MacBook Pros with AMD/ATI Graphics

Intel technology inside new MacBook Pros | Nanotech - The Circuits Blog - CNET News

If true these could be very tasty machines.

 

I don't really know whether I like this or not.. On one side it seems like Apple never have had a good deal with nVIDIA, they've also been stuck with somewhat outdated chips and even though nVIDIA the past years have been really up to date on the Intel platforms and processors like spotting the new Intel Arrandale setup at the same time as the rest of the world etc.. They always been lagging behind on the graphics going GeForce 320M and GT330M when nVIDIA has already started chipping GT4xx series in other notebooks.


So why stick with nVIDIA if they're not providing up-to-date chips? And it's a fact that nVIDIA offer poorer specifications and performance compared to AMD when you think of power consumption and heat. And obviously Apple wants the best performance for the lowest amount of power consumption and heat.


The downside as I see it is the lack of CUDA support which is quite strange considering MacBook Pro's normally being used for lots of video and photo editing whereas nVIDIA normally offer better cards compared to AMD because of CUDA and better OpenCL and OpenGL support? Or have things change much the past half a year?

My experience with AMD and their "non-Windows" drivers have been rather sluggish, there is no doubt that nVIDIA got better Linux support when it comes to drivers and AMD seems to struggling enough with keeping stable drivers for Windows (all my friends whom got HD6xxx series cards have had some strange issues lately) and I don't want some fishy Mac OSX drivers support from AMD. But they've been offering the graphics solution in both iMac and Mac Pro for a while now so Apple should know what they are doing and obviously the drivers can't be that bad?


The good thing is we most likely will see bette preforming chips in the MacBook Pro compared to what nVIDIA could have offered, along with the HD6xxx series offering better universal video decoding on their cards so perhaps we'll see QuickTime actual capable of decoding some MKV's etc.. for a change?

Let's just hope the lack of CUDA wont be that bad and that their drivers are good.

 

Sadly there aren't really any GOOD videocards in the TDP range of 20-25W which Apple is likely limited by, so I don't think it matters much if Apple goes with AMD or Nvidia. The AMD 6830M is the best in that range. They might offer it in the 17'', and give more lousy cards (like the 65xx) in the 15''.

 

I think the specs for the 15'' and 17'' were just leaked.

15'' (maybe the low end): AMD 6490M 256MB VRAM (comment: haha)
17'': AMD 6750M

 

That 6490 is a joke. I'm sure there will be a more powerful option in BTO (probably a 6750) but I might just buy a fugly Dell this round to save some cash.

 

6750 is confirmed for 15 inch

Pricing & Availability
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro, 15-inch MacBook Pro and 17-inch MacBook Pro are available through the Apple Store® ( www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is available in two configurations: one with a 2.3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 and 320GB hard drive starting at $1,199; and one with a 2.7 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 and 500GB hard drive starting at $1,499. The new 15-inch MacBook Pro is available in two models: one with a 2.0 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon HD 6490M and 500GB hard drive starting at $1,799 and one with a 2.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon HD 6750M and 750GB hard drive starting at $2,199. The new 17-inch MacBook Pro features a 2.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon HD 6750M and 750GB hard drive and is priced at $2,499.

 

I'm going for the 6750 (2720qm) option.

I was looking around for GT540m - GT555m and switchable graphics and this seems like it could be pretty powerful and I imagine I could realise 3-6 hours of actual usage battery life in most cases.

Since the 5650 can get 6-8k 3dmark06 I'd expect this & 2720qm to get at least 8-10k:

480 streams (not 400 in 5650's / 6500's)
GDDR5 (not GDDR3 in most 5650's / 6500's)

Bl**dy expensive overall, but the specs are higher than I was expecting.