[P]

Something's really strange in this thread... I'm going to hold off quoting for a while.

I'm not so much excusing as giving a possible explanation. The GPU performance is disappointing, and I'm trying to explain that. As for Windows users: nVidia took a very long time to get anything resembling decent drivers out for Vista - if they can be called decent today - and Intel STILL doesn't have any drivers out that make full use of the GMA X3000 - for any OS. It's been out for a year by now, and they're only just now beginning to talk about BETA drivers that make use of the hardware T&L.

[goMac]

I was talking to someone on the Windows side of the tracks and they honestly were kind of disappointed with Apple choosing the GeForce 8600. They said there were some issues with the 8600 being slower than even some of the 7x00 chips, and not really being worthy of an 8x00 moniker.

A Google search seems to find this:
Digg - Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT vs. 7600 GT
Legion Hardware

And the benchmarks on the PC side show that the 8600 is slower than the 7600, just like I had heard.

So no, Apple isn't breaking anything. Believe it or not, the 8600 is actually slower than the 7600.

[Super Mario]

Everyone, I mean everyone, else apart from Barefeets and the link you gave are having great experiences with the 8600M GT under Windows.

Nevertheless, that Legion Hardware link you gave still has the 8600M GT ahead of the 7600 GT in 3DMark2006 and much less difference in Windows games than Barefeets found on the Mac.



OS X's is very under par.

[goMac]

Way to cherry pick benchmarks.






In general, the 8600 is slower than the 7600 on the PC side. The reason the 8600 is faster at 3DMark is because the 8600 is optimized for benching and not real world stuff. It's not all that uncommon. So this is not an "Apple problem".

[Super Mario]

Oh man goAway goMac. I ****ing hate it whenever you come along and think you know everything and then insult people wiht your superior attitude. Don't accuse me of cherry picking when there are 1234876283478234823 links which show the 8600M GT totally destroy the 7600 GT compared to a total of 2 links in this thread that show underclocking on the Mac side and mixed results on ONE PC.

Google it up before you start insulting members. Accusing me of cherry picking when you've got nothing. sheesh

I and others have posted benchmarks on page 1. Don't bother turning this into another one of your 15 pages of egosplosion.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Super Mario 

Google it up before you start insulting members. Accusing me of cherry picking when you've got nothing. sheesh

I did. And then I posted the numbers. Suck it up.

[kazurm]

From barefeats.com:

"
June 11th, 2007 -- We were pleasantly surprised by the 17" MacBook Pro 2.4GHz "Santa Rosa." It ran 3D accelerated games as much as 11% faster than the 15" 2.4GHz model. That tells us that the GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor is clocking up higher in the 17" than in the 15" model, a phenom we observed in the late 2006 MacBook Pros. Full report tomorrow.
"

Looking forward to those results (although I already received my 17" MBP yesterday)!

Edit:

Updated barefeats results

[MattJeff]

whats the point of underclocking? how does it benefit Apple?

[P]

Originally Posted by MattJeff 

whats the point of underclocking? how does it benefit Apple?

More battery life and less heat. In particular, there may be a limit to how much heat Apple can cool away with a certain enclosure, and if the new GPU is what is pushing them over that wattage, the GPU is strangled. It would still be faster than a lower-end model running at full blast.

[tiger]

Yes, the performance is disappointing but it IS true, the 8600 is actually slower than most 7xxx series in old games but in new games supporting DX 10 it would make a world of difference in windows. But apple doesn't use DX10 so there's not much advantage that apple has in that field, although in bootcamp it'll perform great. Also, I prefer my MacBook Pro to be quiet, I've got a macbook and as soon as i run something that needs graphics, the fans kick in full speed, and i'd rather not have a leaf blower on my desk. The other thing is, you people who say are thinking of overclocking your pros' perhaps you prefer something like this? http://www.i-marco.nl/weblog/images/g5funny.jpg

[Jim Paradise]

Have they done any comparisons using the 7200 RPM hard drive? Would that make any small difference?

[P]

The 8600 is slower than the 7900 GT and GS, but generally faster than the 7600 GT. This is a disappointment - the 7600 GT and the 6600 GT were solid boards when they arrived, and beat everything except the top ranks from the previous generation. This time, the gap is a bit bigger and the 8600s are too far behind the 8800 GTS to really bring that generation boost that everyone has come to expect from nVidia's midrange boards.

Leopard will include OpenGL 2.1, which includes updates to GLSL similar to what is putting into Direct3D 10.

[mindflayer]

The iMac uses a desktop GPU, not a notebook GPU.

[buddy1065]

I now have a 2.33 Ghz MBP and my new 2.4 Ghz MPB. I will be testing frame rates in Oblivion as soon as I get Bootcamp version 1.3 downloaded and installed with Windows XP. To me there is a considerable difference in screen brightness between the two also. The new 2.4 blows the 2.33 LCD away. Ah, but perhaps the fact that the new MBP has a glossy screen is why? I dunno. It is definitely brighter. My 12 year old God daughter said "Wow" squinting her eyes.

[tiger]

Originally Posted by mindflayer 

The iMac uses a desktop GPU, not a notebook GPU.

The iMac is simply a clone of the MacBook Pros with a Desktop HD, not much else is different. It uses notebook ram and components. A while ago when it was first introduced ATI confirmed the iMac used a Mobility Radeon X1600.

[mindflayer]

Originally Posted by tiger 

The iMac is simply a clone of the MacBook Pros with a Desktop HD, not much else is different. It uses notebook ram and components. A while ago when it was first introduced ATI confirmed the iMac used a Mobility Radeon X1600.

I stand corrected. The iMac 24" uses, for example, the nVidia MXM:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/mxm.html

[wolfen]

Originally Posted by buddy1065 

I now have a 2.33 Ghz MBP and my new 2.4 Ghz MPB.

Why?

[buddy1065]

In Oblivion I ran my character across the long bridge near chestnut handy stables of Imperial City.
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o...leyT99/FPS.jpg

Here are the framerates.
2.33 Ghz MPB 256 ATI .....averaging about 25 FPS
2.40 Ghz MBP 256 nV ......averaging about 50 FPS
These tests were at 1280x768 using XP Home edition.
My MBP 2.33 Ghz was sold and sent off to the buyer yesterday, so sorry, no more tests.

Why, Wolfen? One reason is it makes me happy.

Flyin' around
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o...99/Flight2.jpg
2
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o...99/Flight1.jpg
3
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o...99/Flight4.jpg
Another Main Character Sasha
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o...99/Sasha24.jpg

[iamthebest22]

Hey guys, I currently own a MBP with 15" with Core 2 duo 2.2Ghz and 2GB of RAM, 120Hard drive. I overclocked my 128MB 8600MGT (It's actually 512MB in XP cause it lets you use intergration with RAM) to 550 Core speed and 850 Memory and got a score of 3420 on 3Dmark06, however, that overheated my MBP to 96 degrees celsuis, off the chart, forcing me to buy a 25$ cooling fan under it, which made it back down to 70 degrees approx. Hope that hels you guys with the temperature issue! (I use the ATI tool btw.)

[tiger]

Originally Posted by iamthebest22 

Hey guys, I currently own a MBP with 15" with Core 2 duo 2.2Ghz and 2GB of RAM, 120Hard drive. I overclocked my 128MB 8600MGT (It's actually 512MB in XP cause it lets you use intergration with RAM) to 550 Core speed and 850 Memory and got a score of 3420 on 3Dmark06, however, that overheated my MBP to 96 degrees celsuis, off the chart, forcing me to buy a 25$ cooling fan under it, which made it back down to 70 degrees approx. Hope that hels you guys with the temperature issue! (I use the ATI tool btw.)

My Pro has also gotten that hot, I've run the processor power off the charts. I just got a cooling fan and put it under... still running at 200% of CPU but the temp is now 84C. Not so bad for a comp on all day, Also do you really need to overclock? Since in XP/Vista its already at its full potential anyways.

Either way I still hope there is some Mac OS X utility or that the new Leopard OS will perform better in graphics clock and such.

[iamthebest22]

Well the only reason I overclock is to play games like Oblivion and prepare for upcoming games like Crysis and well Call of Duty 4 and Need For Speed Pro street.

[itistoday]

Hey guys I just got my new MBP and have ran some preliminary tests on it comparing it to my old one which is of the previous generation (running the X1600, it has a 2.16 Ghz C2D in it, whereas the new one has a 2.2 Ghz C2D). Both computers have 128 MB of VRAM, I used Quake 4 with identical settings to perform the tests (medium quality, 1280x1024 resolution, all advanced settings turn on, no anti-aliasing). Here are the results:

(Here 'old' refers to the previous generation low-end MBP, and 'new' refers to the current, low-end MBP).

Old 10.4: 20 FPS
Old 10.5: 20 FPS
New 10.4: 40 FPS
New 10.5: 32 FPS

Now while it is odd that Leopard seems slower, please note that both the game and Leopard were loaded from an external Firewire 800 drive, so it may have been hitting a bottleneck because of that.

My conclusions from this is that Leopard does not seem, despite the alleged improvements to OpenGL, provide much of a boost to gaming. Additionally, new MBP owners can expect at least a 2x speed boost with the new graphics card. Please note, however, these benchmarks were somewhat amateur in nature, and while I tried to keep things identical, I may have made some sort of an error somewhere.

[bassy6]

Originally Posted by itistoday 

Hey guys I just got my new MBP and have ran some preliminary tests on it comparing it to my old one which is of the previous generation (running the X1600, it has a 2.16 Ghz C2D in it, whereas the new one has a 2.2 Ghz C2D). Both computers have 128 MB of VRAM, I used Quake 4 with identical settings to perform the tests (medium quality, 1280x1024 resolution, all advanced settings turn on, no anti-aliasing). Here are the results:

(Here 'old' refers to the previous generation low-end MBP, and 'new' refers to the current, low-end MBP).

Old 10.4: 20 FPS
Old 10.5: 20 FPS
New 10.4: 40 FPS
New 10.5: 32 FPS

Now while it is odd that Leopard seems slower, please note that both the game and Leopard were loaded from an external Firewire 800 drive, so it may have been hitting a bottleneck because of that.

My conclusions from this is that Leopard does not seem, despite the alleged improvements to OpenGL, provide much of a boost to gaming. Additionally, new MBP owners can expect at least a 2x speed boost with the new graphics card. Please note, however, these benchmarks were somewhat amateur in nature, and while I tried to keep things identical, I may have made some sort of an error somewhere.

Leopard aint out yet. What are you talking about? If it is out tell me where. I checked both UK and US apple stores and don't see it.............. Unless you work with Apple, or you're referring to 10.4.10 update........... I think its safe to say that if we Intel Mac guys want to game lets just do it in Win XP/Vista. I'm not saying don't game in OS X cuz I do, but I'm saying stop complaining about Mac OS 10 fps scores cuz Apple aint a gaming platform. The 8600m GT are not underclocked at all.(in windows side that is) They just don't perform as well on the Mac side........ And I don't think any of us have seen the 8600M GT perform to its best yet(even in the windows side) cuz the new DX 10 cards still have immature drivers.......... But for what we have now, the card is nice. I gotta get my self 1 of those Santa Rosa MBP's( somehow gotta persuade my parents...........

[P]

Originally Posted by itistoday 

My conclusions from this is that Leopard does not seem, despite the alleged improvements to OpenGL, provide much of a boost to gaming.

I'm sure this will clear itself up once they remove all the debugging code...

Sorry, had to say it.

[James L]

Originally Posted by bassy6 

Leopard aint out yet. What are you talking about? If it is out tell me where. I checked both UK and US apple stores and don't see it.............. Unless you work with Apple, or you're referring to 10.4.10 update...........

Ummm... thousands upon thousands of people who are non Apple employees have the latest copies of Leopard. Apple gave out 5,000 copies to the people who were at the developer's conference, and many others have received copies as well.

This is standard procedure in the beta testing process. Developers get new OS releases well ahead of the general public. Is it final Gold Master? No, that doesn't exist yet. It is the latest build, however.