Apple's Redesigned MacBook and MacBook Pro: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 22, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Two GPUs
While the MacBook relies on the integrated GeForce 9400M, the MacBook Pro includes a discrete GPU as well (NVIDIA calls this a dGPU and the integrated one the mGPU): a GeForce 9600M. The 9600M features 32 SPs up from 16 in the 9400M, giving it more shader power and it's got its own dedicated frame buffer off of a 128-bit memory bus. The dedicated frame buffer is quite possibly the most important but the usefulness here is pretty much limited to games (which are mostly going to be Windows-only) and the high end professional applications that are GPU accelerated.
Apple gives you the option of switching between the two GPUs in the Energy Saver preference pane; unfortunately you have to log out and log back in to switch between the dGPU and mGPU. Other PC implementations of Hybrid Power (what NVIDIA calls the ability to turn off the dGPU and rely on just the mGPU) aren't so clumsy and can be done from within Windows, but for whatever reason Apple requires a logout/login.
The mGPU is preferable for battery life as you'll see in the section on battery life shortly.
Pulling an Apple out of a Hat: DisplayPort Standard
Apple has a tendency of doing this thing where it adopts new standards and gets rid of old ones well before their time is up. It's admirable and it allows Apple to pull off some neat tricks, but as Apple is a much larger manufacturer today than it was in the past we're starting to see examples of why companies like Dell don't take a similar approach.
Case in point is the video output on these two notebooks we're looking at today. Apple had a DVI output on its MacBook Pro but the connector itself was a little too big for the form factor changes that Apple wanted to implement. On the MacBook Air Apple used a mini DVI output, but on the new MacBook and MacBook Pro we have a mini DisplayPort connector.
The mini DisplayPort connector is to the left of the mic-input
Unfortunately only Apple uses mini DisplayPort on its recently introduced 24" display; Dell still uses the full sized DisplayPort connector on its monitors - not to mention the many more that use standard DVI or VGA.
Apple's solution is to offer mini-DP to DVI, DVI, or DL-DVI adapters, which is acceptable; unfortunately neither notebook ships with a single adapter. In the long term this will hopefully be a non-issue, but until then be prepared to spend another $30 or $100 (dual-link DVI) to support an external display.
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Johnmcl7 - Thursday, January 15, 2009 - link
I didn't say it was for *nix, that's why I said *nix applications which still use the middle mouse button in other operating systems. There are many times when there isn't space for using a mouse, hence it's a laptop.As for keyboard shortcuts, they're not faster when using a mouse as it means a break from the sequence rather than just clicking with the mouse that's in use anyway
themadmilkman - Wednesday, October 22, 2008 - link
Why don't you head to a store and try it? It's much more intuitive than you give it credit for.Sunrise089 - Wednesday, October 22, 2008 - link
There was a time when cars were changed and tweaked every single year, often for purely aesthetic/emotional reasons. That is no longer true. The average enthusiast car shopper is no less spec-conscious than PC geeks. And likewise the majority, and especially in the high-end/luxury market (Lexus, Apple) that is composed less by knowledgeable enthusiasts and more by people craving a certain image or experience, tend to shop based upon style, price, or other easy-to-understand factors.headbox - Saturday, October 25, 2008 - link
wrong. If people were "spec-conscious" about what they drive and getting performance was priority #1, then we'd see thousands of motorcycles on the freeways instead of dozens. You can spend $8,000 and get a motorcycle that is faster than any car made, gets 50 mpg, and can still carry a few bags of groceries.People buy nice cars because they can afford it and like the aesthetics.
RaynorWolfcastle - Wednesday, October 22, 2008 - link
Just a note, but I've read elsewhere that under Windows, the graphics on the MBP always use the 9600 chip; I'm sure this accounts for part of the difference in battery life (assuming you ran the OSX tests using the integrated 9400 video.ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, October 22, 2008 - link
The Windows vs OS X battery life tests were done on a MacBook Air so discrete GPU has no effect.jonmcc33 - Wednesday, October 22, 2008 - link
Maybe you should test the power settings with Vista on Power saver setting? My Latitude D610 lasts over 3 hours with Vista. I wouldn't use Balanced unless it was plugged into the AC adapter.Calin - Thursday, October 23, 2008 - link
What about testing under XP?jonmcc33 - Thursday, October 23, 2008 - link
Nobody cares about Windows XP and it would be REALLY bad to compare to the latest Mac OS X product.BushLin - Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - link
I don't see why, XP isn't a limitation on anything useful unless you were just talking about the eye candy of OS X... See how many businesses still supply their laptops with XP rather than the junk they're supplied with because they're not tethered to Microsoft like the manufacturers.