MacBook Graphics Processor

Question

MacBook Graphics Processor

The new processor in the MacBook, (the Intel GMA 950), has only 64mb of RAM according to Apple.

The old PowerBooks had 128mb of RAM, but used a different chip, (ATI Radeon...).

Does this mean the MacBook has a less powerful graphics chip than the old PowerBooks? Or are they not comparable in that way?

PowerBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Jul 3, 2006 6:00 AM

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Answer 1

ALpianoman

Level 4

1,120 points

Jul 3, 2006 6:06 AM in response to Daniel Conroy-Finn

The Powerbook has always been considered the Pro notebook, while the iBook was considered the lesser.

So you really can't compare the 2. You'd want to compare the Macbook with the old iBooks, and the Macbook Pro to the Powerbooks.

AL

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Answer 2

Jul 3, 2006 6:15 AM in response to Daniel Conroy-Finn

It is not a fair comparison since we are talking about differences in the pro and consumer lines.

That said, the GMA950 is really not bad by all accounts. It is not a good as the x1600 with dedicated VRAM, but it is leaps and bounds beyond what Intel has offered before.

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Answer 3

Jul 3, 2006 6:44 AM in response to Daniel Conroy-Finn

The GMA 950 is an integrated Graphics chipset. One of the implications of this is that it uses system RAM rather than having its own dedicated RAM just for the Graphics chip.

It can use between 44MB IIR up to 224MB depending on the driver and the type of use (it should dynamically adjust its allocation for what you are doing).

Apparently Apple has put a limitation in their driver so that it will only grab up to 64MB of RAM, probably so that users with base configurations wouldn't have performance issues.

Supposedly when booted into Windows via BootCamp one can still get the 950 to allocate up to 224MB RAM, although I can't test this as mine hasn't been delivered yet, and quite frankly I don't plan on using BootCamp at all.

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