NVIDIA gets official with GeForce 9400M GPU
By Darren Murph 
posted Oct 16th 2008 5:42AM
posted Oct 16th 2008 5:42AM
Not like NVIDIA really needed to waste the ink here, but it has decided to hover under the spotlight a bit more by officially introducing its GeForce 9400M GPU. Yeah, the same one Apple made official on its behalf yesterday. The single-chip design features 16 parallel processing cores, 54GFLOPs of processing power and promises 5x the graphics power over Intel's Centrino 2. In other words, this thing will come a lot closer to handling Crysis in a satisfactory manner than that lowly integrated set you're probably working with now. But you already knew that, now didn't you?[Via Physorg]
Yes, we did already know that :)
But we didn't know that it has a 128bit memory interface, instead of the 64bit on the 9300M.
Also, the rumors about Hybrid SLI can now be settlet:
Hybrid SLI is supported and running on the MacBook Pro.
That clearly shows that when you choose the "faster speed" option in the system prefs, the MacBook Pro runs both 9400M and 9600M in SLI. That explains the shorter battery life and how good the benchmarks are. The 9600M alone has 32 stream processor, but ad the 18 of the 9400M and the speed gains make a lot of sense.
Make that 16 stream processors for the 9400M in my post. Typo. ;)
No, it doesn't run in hybrid SLI. Nvidia has confirmed this.
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2243
I'm an ass.
Totally got it wrong.
But it's such a stupid decision. Why did they do it like this?
@ TMM,
You're not an ass. Your assumption made perfect sense in a world of tech, but with Apple you have to remember the marketing aspect. Hybrid SLI introduces some potential technical issues so Apple's method is to start simple and then get more complex. The speed bump is large enough over Intel that the additional bump isn't' really going to sell more machine at this point in time, but can add the "hybrid actively later" for more marketing affect, which Apple is working on with OpenCL for a higher level parallel computing. Not just across multiple GPUs, but with the CPU being thrown in there... but that is coming with Snow Leopard in 2009. I'm guessing we'll see a major demo and the first 'real' beta of the OS come Macworld in early January.
I don't know about you guys, but does anyone actually care if this thing *can* run Crysis? (Which would probably be at 10fps). I just want to know if it can run TF2 well - now * that's* a fun game! :P
Am wondering the same thing - will find out on Monday :D
it should easily run TF2 on high settings, my laptop runs a 9600M GS, and it runs TF2 on high easy.
the 9400M got 2344 points on 3dmark06
so it should be about to get around 20 fps playing crysis on low settings
20fps is very playable in crysis
should be able to*
should be able to*
I have an 8400M which runs it just fine on medium-high at 1280x800
FIRST!!!!!
to say too late...
.. come on, give me the high rank!!
".. come on, give me the high rank!!"
Um.
No. Just for that - Low Rank! ;-)
ye i know i was in a different mindset 15 mins ago. i s'pose.
What? there's a new mac? and what is this crysis you speak of?
you are definitely new here
You definitely didn't read the guy's name.
Actually, no.
If "satisfactory" means 13 fps at 1024x768 on a year old game....
Its not about the game being old, its about the code being not optimized at all. And yeah, they stopped making patches so you can write it down as dead and buried.
How does its performance stack up against discrete graphics cards (Radeon X3470, for example) found in mainstream 13/14" notebooks such as Thinkpads and Inspirons?
You must have missed every one of Engadget's stories about the new Macs. That's a lot of stories.
OK, but...
Will it blend?
Dude, what is this - retro cliché day?
yes it is indeed.
Does it play doom?
In Soviet Russia, cliché retro you!!
Now Apple owe Nvidia big time. Believe me, next year Nvidia is gonna introduce the MacBook (of course with a new graphics card) a couple of days before Apple.
apple owe nvidia for buying their chipsets for the 2 biggest selling laptops? rethink that comment haha.
I'm pretty sure Nvidia knew that Apple was going to 'out' their new chipset yesterday...
This is the worst branding ever:
According to intel 'Geforce 9400M' is a brand that refers to a motherboard GPU (GeForce 9100M G) combined with a discrete GPU (either GeForce 9300M GS or GeForce 9200M GS). See: http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_9100m_g_mgpu.html
But this new 'GeForce 9400M G' refers to a single motherboard GPU (only the MacBooks pro's have both discrete and integrated GPUs).
To top it off, Apple refers to this new single motherboard GPU on the MacBook (non-pro's) as a 'GeForce 9400M' (without the 'G'). (Actually mentioned on Intels site: "Please note that for Apple products, this goes by the name GeForce 9400M.)
/facepalm
Someone tell Nvidia that you can't add chip numbers to make a better chip...
I don't know about you guys, but wouldn't it be cool if the new MacBooks shipped without an asterik key (*Andy TGD* take the hint)
*thank you* :)
You mean the *8* key?
Intel really need to sort themselves out. When Larrabee does come out, it's going to be a desktop thing, and Intel will still be lagging behind with their x4xxx or something. By the time a mobile Larrabee comes out. Nvidia will have a 260 or 280 Mobile chip.
By the time mobile larrabee comes out, Nvidia will dominate mobile chipsets by something faster than GTX280 (40nm chips coming next year, mobile larrabee not).
Forget about crysis, it can play any-HD video without slowing down your system enough to make you old from waiting. Nice thing. But I'd prefer 9700M or GTX280M :)
how would the performance of this new integrated graphics chip compare to the AMD/ATI integrated graphics chip. Since AMD said the HD 3200 would be 3X more powerful than the intel graphics chip, would the NVIDIA chip be 5/3X more powerful than the AMD?
Bongsoo, are you just really shit at maths?
Anandtech has some benchies. Read them.
I'm wondering how does the 9400m compare with older, dedicated gpu-units? E.g. could it maybe be as "fast" as the couple years old gf 6600 gt?
I hope Nvidia makes a comeback.
So will this bitch overheat, like the 8400M?
probably...
"...than that lowly integrated set you're probably working with now"
Except, I'm working on the new MacBook with the 9400M right now ;-)
Seriously, guys, I fully admit this is a little overpriced (I went for the 2.4GHz one) and I'm guilty of falling for it, but the feel of this thing in you hands is un-frickin'-believably good. Not since the 12" PowerBook has there been such a sexy lower end Apple laptop, and as a former diehard fan of said PowerBook G4, this is, folks, the second coming. Regarding Crisis... I haven't tried that yet ;-)
The problem I hope to come across in the near future is the price difference between 2.4ghz MacBook and the entry MacBookPro. I mean at $400 dollars more, would I want to go Pro or not?
Go Nvidia! Only the best!!!
"5x the graphics power over Intel's Centrino 2"
I'm confused about this statement.
Is the 9400M a CPU?
Centrino 2 is a chipset or more along the lines, a collection of different chips designed to work together. These usually include the CPU, the GPU, the network card, the SATA controller, the USB controller, etc etc.
Centrino 2 graphics implies that there are Intel graphics inside...most likely X3100 or X4500
ahhhhh
My laptop has the Intel centrino 2 sticker but It has a 9800M GTS card, so I was a little confused lol.
thanks a lot.
So this is basically the next step integrated graphics chips..
So my 8600M GT gets up to 167F when I'm not even doing anything 3D related. I wonder if this one will surpass 200F. They may as well introduce a closed loop water system and let the steam generated extend your battery life.
Sorry to hear that, but on other notebooks fitted with 8600M GS such as the super-cheap BenQ S41, the Nvidia GPU idles at 134. The same is true of 8400M GS found on Dell's and HP's notebooks. Perhaps it's a problem with assembly, such as too much slather of thermal paste.
seems a cool chip I just hope that it does not FRY like the one that was included on a lot of those dell m1330. I had to replace the motherboard with an intel graphics chip because NVidia used a bad process making the GPU's useless and also Dell has a crappy way of fixing its motherboards they should had offer a mandatory recall because this was Nvidia's fault not dell......
enjoy your crappy chips !!!!!!!
And the drivers will still suck balls.