Underclocked Video Cards?

[HateEternal]

Apparently the MacBook Pro isn't configured to do what it is capable of.

If you ask me it's a pretty cheap way to squeeze more battery life out of a machine. Maybe Apple should invest some time into creating dynamic clock speeds for video cards controlled by the energy saver much like what is done with the CPU. I'd rather have my video card throttle its self down if it isn't being used than have it permanently crippled.

So when will someone put out a hack for OS X?

[Mikuro]

I'm a little unclear on the reason behind this and the specifics of the card.

Here's what I understand. If anyone can correct me if I'm wrong, that'd be great:

• The iMac and MBP use the same graphics card. It's underclocked on the MBP, but not on the iMac.

• This ATI card was not really made for portables.

• The MBP runs very hot.

• This card, even when underclocked, performs well for a laptop.

Sooo...seems to me like this is a feature, not a bug, so to speak. Is it at all reasonable to expect this beast of a card to go into a laptop at full power? Are any other companies using this card at full power in laptops?

Some people are overclocking them using some Windows tools. Do they know better than Apple's designers? Time will tell. I get the feeling some of these people are going to have dead MBPs sooner or later.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Heh... people lauded the performance of the X1600 in the MacBook Pro since it was released. They considered it to be a powerful mobile graphics chipset, and had little negative to say about it.

Then they learn that it's slightly (~20% - ~30%) underclocked, and now they complain that it doesn't perform up to their expectations.

Somehow the knowledge of the underclocking has suddenly shifted their view of the graphics of the MacBook Pro.

I vote computer companies stop publishing specs altogether (is my computer 2.0GHz or 2.8GHz? Does it matter? It's freakin' fast!) and make people judge the computer by raw performance instead of numbers on paper. I'd be willing to bet there'd be a significant decrease in complaints.

[HateEternal]

• This ATI card was not really made for portables.

The X1600 used in the MacBook is a _mobile_ video card. It's purpose is to be used in mobile or small form factor machines.

Are any other companies using this card at full power in laptops?

Check out this CNet review. They only do one gaming test, but the MacBook is put up against an Acer TravelMate 8200 spec'ed as

2.0GHz Intel Core Duo (T2500) processor; 2GB of slightly slower DDR2 SDRAM (533MHz); an ATI Mobility Radeon x1600 graphics card; and a slightly larger 120GB hard drive spinning at 5,400rpm.

Notice, it has slower RAM and the same video card. There was approximately a 12 FPS difference between the Acer and the MBP. Given the slower RAM in the Acer, I would think it is safe to assume that it was faster because of an unrestricted video card.

...Somehow the knowledge of the underclocking has suddenly shifted their view of the graphics of the MacBook Pro...Does it matter? It's freakin' fast!...

Lets take the Mazda RX-8 as an example. When Mazda first introduced the RX-8 They advertised it has having ~218 HP (I can't remember the numbers exactly). Lot's of people bought the car expecting that level of performance. For the most part people were pleased with its performance on the road but as soon as they put it on a Dyno it pulled much less (~180). So is the car fast? Yea, its reasonably quick for a ~$30k car. Would it be faster if it had 40 more HP? Of course! Would it make a difference in a (legal) race? FOR F**K'S SAKE YES!!! Mazda actually ended up buying cars back from people that were not satisfied with its performance. As the guy that made this discovery noted; his MBP ran about 30 FPS faster, that is a BIG deal and can make the difference between usable/playable and aggravating.

Performance matters, if just fast was OK Apple would still be using G4s. In many ways they were 'fast' but the Core Duo is much 'Faster'.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Lets take the Mazda RX-8 as an example. When Mazda first introduced the RX-8 They advertised it has having ~218 HP (I can't remember the numbers exactly). Lot's of people bought the car expecting that level of performance. For the most part people were pleased with its performance on the road but as soon as they put it on a Dyno it pulled much less (~180). So is the car fast? Yea, its reasonably quick for a ~$30k car. Would it be faster if it had 40 more HP? Of course! Would it make a difference in a (legal) race? FOR F**K'S SAKE YES!!! Mazda actually ended up buying cars back from people that were not satisfied with its performance. As the guy that made this discovery noted; his MBP ran about 30 FPS faster, that is a BIG deal and can make the difference between usable/playable and aggravating.

Performance matters, if just fast was OK Apple would still be using G4s. In many ways they were 'fast' but the Core Duo is much 'Faster'.

That comparison would be valid if and only if Apple advertised the clock rate and memory rate of the X1600 they use -- but they don't. Apple doesn't make any claims as to the clock rate of the card like Mazda made with the horsepower of the RX-8.

My point is that you're not getting "gypped" simply because Apple didn't claim a certain performance rate, then under-deliver. Purchasers of the MacBook Pro are not being deceived into believing that their X1600s run at a certain clock speed, yet receive a MacBook Pro that doesn't meet the claimed speeds.

I understand that speed is better in certain situations, but not in all situations. Macintosh computers are not hot-rodded, modified, all-out performance demons -- they're elegant balances of form and function. Complaining that the X1600 is underclocked is like complaining about the CPU in your computer -- most likely, your CPU can run ~500MHz faster than it's clocked at... do you feel gypped about the fact that Apple underclocked your processor?

Underclocking is common in computers to find a balance between speed and power consumption. Apple most likely did this to save power or reduce heat. If leaving the X1600 at the full clock rate meant no added power consumption and no added heat, then we may have something to complain about. But, as it stands, big friggin' deal... so it runs slower than some 20 lb. "gaming" notebook from Acer.

Performance matters, if just fast was OK Apple would still be using G4s. In many ways they were 'fast' but the Core Duo is much 'Faster'.

Apple didn't go with the Core Duo simply because it was faster. Apple chose Intel-branded CPUs over Moto's G4 and IBM's G5 processors because the Intel roadmap made for better performance-per-watt. Just because the Core Duo is faster than the G4/5 doesn't mean that speed was Apple's sole, driving force behind the switch.

When I said, "Does it matter? It's freakin' fast!..." I meant that no one was upset until they saw numbers on paper. Everyone was very happy with the performance of the X1600 -- there weren't any negative things to say about it. Then some piece of paper gets out with the clock rate of Apple's X1600 implementation, and all of a sudden, people are complaining. Had they not seen the "real" numbers, they would have been completely satisfied and oblivious. Instead, they're nit-picking numbers on paper and getting in a tiffy over them. What you don't know can't hurt you, but in this case, it seems people wanna beat themselves up once they found out. I just find that a little weird and juvenile. Had I read reports about how the performance of the X1600 was lacking before people knew it was underclocked, I might be a little more forgiving of all the criticism -- but it's true: no one was complaining before they saw the numbers, so the only thing they're complaining about are the numbers themselves and not the raw performance of the card.

[HateEternal]

That comparison would be valid if and only if Apple advertised the clock rate and memory rate of the X1600 they use -- but they don't. Apple doesn't make any claims as to the clock rate of the card like Mazda made with the horsepower of the RX-8.

It's true that they didn't make any claims on the actual clock speed of the card but the name X1600 means something. Generally cards from different vendors utilizing the same chipset don't all get the same results, but they are extremely close. If I see X1600 printed on the box I expect to get on par X1600 results. It's like expecting 2.0 GHz performance out of a Core Duo T2500 processor because that is what they are _supposed_ to run. If I bought a computer advertised with a Core Duo T2500 and found out it was only running at 1.5 GHz as opposed to the standard 2 GHz I would feel "gypped".

CPU in your computer -- most likely, your CPU can run ~500MHz faster than it's clocked at... do you feel gypped about the fact that Apple underclocked your processor?

Yea its true, most processors have a bit of head-room as far as clock speeds go but I can make the same point as I made above. If i buy an Athlon 64 3500+ I expect it to perform at the same level as any other Athlon 65 3500+.

Under-clocking is common in computers to find a balance between speed and power consumption. Apple most likely did this to save power or reduce heat. If leaving the X1600 at the full clock rate meant no added power consumption and no added heat, then we may have something to complain about.

I'm going to refer to what I said in the initial post. If the video card clock speed causes such a drain on the battery why don't they work it into the energy saver? Utilities to change video card clock speed on the fly have existed for years in the PC world. If it is such an issue Apple should look into allowing users to set their video card performance to their needs, or do it automatically for them. I know most of the time having a card running at full speed is wasteful but there are times that it should be running at full force.

When I said, "Does it matter? It's freakin' fast!..." I meant that no one was upset until they saw numbers on paper. Everyone was very happy with the performance of the X1600 -- there weren't any negative things to say about it. Then some piece of paper gets out with the clock rate of Apple's X1600 implementation, and all of a sudden, people are complaining. Had they not seen the "real" numbers, they would have been completely satisfied and oblivious. Instead, they're nit-picking numbers on paper and getting in a tiffy over them. What you don't know can't hurt you, but in this case, it seems people wanna beat themselves up once they found out. I just find that a little weird and juvenile. Had I read reports about how the performance of the X1600 was lacking before people knew it was underclocked, I might be a little more forgiving of all the criticism -- but it's true: no one was complaining before they saw the numbers, so the only thing they're complaining about are the numbers themselves and not the raw performance of the card.

It's not just clock numbers man, 30 FPS is a lot. If the difference between the actual clock speed and the standard X1600 clock didn't make a difference then I would give crap. However, 30 FPS could make all the difference in the world depending on the app. Say you were running something that ran at only 15 FPS. It's going to be choppy as hell, and very annoying. Now say you add 30 FPS, or maybe half of that, 15 FPS, to your current 15 FPS. Whatever you are doing is A LOT smoother and much more usable. What I'm saying is that the performance difference isn't trivial. Yea it was great before but if it could be even better (noticeably) sign me up. In the future when Apps become more demanding that extra speed is going to help out.

When the MacBook first came out the X1600 Mobility was a really young chip. I don't know what the official release date was but Anandtech predicted it making it's debut in mid January. People didn't know what to expect from the card. It seemed to perform well, people were happy. They didn't have anything to benchmark the card with. It's hard to benchmark a PC video card against a Mac because there aren't any applications that post the same results on identical hardware (and there was no identical hardware that could run Win and OS X) running different operating systems. If people had seen benchmarks between a MacBook and a PC with similar specs both running Windows (for comparison) at launch they would have been disappointed with the graphics performance. However, they didn't have anything to base their opinions off of, so the X1600 performed better than the 9700s of the past and people were happy.

Maybe the majority of people don't care or prefer to have their video card crippled for power reasons, but I for one would at least like the choice to run it crippled or to its specification. When I'm at my desk using my computer I want it to run to the best of its ability because I don't have to worry about battery life.

[Qion]

I'm with El Diablo when he says "Does it matter? It's freakin' fast!", because only after the crippled specs of the card were "found out" did people start complaining. It's just a bit weird and subtly primal to complain about something in that maner. If these people would actually think about it, they would see that they were not being gypped, for Apple said absolutely nothing about how fast the card is really supposed to run. It's not fair to Apple to start comparing an X1600 in their notebooks to something in a Wintel lapbox like Acer would make. Apple wanted to define a line between performance and humanly justifiable thermodynamics, as well as define a line between performance and lawsuits due to burn injuries. Granted, the MacBooks don't exactly do good for thighs, but they might actually become dangerous if pushed far enough.

If you want the extra hair-blowing and thigh-singing power that the X1600 is capable of, just use some overclocking software and shut up about it. The rest of us are fine with mediocrely amazing speed and are happy refraining from 3rd-degree burns.

[HateEternal]

It's not fair to Apple to start comparing an X1600 in their notebooks to something in a Wintel lapbox like Acer would make.

WOAH!?!?!?! WHAT?! Not fair? How many years have we had Apple cramming their Pentium Burner benchmarks and numbers down our throats? We finally have comparable hardware and now it's not fair? Why?!?!?

An X1600 is an X1600. ATI designed to a specification, not a suggestion. Check out that Anand Tech link. Before the card was even available they were listing the specifications.

If you don't care about performance, thats fine, but the argument that it was fine before people knew isn't a good argument. It was fine because people had nothing to compare it to except old hardware.