New graphics card for MBP refresh?

Not sure when they'll do the refresh for the MBP,
but which graphics card to you think will end up in the next MBP?

9500m? 9600m? an ATI card?

By the way, is the 9500 going to have the same problems as the 8600m?
I know the 9600m wouldn't. *crosses fingers*

 

No one really knows. But given that Apple has already used the 8600M GT twice already the should be changing to a new one. That should put the 9500M out since it's basically a revision of the 8600M, although it shouldn't have the problems associated with the older model.

Apple seems to place the highest model mid-range GPU they could find when they do refresh their GPUs, this was the X1600 when the MBP was first released since the Go 7700 and even the Go 7600 wasn't released yet, and when they switched to the 8600M GT, the 8700M GT and the Mobility HD 2600XT wasn't released yet. So they would hopefully use at least a Mobility HD 3670 or a 9600M GT. Personally, I'm hoping for a 9700M GTS, since it has a 256-bit memory bus like a high-end card and actually has more stream processors at 48 while the 9600M and 9650M series are really just higher clocked versions of the 8600M GT.

 

no one except Steve Jobs knows you can call him

i hope that it is ati 3750/4750

 

it will be a 50/50% chance. no one outside of apple (that involve with the MBP project) will exactly know.

saying that... it seems for now manufacturer seems to be switching to ATI. whatever they choose; im sure it is the right decision. if i had to bet, my money is on ATI.

 

I agree with the above poster. I'd give it about a 50/50 chance of a new GPU and a better than half chance of it being an ATI card. That said, MBPs, are not really gaming machines, and instead more aimed at video editors. I'm not sure of the 8600m can handle HD video editing, but my bet is that Apple has an eye towards something that will handle such a task.

 

thank you mike,

anything that does not blow up or cause any trouble im happy with .

the current gpu is worrying. not sure if they fix the freezing issue yet. :sigh: i havent dare try that again

 

I don't see what's wrong with the 8600M GT for HD video editing since I'm not sure how much acceleration the GPU currently provides. The 8600M GT already decodes h.264 in hardware so a more powerful GPU wouldn't really improve things in playback. In encoding, the GPU isn't really used at all I don't think. Final Cut Pro may use the GPU to accelerate the application of some filters through Core Image and Core Video, but that's not quite the same as GPU accelerated encoding. Presumably with OpenCL, Apple will make Final Cut Pro able to use the GPU to do general purpose processing, which means even 8600M users will see large speedups from current encoding speeds. A faster GPU would of course be better then, but the bigger speed difference is probably from no OpenCL as now to OpenCL support rather than a faster GPU.

 

I've read somewhere that the ATI GPU's are better with Core Animation. In that light, here's hoping the next refresh has a Radeon mobile graphics card in it.

 

As everyone else said, it is pretty even right now. Apple could keep the 8600M GT for one more revision, or they could move on to the NVIDIA 9000 series or ATI 4000 series. I personally think/hope it will be ATI, as I think they're doing a better job.

 

I'm kind of curious where all this talk of the ATI 4000 series comes from. Given that Apple seems to consistently use mid-range GPUs for the MBP, and the HD 46xx series hasn't even been announced for desktop much less being available, I can't really see them being in the next MBP if the MBP refresh timeframe is within the next month or two. Unless there has actually been some Mobility 4xxx announcements that I missed?

 

i think he meant ati 3k series. thats the one that competes with nvidia's upper 8 series /9 series

then you have the gtx's and the 4k series.