has room for 32 gb of ram, dual ssd raid setup, and another 2 slots for hdd/optical.
With apple design instead you have a great,very portable all-around solution, the performance provided is very good for the size given the compromises needed for it.
The only way for top performance for apple is a new 17" model but with a custom design, but this will never happen. Nobody would buy a 4 cm thick mbp, apple always advertised the thinner design as an improvement on every product they made, and it is what actually benefit the majority of their users.

 

[pragmatous]

then don't get a mac. buy a dell or hp.

The new mac pro does not support cuda, wich is becoming the standard for 3d production and editing, it is not a good investment.
External gpu solutions for a mbp are a waste of money.
There are better solutions than the mbp for this segment but the most workable ones come with a 17" format wich apple no longer provides, because it was no longer their market, and they never actually invested much on it ( usually same specs of he 15") they kept te same thin design of the 15" wich of course limited these machines in what components they could use. A current 17" workstation It is Of course less portable and ticker but they still outclass the mbp in performance and expandibility by a huge margin.
The ticker design is needed for cooling, there are no other ways around that. Powerful gpus needs a lot of energy and heat dissipation wich cannot be provided on a thin form factor.
Check an asus rog j750z for example, its thick as 3 rmbp in the back, but it comes wih 2 individual cooling system ( one for cpu one for gpu) wich allow the machine to operate silently (under30-35 db i guess) under stress. It also has a gtx 880m but the external temperatures dont go past 35c. Internals dont go past 70c. Keyboard feels barely warm. Because of the size the machine has room for 32 gb of ram, dual ssd raid setup, and another 2 slots for hdd/optical.
With apple design instead you have a great,very portable all-around solution, the performance provided is very good for the size given the compromises needed for it.
The only way for top performance for apple is a new 17" model but with a custom design, but this will never happen. Nobody would buy a 4 cm thick mbp, apple always advertised the thinner design as an improvement on every product they made, and it is what actually benefit the majority of their users.