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Would geting rid of the optical drive make room for a better graphics card?
- Thread starter MVApple
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No.
The only space needed is for the chip (and memory chips if they're not on die). Disappating the heat is the main problem.
The only space needed is for the chip (and memory chips if they're not on die). Disappating the heat is the main problem.
Meh. I can't imagine it would be impossible. Remove the optical drive (atleast in the Macbook Pro) extend the logic board to take up the remaining space. Keep the CPU and chipset near the top with the graphics components taking up the additional space and make some sort of intake/outake cooling configuration with plenty of heatsinks and appropriate thermal compound.
But who would forgo an optical drive
But who would forgo an optical drive
That'd be one hell of a mod to change the videocard..hell is it possible or is it soldered onto the logicboard? I would be happy to rip out the optical drive, then add a better vid card/heatsink/fan if it were possible..
Its soldered on.
I bet a good 80% of those who want to ditch the optical drive (for whatever reasons) would be wishing for it back not too long after the purchase.
I'd personally stick another HD in the space (with some fans due to the opened space) and RAID 0 them
Yes, spin the hard drive sideways, push it and the battery to fill the space, you now have room to shove the logic board back a few inches, and thus room for much bigger heatsinks and fans
I wouldn't, as long as I had an external HD (for software installations and DVD movies).
Yeah, you could keep the drive on your desk and install programs and import tunes. When you go out you don't have to take it with you. No one would miss it.
I WONDER IF THEY THOUGHT OF THAT WITH THE MBA. HMM.
Thanks for the replies everyone. And just to clarify I wasn't considering doing this as a mod,that would be insane I would think. I was talking about this as far as Apple doing this for their next macbook pro.
I wonder a poll for macbook air owners would look like on this issue. Besides some installations, and movies and music what would you use the optical drive for? Ripping your music to your hard drive isn't an "on the go" activity, at least not usually. Installing software isn't an "on the go" activity either, again at least not usually. As far as watching movies, we have itunes and programs that can rip movies to the hard drive.
When at home it would be neat if we could hook up an external drive to a time capsule and stream it, if anything just plug in the external drive.
Personally, saving the weight and or having a better gpu would be more than worth the trade off for me. The macbook air would interest me more if it could do very light gaming and could playback hd video without puking.
I wonder a poll for macbook air owners would look like on this issue. Besides some installations, and movies and music what would you use the optical drive for? Ripping your music to your hard drive isn't an "on the go" activity, at least not usually. Installing software isn't an "on the go" activity either, again at least not usually. As far as watching movies, we have itunes and programs that can rip movies to the hard drive.
When at home it would be neat if we could hook up an external drive to a time capsule and stream it, if anything just plug in the external drive.
Personally, saving the weight and or having a better gpu would be more than worth the trade off for me. The macbook air would interest me more if it could do very light gaming and could playback hd video without puking.
The next problem however is having found the space for the card and the cooling solution is battery life. What's the point of a low-consumption CPU if you've got a 45W+ graphics card in there.
I had a mate with a gaming laptop a few years back - 17" HP thing with a desktop P4 chip and top line graphics card. It weighted over 7Kg plus another 2Kg for the 150W PSU brick that travelled with it. Most of it was solid copper heatsink...
Me? I'll quite happily take a good enough MBP come refresh time if they go back to ATI.
I had a mate with a gaming laptop a few years back - 17" HP thing with a desktop P4 chip and top line graphics card. It weighted over 7Kg plus another 2Kg for the 150W PSU brick that travelled with it. Most of it was solid copper heatsink...
Me? I'll quite happily take a good enough MBP come refresh time if they go back to ATI.
Well there are now hybrid graphics cards that let you switch to integrated graphics to save battery life. The psu would be a problem, I hadn't though about that.
You know you are talking about removing the optical drive in a MBP forum which means we don't think about MBAs
Though, I'll be frank here and say I don't use my optical drive much and nor do many of my friends. If I can say this, a number of them may have never used their optical drives yet (or paid for software
)I didn't know this existed till now. http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4296
It's basically the power of a macbook pro at 3.6 lbs, sans optical drive. The screen is smaller at 13.3", but I don't think bumping this up to 15" would add more than a pound. Too bad LG laptops aren't available in the states. Proof though that losing that optical drive could mean good things.
It's basically the power of a macbook pro at 3.6 lbs, sans optical drive. The screen is smaller at 13.3", but I don't think bumping this up to 15" would add more than a pound. Too bad LG laptops aren't available in the states. Proof though that losing that optical drive could mean good things.
But who would forgo an optical drive
I wouldn't. The rare time I need an optical drive is when I'm at home. I have never used my optical drive while I'm away from home. I have some movies on my HDD, and if I want a movie that my friends own (tsk tsk, I know), I just use a flash drive. Easy.
I'd personally stick another HD in the space (with some fans due to the opened space) and RAID 0 them
Me too. A second HDD, an SSD to complement my HDD drive, a bigger battery, or both an SSD and larger battery.
Or give me the larger battery and leave space for a cooling solution so that a 1" thick quad-core MBP is easily do-able. Seriously, all you need is space, and an adequate cooling solution, and I'd much rather have a faster, better computer than an optical drive that I rarely use while away from home.
In which case add a feature that ThinkPads have had for years ... the Ultrabay. Floppy, Zip, Optical, HDD, Battery or a weight saving bit of plastic. Take your pick.
You meant like this? Apple PowerBook, circa 1998
"dual "hot-swappable" bays which both can hold batteries or expansion modules "
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powerbook_g3/stats/powerbook_g3_233.html