Hybrid SLI Could be Part of Updated Macbook Pro

[btarunr]

Apple's switch to x86 and Intel was seen as a change for the better. The company seems to have gone on a visual-computing drive, with closer associations with NVIDIA, and increased inclusion of NVIDIA's technologies into its products. Word is, that the next update to the Macbook Pro, could have NVIDIA's core-logic (chipset), with the likely candidate being MCP79. There's also widespread speculation in the industry, that some models of the Macbook Pro could come with two GPUs.

It is certainly possible, that the MCP79 could provide Hybrid SLI support. The chipset embeds a GeForce 9300 class integrated graphics processor (IGP), and provides additional PCI-Express connections to an external GPU. In this case, Apple could use a powerful GeForce board that handles graphics. The IGP could work in tandem with the GeForce board, or handle graphics all by itself, to save power. Pictures of the new Macbook model had surfaced yesterday, revealing the slick new Macbook Pro chassis. The range could start for as low as US $899.



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[eidairaman1]

one thing, USELESS, still not enough games to entice gamers to switch to Macntrash.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Hybred SLi???

jesus just tell them style whores to get a proper laptop. its...

1. Cheaper
2. More powerful
3. Doesnt need bootcamp
4. upgrades are cheaper & are more widely available


Apple = FAIL

sooner or later there wont be any reason to buy Macbooks other then for the name & the fact that some people who like to feel 'hip & with it' spend more money for something they think is better with the sorry ass excuse "Oh but i can connect my ipod to it & use itunes"

Seriously.....

 

[eidairaman1]

Ipod sucks anyway.

Hybred SLi???

jesus just tell them style whores to get a proper laptop. its...

1. Cheaper
2. More powerful
3. Doesnt need bootcamp
4. upgrades are cheaper & are more widely available


Apple = FAIL

sooner or later there wont be any reason to buy Macbooks other then for the name & the fact that some people who like to feel 'hip & with it' spend more money for something they think is better with the sorry ass excuse "Oh but i can connect my ipod to it & use itunes"

Seriously.....

 

[btarunr]

one thing, USELESS, still not enough games to entice gamers to switch to Macntrash.

Who says graphics processors are for gamers only? GPUs are going to crunch those 3D modelling apps, encoders, productivity suites that work on Macs. Do remember to substantiate your "xyz sucks anyway" with valid arguments.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Ipod sucks anyway.

Apple sucks - salute the rank, not the man

 

[eidairaman1]

Who says graphics processors are for gamers only? GPUs are going to crunch those 3D modelling apps, encoders, productivity suites that work on Macs. Do remember to substantiate your "xyz sucks anyway" with valid arguments.

if you want 3D Model Crunching, get a FireGL or Quadro Card, SLI will draw more power for a laptop than needed vs a Single Card that has more than the capability of the 2 in SLI. and I dont care if the units do power down, they still draw way more power than a single board, but i guess this will be the first mac tethered to a wall.

end rant.

 

[btarunr]

You didn't get it, did you? Think HPC...think CUDA...think GeForce accelerating apps....

 

[SimFreak47]

SLi in a lappy is about pointless. Battery life would be pretty low due to the power required, and I would imagine it gets pretty warm.

1 up for REAL laptops!

 

[eidairaman1]

You didn't get it, did you? Think HPC...think CUDA...think GeForce accelerating apps....

another point, we have only begun to hear about such stuff, when its time that it actually gets utilized it will be time to upgrade yet again.

 

[daehxxiD]

I'm actually a strong supporter of those Hybrid SLI/Crossfire concepts.
Not so much for the possible gain in performance when they work together (although it is appealing of course; if drivers get properly optimized, you might get a 20-30% performance gain in a combination of, say 9600M GT and the integrated 9300M [I'm guessing here]), but the fact that is most appealing, is the fact that you can totally turn off the 9600M GT when not in use and let the 9300M do all the dirty work => much less energy consumption and perhaps we'll see cheper High performance GPUs in the future, because they can "forget about" power-saving modes for the high-performance GPUs.

And I'm pretty sure the new MacBook will be just as solid as the current one and just as pricey... In my opinion Apple makes good Hardware and Software but the Price/Performance-relation just is not there and with a bit of knowledge you can do that and more on a Windows OS PC aswell.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Who says graphics processors are for gamers only? GPUs are going to crunch those 3D modelling apps, encoders, productivity suites that work on Macs. Do remember to substantiate your "xyz sucks anyway" with valid arguments.

This statement is 100% correct. Ill give you an example. Photoshop. In the past Photoshop wasn't GPU "enhanced" and now with CS4 and up it will utilize the GPU.....FINALLY! Now Ill honestly tell you guys I'm a recovering Mac attic. But the difference between me and the crowd that follows Apple now is I used them BEFORE they were cool. Before the ipod. Iv been using them professionally for well over 10 years. The days of the G4 are gone now. The Apple we were left with are overpriced PC's with budget parts in a fancy case. :shadedshu

 

[newtekie1]

one thing, USELESS, still not enough games to entice gamers to switch to Macntrash.

if you want 3D Model Crunching, get a FireGL or Quadro Card, SLI will draw more power for a laptop than needed vs a Single Card that has more than the capability of the 2 in SLI. and I dont care if the units do power down, they still draw way more power than a single board, but i guess this will be the first mac tethered to a wall.

end rant.

another point, we have only begun to hear about such stuff, when its time that it actually gets utilized it will be time to upgrade yet again.

You are missing the point of Hybrid SLi in notebooks. It isn't the same concept as SLi in desktops. It is actually a power SAVING feature. Not power wasting feature, like you seem to think it is.

Hybrid SLi, like Hybrid Crossfire, turns off the descrete GPU when it isn't needed. This saves on power, as descrete GPUs take up a huge amount of power compared to integrated GPUs. When the descrete GPU is needed, it is turned back on. Also, in the case of battery powered devices, it can be set to never turn the descrete GPU on when running on battery power alone.

And while we have just started to hear about apps that take advantage of CUDA in the past few months, there is already a very major one coming out that a lot of Mac owners are looking forward to. Photoshop CS4. A large portion of Mac users are artists, artists that use Photoshop on almost a daily basis, so this is a very major thing for them.

 

[joinmeindeath417]

There is going to be a war in this thread i see it now,

personally i own a macbook, and a pc i use my macbook for photoshop dreamweaver and things like that.

i use my pc for gaming and streaming movies and stuff to my xbox 360.

i like the both i think we should keep it to a "To each there own" thread and not start bashing apples new laptops because you haven't even used it yet (even with bootcamp) to see how well it plays games or whatever you guys are ASSuming right now.

 

[3870x2]

You didn't get it, did you? Think HPC...think CUDA...think GeForce accelerating apps....

for no reason will you need anything more powerful than a radeon 9200 for nongaming.... hybrid SLI for photos? CAD? thats a bit overkill.

 

[btarunr]

for no reason will you need anything more powerful than a radeon 9200 for games.... hybrid SLI for photos? CAD? thats a bit overkill.

No..hybrid SLI to make iTunes rip a video to your iPod at iOMG speeds.

The GeForce accelerates graphics/scientific apps, while the MCP79 IGP runs the graphics and turns off the main GPU when not needed, to save power.

 

[v-zero]

Let me just say that I own a MacBook Pro, alongside a host of PCs. I'm no poser, the mac is just much nicer to "work" on, the PCs are my fun machines for the most part.
As for these new Macbooks, well the hardware sounds nice, but that case is FUGLY for a Mac. Seriously, black keyboard and black surround on the monitor - who made this, Dell?!!....

 

[thebeephaha]

for no reason will you need anything more powerful than a radeon 9200 for nongaming.... hybrid SLI for photos? CAD? thats a bit overkill.

Do you work with tons of 12MP RAW files? Do you do CAD work?

I would guess no.

Let me just say that I own a MacBook Pro, alongside a host of PCs. I'm no poser, the mac is just much nicer to "work" on, the PCs are my fun machines for the most part.

Same here. I think most Apple bashers haven't tried the OS. That is what makes the mac, the hardware is just a side note.

 

[Whilhelm]

What 3D Cad programs are there for Macs. I know for a fact that in automotive design there aren't any programs that are commonly used on a mac. Solidworks, Catia, Unigraphics, Inventor and Auto Cad are all PC based apps. I know macs are considered better for image and video editing but I have never heard of them being used for 3D Cad design work.

And about that laptop, it looks like it has room for a full size keyboard. Why wouldn't they put one on it, sometimes I question Apples design philosophies.

 

[v-zero]

Same here. I think most Apple bashers haven't tried the OS. That is what makes the mac, the hardware is just a side note.

Exactly. That's why I don't own a mac pro, I built a perfect hackintosh instead - I bought a retail copy of leopard for it, so IMHO apple can take my 85 quid and shove their EULA up their ass!

 

[eidairaman1]

"Same here. I think most Apple bashers haven't tried the OS. That is what makes the mac, the hardware is just a side note. "

Ive used and tried repairing Macs in the past, 1 had a bunk drive in it, wound up being the OS dumped the Extension for the "CD Drive" it required you to upgrade the firmware of the OS not the drive, before anything and i think that is bunk especially when you cant find the extension or firmware on Macs own help site or download site. Windows on the other hand if the driver goes bunk you can find it anywhere.


on another Point, anyone use Darwin, all Mac OS is is just this with a Skin on it.

 

[aj28]

Ive used and tried repairing Macs in the past, 1 had a bunk drive in it, wound up being the OS dumped the Extension for the "CD Drive" it required you to upgrade the firmware of the OS not the drive, before anything and i think that is bunk especially when you cant find the extension or firmware on Macs own help site or download site. Windows on the other hand if the driver goes bunk you can find it anywhere.

Sounds like one bad experience with an old version of the OS, and no offense, but you're not an Apple certified tech. That's like complaining about how a Novell NOS is impossible to repair when you're an MCSE... I'm sure there are plenty of techs out there who are more than qualified to repair that sort of thing who, consequently, can't deal with half the stuff most A+/Microsoft certified techs do.

on another Point, anyone use Darwin, all Mac OS is is just this with a Skin on it.

Darwin doesn't include the iLife suite or numerous other apps Apple bundles in. There's more to a system's software than the OS it's running, and anyone who's ever put WMM/WDM up against iMovie HD/iDVD could tell you that.

 

[v-zero]

"Same here. I think most Apple bashers haven't tried the OS. That is what makes the mac, the hardware is just a side note. "

Ive used and tried repairing Macs in the past, 1 had a bunk drive in it, wound up being the OS dumped the Extension for the "CD Drive" it required you to upgrade the firmware of the OS not the drive, before anything and i think that is bunk especially when you cant find the extension or firmware on Macs own help site or download site. Windows on the other hand if the driver goes bunk you can find it anywhere.


on another Point, anyone use Darwin, all Mac OS is is just this with a Skin on it.

You might as well ask if anybody has ever used FreeBSD... That "skin" as you put it, is hugely more.

 

[Rhyseh]

Mac's are nice machines. Would I pay the extra grand for the ability to run a Mac OS that doesn't actually bring any real advantages over a standard, competitively priced windows laptop?........ No I wouldn't.

 

[Wile E]

This statement is 100% correct. Ill give you an example. Photoshop. In the past Photoshop wasn't GPU "enhanced" and now with CS4 and up it will utilize the GPU.....FINALLY! Now Ill honestly tell you guys I'm a recovering Mac attic. But the difference between me and the crowd that follows Apple now is I used them BEFORE they were cool. Before the ipod. Iv been using them professionally for well over 10 years. The days of the G4 are gone now. The Apple we were left with are overpriced PC's with budget parts in a fancy case. :shadedshu

I just sold my 1GHz G4 iMac a few months ago, still have my 1.6Ghz G5 PowerMac, and have a 1st gen 20" Intel iMac. I've liked Macs since OS X released, anything before that was garbage tho.

And if you consider the parts you get in the current Macs, they are very reasonably priced, notebooks being the noted exception. Take the iMac, show me one other all-in-one unit that represents the same value at the same performance level. Same with the MacPros. Last time I checked, it cost within $100 to build a dual socket Workstation with all the same features (including software to do what the Mac does out of the box), as opposed to buying the Mac. Although, they rape you on the upgrades when configuring, so they make a pretty chunk of change when you don't buy a base model. I actually prefer this age of Intel Macs. At least cpu upgrades aren't crazy expensive like they are on PPC Macs (Speaking of which, where the hell are my G5 upgrades to extend the life of this machine a little? lol)

Macs are not worse than PC's by any means. The major downside to Mac is a lack of Games, although many major titles do release on Mac, just not as many. And although it can be a downside, having controlled hardware makes for a much more stable OS. Both PCs and Macs have their pros and cons.