NVIDIA GeForce 9400 M, 9600M GT get official in new MacBooks

As expected, Apple has tapped NVIDIA's new GeForce 9400 M as the base graphics for its new MacBook, MacBook Pro, and updated MacBook Air, which Steve Jobs himself says is five times faster than the current Intel integrated graphics they've been using. That's aided in no small part by the chipset's 16 parallel graphics cores, not to mention a generally beefier GPU that occupies a full 70% of the die area. If that's not enough for you, Apple is also throwing NVIDIA's 9600M GT into the MacBook Pro, which'll give you two GPUs and either 256MB or 512MB of memory. That power will unsurprisingly come at the expense of some battery life, however, with the 9600 cutting things back to four hours from the five hours you can expect with the discrete GPU switched off. In the Q&A after the announcement, Apple also confirmed that it'd be the first taking the chipset to market, but that anything further is up to NVIDIA. Expect to hear more about that tomorrow, when NVIDIA is supposedly making its own announcement.

[HenRy @ Oct 14th 2008 1:24PM]

Developing... WTF!!!

[vukeidorian @ Oct 14th 2008 1:25PM]

but can it run Crysis?

[Vander @ Oct 14th 2008 1:31PM]

This Fu*king Cliché!

[Random @ Oct 14th 2008 2:18PM]

I have seen the desktop version and that runs crysis.
The chip is the same so yes, this WILL run crysis, 1024x768. Medium quality.

[refriedbeans19 @ Oct 14th 2008 2:46PM]

i love this joke so much!

[Ray @ Oct 14th 2008 1:31PM]

It had to be asked, now i want it to be answered!

Anyone have any assumption of what last gen cards this will be comparable too? Still the 8400gt? 7400gt? If so, im not excited

[Ray @ Oct 14th 2008 1:32PM]

And i was talking about the crysis question orginally, damn you engadget reply wall!

[jakem @ Oct 14th 2008 1:31PM]

But is it faster than the PowerPC architecture? Everyone knows that's much faster than all this x86 business.

[g00n @ Oct 14th 2008 1:41PM]

Clueless Sheep Apple Fanboys now become Nvidia Fanboys?

Sorry, the bus is already full. This seats taken...

[THJ @ Oct 14th 2008 2:02PM]

I'm a State Fair Fanboy. MINNESOTA STATE FAIR PWNS ALL OTHER STATE FAIRS YOU SHEEPS.

Yes, you sound that dumb.

[Skyride @ Oct 14th 2008 2:05PM]

Strange, my mate (who is a programmer/linuxbuff, etc,,,) hates this. I don't think many will like this. Hes been an ATI fanboy for years (no idea why since ATI's sad excuse for linux drivers suck) but now he wants nvidia. **sigh**

Im personally a semi-Nvidia fanboy. Will suggest either to most people but it would take alot to make me buy an ATI card myself. Im buying one of the new 216 core GTX 260's in a couple of weeks.

FYI, 16 cores is abismal. That will be apple waving their wallets for power saving. For example the GTX 260 has 192 cores (and the new higher 216 core model). I don't know what they are trying to achieve. Its not going to provide any real ability for gaming except some older games (my laptops 8400GS only JUST runs Portal) and its not going to provide a much improved user experience. It really just sounds like its gonna chew up battery to me. Its a bit like a Macbook air, 1.2GHz C2D type of descision. Pretty much a waste of time unless your getting the 9600 which is definately a good move on apples part.

[Skyride @ Oct 14th 2008 2:05PM]

Strange, my mate (who is a programmer/linuxbuff, etc,,,) hates this. I don't think many will like this. Hes been an ATI fanboy for years (no idea why since ATI's sad excuse for linux drivers suck) but now he wants nvidia. **sigh**

Im personally a semi-Nvidia fanboy. Will suggest either to most people but it would take alot to make me buy an ATI card myself. Im buying one of the new 216 core GTX 260's in a couple of weeks.

FYI, 16 cores is abismal. That will be apple waving their wallets for power saving. For example the GTX 260 has 192 cores (and the new higher 216 core model). I don't know what they are trying to achieve. Its not going to provide any real ability for gaming except some older games (my laptops 8400GS only JUST runs Portal) and its not going to provide a much improved user experience. It really just sounds like its gonna chew up battery to me. Its a bit like a Macbook air, 1.2GHz C2D type of descision. Pretty much a waste of time unless your getting the 9600 which is definately a good move on apples part.

[happy_penguin @ Oct 14th 2008 2:23PM]

My personal experience is that I've always had less trouble with nvidia graphics than any other. But I must also say that I've never been much of a gamer and I have never bought even close to the latest graphics cards. Another thing is that I also have been a Linux user in the past (still a casual user) and I had the best luck getting drivers that work and are easy to install for nvidia cards for linux.

My brother had a couple of ATI cards which were a horror and it just turned me off to ATI. But I will admit that was a while ago so I can't speak of now. It's just that sometimes the scars heal slowly.

[steve @ Oct 14th 2008 2:03PM]

Apple is full of crap... I have to call bullshit on this. I have a brand new HP sitting in front of me that my company ordered (Got it yesterday morning) that has a 9600M GT in it.

First to market? I ordered this thing as a CTO over a week ago, I have it in hand right now. Come on, Apple... your doodoo stinks too

[randomgyan @ Oct 14th 2008 2:21PM]

He was talking about the chipset and integrated graphics. NOT the discrete GPU.

[slonkak @ Oct 14th 2008 3:46PM]

Can someone explain to me what the performance difference is between the MB with the 9400 and the MBP with the 9400+9600 GT? This is really the only think keeping me from buying on right now; I don't know if the 9600 is _that_ much better to warrant the extra money.

[Oscar @ Oct 15th 2008 4:03AM]

In terms of desktop GPUs the 9600GT KILLS the 9400GT in gaming. In notebooks it probably would too but not by as much, unless you're gaming dont bother imo.

[Bill @ Oct 14th 2008 4:48PM]

Steve Jobs is such a tosser! ;)

[thethirdmoose @ Oct 14th 2008 5:02PM]

I'm not impressed. My 8800GT (granted, a desktop card) has 10 times as many GFLOPS as this card. At least these will be useful for OpenCL. Not that good for gaming, though.

[THJ @ Oct 15th 2008 2:01PM]

LOL, your Huffy is so slow! My Harley has like 100x the horsepower!

[wert158 @ Oct 15th 2008 3:34PM]

Hey I have the higher end 17 inch macbook pro at home totally maxed out 2.6 gz intel core 2 duo, 1920 by 1200 display, 200gb hd 7200 rpm, and 4gb corsiar low latency memory and it runs Crysis fine on high graphics at 1024 by 768 (with all updates no mods) at roughly 23 fps average. There are some slowdowns at certain parts but the gain in graphics is totally worth it(to me) Of coarse the price on the laptop more than accounts for this but it still is nice to be able to play it (especially on high). I also own warehead but havent had a chance to try it yet... probably runs faster. Also, COD4 runs on maximum graphics 1920 by 1200 no AA and is extremely playable with very smooth fps (havent measured w/ fraps). The only area that the graphics card seems to choke on is AA and I don't know why. It runs Half Life 2 and all expansions on full graphics but raising the AA level cuts your FPS down entirely.

[Michael Zupcak @ Oct 16th 2008 9:44AM]

I don't know the a lot about graphics chips, so I wonder, what is the difference between this chip and dedicated video graphics? I understand this GPU handles the video processing now, instead of the intel processor, but where does the video RAM come from? Is it just shared system memory, the same way Intel integrated graphics work, or is there dedicated memory for it somewhere else on board?