What Graphics Card Could Go into the New Macbook Pros?

I'm trying to figure out what graphics card could go into the new Macbook Pros if they did a refresh on Jan 26th. The 230m gt? Or possibly unveiling a new card a 330m or 340m? What do you guys think? Do we have any word on the new cards Nvidia is releasing in the short term coming up here?

I know the Asus G51J series just had the 360m card put in them, and that makes me think it is possible Nvidia might be dropping a 300 series card into the next MBP line. Thoughts?

 

Whatever the new mid ranged nvidia or ati card is, especially if it offers battery life savings and performance, that's what will be going inside.

 

If they'd use nVidia again I reckon they'd prove all those rumors wrong, about them falling out with nVidia.

 

Are we going to do a bet on this?
Otherwise IMO it will be pretty useless discussing about it.

 

what fallout with nvidia? theres issues in that the nvidia chipsets they want to use, nvidia wont make because Intel and nvidia re in lawsuits over wether nvidia has the rights to make them.... so Apple has no choice but not use nvidia chipsets for newer processors... because nvidia cannot currently make them.

This should not stop them in any way from using nvidia GPUs.

what rumors about a fallout have there been?

 

I heard quite a lot of rumors after that 8600GT reliability fiasco...

 

I think the next batch of new Unibodies will use AMD/Ati video cards, and my guess would be somewhere like a 4670 or 4690. ATI currently has the price/performance ratio lead with the high-end cards. Which is probably why they're in the Mac Pros right now...

Although it might have effected the overall decision, I doubt it that the issue with the 8600GT fiasco was the single factor...

 

I pick the 4670 with the best memory available with it, underclocked by default.

 

Sounds about right, not much point in comparing with the Asus G51J as its a bigger laptop designed to game so more room for cooling.

 

Yeah, too bad they will put the 4000 series ATI in there and not the 5000.

 

Well it's more Apple's fault since they design them to look pretty and run very hot,so of course would kill the GPU's reliability....not entirely Nvidia's fault.

 

It is Nvidia's fault....they admitted as much and have been reimbursing OEMs for replacing the faulty parts with the bad soldering.

 

4000 series is still pretty good. I reckon 5000 would be pretty hot.

HP, Dell, and Apple all had faulty 8600m GT video cards. Nvidia admitted to the fault.

 

Uhhmm that had nothing to do with Apple. Had two friends with ASUS G1's with 8600m GT cards they babied no OC and used cooling pads, both fried video and sent off for repair (though ASUS was great about it and they weren't without them long).

Same with a family members 8600m GS. Try to get your facts straight before blindly bashing a product.

 

Anyway I am putting my Rep point for Intel Graphics.
The new Arrandale Intel HD seems to be quite high performing almost as good as Nvidia Integrated Graphics.
Not to mention the cheap integration cost and the low TDP, Intel Platform is almost a winner.

 

Actually, nVidia admitted to the fault (basically Apple were saying that nVidia was misleading and, in a way, lied about the faulty production process) and the rumor was that the 9600s were also faulty - at least the first batch.

To get back on-topic, I'd put my money on some mid-range nVidia/ATi GPUs, slightly underclocked for the 15" MBP and with normal clock speeds for the 17" MBP.

 

New Ati 5xxx series have been put thru there paces by Anandtech
Benchmarks look really good and here's hoping that at least the 56xx series makes its way into the next mbp.

 

Sorry for being a wet blanket, but I strongly believe they will choose Intel HD Graphics.
Apple's audience was never intensive gamers to begin with.
And Intel HD Graphics has reached the performance level of Nvidia/ATi low end integrated graphics.
The cheap integration cost and power savings make this a very viable platform solution.
Maybe they will have one expensive Pro version with a dedicated card but it is very likely Intel HD is going to replace 9400M G.

 

Don't know about using Intel...Apple was the first to ship OpenCL code, which would suggest Nvidia or ATI if they want to continue to develop that technology, which does not work so well on Intel's graphics chips. I'd flip a coin between an ATI 4670 and an Nvidia GT 230 or 330.

 

its almost certain the 9400m is going to be replaced by the next intel part, whatever it is.

@underpantman:

i love how these companies put out ridiculous misleading charts. look how the perspective is skewed to make the tall bars seem giant compared to the others... and how it starts at 75% instead of 0%...

but yeah, if 5650's are available, i take back my vote. we will see those instead.

 

Well Apple was a Joint Partner in the development of PowerPC why are they using Intel Processor now?

 

Apple realized how much of a flop the PowerPC processor was and how little improvement was made in ramping up performance and technology over the years compared the PC, so they switched to Intel. Has nothing to do with the Joint Partnership. Imagine if Apple never jumped over to Intel, I doubt they would be as successful as they are today and I for sure would not have bought one...

Actually that even proves more that they would likely not use Intel HD graphics (considering that Larabee was pulled as a retail solution as being not competitive enough)....

 

Apple dumped the PowerPC processor because of heat. They couldn't put the last generation of PPC chips in a laptop and keep the size/weight where they wanted it. Which again supports ATI or Nvidia in the next refresh of the MBP...both have better performance for the size/weight than Intel's graphics. They also both have a dual GPU solution for power management that allows the combination of long battery life and good performance that the 9400m/9600m GT offers in the current line.

 

Intel HD != Larabee
You should check out the performance before deciding on the conclusion.
They look pretty promising comparable to ATi/Nvidia Integrated Graphics solution.

Intel HD Graphics is onboard the CPU not mainboard...

My point being pushing out OpenCL has very little to do with platform selection.
Anyway it is just a prediction can be wrong can be right.

 

And the answer is BOTH !!!
Then new intelHD gpu allows for dynamic switching with a discrete gpu... so the bet is apple will probably put both in the mbp, and enable the on the fly switching to maximise performance or battery life as needed
a


via gizmodo

 

i thought that was a given.

you get intel integrated and something along the lines of a 4650 or 4670 or 5650 if it is out in time

 

Right, I NEVER implied that Intel HD Graphics = Larabee.
Since Larabee was supposed to be newer and better technology, Intel HD cannot be any better.

And Intel HD Graphics is an IGP which means it's on-board, not on-core(never heard of anything like that, unless you're talking about cell processing like the PS3, or Nvidia's CUDA or Tegra GPU to CPU tech...) if that's what your're implying.

Here's a list of playable games..



Playable doesn't mean it's competitive to the 9400M, not to even mention the AMD 5xxx series. Notice the lack of any intensive games like Call of Duty, Crysis, Fear etc. instead we see games like WoW and the Sims, unless you think Real Deal Slots Adventure is the best 3D-enabled game ever, this would be the perfect video card! LOL not very impressive...

 

Intels HD comes packaged with Arrandale. So if Apple is going to incorporate Arrandale with their new MBPs which I think they will, they are pretty much forced to use that graphics solution. But Apple can then use ATI as a switchable discrete GPU.

From what I've seen so far Intels HD is inferior to 9400m, which might hinder the MBP 13" line.

With Clarksfield out, I find it highly doubtful that Apple will skip another generation of mobile CPUs. I believe they'll be using Arrandale in the next coming months.

 

most of those games don't even run in os x... not a gaming platform...

intel hd doesn't really matter as long as it isn't the only chip on there.

maybe they will ditch integrated chips altogether for dedicated ones with better power saving tech at idle.

 

Agreed. However, the performance level compared (even though on a Windows platform) would approximate the level of performance translated to OS X. I still see these charts as useful information for professionals, available games ported on the OSX platform or users that use bootcamp(like myself).

It'll be likely that both AMD and Nvidia will introduce their own mobile platform that supports the Nehalem, Lynnfield and future Westmere cores with both IGP and discreet graphic solutions. I'm more interested in the Hybrid Graphics technologies and the possible Hybrid SLI/CrossFire Boost (whatever it's called) technology and how it'll be adopted into Apple's mobile solutions...

 

I don't think you are going to see any type of SLI (at least not involving running two GPU's at once) in Apple's mobile stuff.

 

If it's inferior to the 9400m, then Apple will never use it as it would be a step backwards.

 

With the addition of on the fly, switchable graphics in the HP dm3z and Envy 13, I would guess that Apple might consider the new Intel HD (step backwards in performance, forwards in battery) paired with a Radeon 4330 (or 5xxx series comparable GPU).

In the 15" MBP, I can't see Apple abandoning a dual graphics card solution. Maybe Intel HD + Radeon 5650/Nvidia 340/50 . If this is case, when do you guys think we would see this upgrade happen? In the next month or so/or not until later this year (June 2010 maybe)?

I really don't see them putting a Radeon 4650 in the MBP 15" because it has such similar performance to the 9600 GT GDDR3 that it would be a negligible upgrade (I think, correct me if I am wrong, maybe a Radeon 4650 GDDR3 would perform a little better than the 9600 GT, DDR3 certainly doesn't). I don't see Apple upgrading the MBP until the GPU takes a significant leap forward.

 

I thought the 4650 was a fair bit better then the 9600? (might not be)

Shame they never did a mobility 4750 or some form of 4860, they'd be fairly suitable.

 

Honestly, I think the 13 Pros are going to only get a minor refresh, getting maybe the i5 and something like a ATI 4330, while the 15 and 17 Pros will get a big bump.

 

Now that the Envy includes a 5000 series card, I have a feeling Apple will do the same. If not, the Envy will be a better buy.

 

I'm betting if it's NVIDIA, it will be a GTS 360M, and if it's ATI, it will be a 5670.

 

gts 360m is possible maybe. that card is pretty fast for the not-that-bad power budget. i don't know how the 260m / 360m stack up to the 5670 though.

edit:

after doing some research, thermal budgets aside, the 5650, 5730, or 5750 are all more likely than the 360m. none of those chips are quite as powerful, but they have much lower current consumption, more in line with the 9600m gt the mbp has now. apple could use nvidia, but the 360m is a bit out of the power budget i think. more likely from nvidia is a 240m/330m or something close to that.

 

AMD Announces ATI Mobility Radeon 5000 Series

 

The 8600M GT and 9600M GT are both 23W TDP chips. In theory, if Apple sticks with Arrandale at 35W TDP inclusive of northbridge, they'll actually have more thermal room now since previously they had to account for up to 35W TDP CPUs + ~10W for the northbridge.

Latest gen chips that fit the thermal budget from nVidia are basically the GT 240M and GT 330M (both 48 SPs) at 23W TDP on the low-end and the GTS 250M and GTS 350M (both 96 SPs) at 28W TDP at the high-end, with the GTS 335 (72 SPs) with an unknown TDP somewhere in between. Latest gen ATI GPUs include the Mobility HD 5650 at 15-19W TDP, Mobility HD 5730 at 26W TDP, Mobility HD 5750 at 25W TDP, and surprisingly the Mobility HD 5830 at 24W TDP. The 5650, 5730, and 5830 all use the same 800MHz GDDR3, making the 5830 very bandwidth starved despite the massive compute potential from the 800 SPs. The low TDP of the 5830 is probably due to very selective binning meaning the availability of these chips is probably low, although a MacBook Pro is not exactly a high volume notebook.

In an ideal world, I'd hope for a Mobility HD 5830 at the standard 500MHz for the core, coupled with 512MB and 1GB of faster 900Mhz GDDR3 or preferably 800MHz GDDR5 and sacrifice a few worthwhile watts in TDP compared to the stock 800MHz GDDR3 solution. GDDR5 is of course quad pumped (ie. 3200Mhz) compared to double pumped GDDR3 (1800MHz). Such a configuration could well be desktop HD4770 class in performance. My more down to earth hope will be the Mobility HD 5750 with 550MHz core and 800MHz GDDR5 which is a very well balanced card in terms of memory bandwidth (the 5730 has a faster 650MHz clock speed but slower 800MHz GDDR3 memory) giving performance exceeding the desktop HD 4670 and probably closer to the desktop GT 240 and 9600GT.

Apple should really avoid nVidia's GPU lineup which don't really bring much new to the table, just rebranding with some higher clock speeds. Admittedly, they do claim DX10.1 support now, but with DX11 GPUs available, Apple might as well go with the latest even if there aren't many DX11 games on the market and Apple still hasn't implemented OpenGL 3.0 in OS X whereas OpenGL 3.2 is support in Windows and Linux. Performance-wise even ATI's mid-range HD5650 should easily beat nVidia's mid-range GT 240M/GT 330M and use less power and even be within striking distance of the GTS 250M/GTS 350M. The nVidia GPUs would probably be cheaper though which sadly may be the deciding factor.

 

You guys are thinking too much.
Don't bother to kill your brain cells by calculating TDP.
It will be based on availability and pricing more than any other reason.

 

well a 280m isn't going in there available or not.

 

At least that guy came to his conclusion rationally. How did you come to yours? Of course TDP matters.