Apple To Dump NVIDIA Graphics?

[jeremyshaw]

Battery life on OS X vs W7 on my MBP is light and day. I even use the power saver profile and i get 3:40 vs 1:30~. So it maybe just a W7 problem. But generally all apple products have some crazy rated battery life like their iPhone which is still leagues ahead of any android phone in actual usage.

on MBP, the nVidia GPU cannot be shut down in Windows7/bootcamp

Dunno why, but that is how Apple chose to do things.

 

[NoOther]

I'm not a Apple fanboy, nor a MacHead. I build and OC PC's pretty regularly. I use Mac's for some purposes because there isn't an Windows PC that can compete with it.

Then I submit to you a request.

Find me a laptop that is 15" with a Core i5, a dedicated graphics card, a 1680x1050 screen, 8-9 hours of battery life, good build quality, and is 5.6lbs and less then 1" thick. If you can beat all those in any one computer I'll consider buying it instead of the 15" MBP I'm planning on buying shortly. And if you can do so for under the $1900 that I was planning on spending be even better.

Or do the same with the iMac's. Price out an AIO with bluetooth wireless mouse/keyboard, above-average quality IPS screens (especially the 27.5" screen), Core i3 to i7 screens, and do so at less then the iMac price.

Or the 11.6 MBA. Find me an ultraportable that exists that is close to 2.3lbs, with a C2D (or better!) a dedicated graphics card, and an SSD for $1000. And make sure it gets 5-7 hours battery life.

I'll give you a hint. These things don't exist. But please, the scientist in me LOVES to be proven wrong.

Every single Apple notebook owner I know has had HORRIBLE battery life problems with their machines. Infact just yesterday in my Linux Enterprise meeting, there were a few with Apple MacBook Pros whose laptops all died within 30 min of being on battery power. So please don't even try to talk to me about the "superior" quality of the Apple notebooks.... It is all rhetoric and superstition. The fact that they enclose some of their notebooks so that you can't change the battery makes it even worse.

 

[Zumino Zufeilon]

Every single Apple notebook owner I know has had HORRIBLE battery life problems with their machines. Infact just yesterday in my Linux Enterprise meeting, there were a few with Apple MacBook Pros whose laptops all died within 30 min of being on battery power. So please don't even try to talk to me about the "superior" quality of the Apple notebooks.... It is all rhetoric and superstition. The fact that they enclose some of their notebooks so that you can't change the battery makes it even worse.

Except my current BlackBook, the one that is about to get replaced, I still average 7+ hours, and it's almost 5 years old.

Just because users are stupid on average, doesn't mean the hardware doesn't work for it.

 

[phide]

According to Anandtech, it's dead on.

Well color me surprised. Still a few hours short, though

Every single Apple notebook owner I know has had HORRIBLE battery life problems with their machines...don't even try to talk to me about the "superior" quality of the Apple notebooks.... It is all rhetoric and superstition.

So all the battery life testing various reviewers perform on MacBooks showing that Apple's claims tend to be quite accurate, even sometimes fairly conservative, is nothing but "rhetoric" and "superstition". Yet you expect us to take your own clearly "unbiased" and entirely unsubstantiated claims as being legitimate?

 

[jeremyshaw]

Well color me surprised. Still a few hours short, though

Yeah, I still passed over it a few months back, though. That battery placement on that laptop was horrid, IMO.


Asthetics still counts for something.


Then I got an Alienware lappy, so I probably have a few screws loose in the "looks good" dept

 

[MartinX]

I think apple has been trying to ditch nvidia since bumpgate. I guess sandy bridge gives them more options, although I'm very skeptical of the intel gpu performance being up to scratch as the sole gpu even for the low end models.

 

[purple_haze]

toook them this long wow good riddance.. Hopefully a good ati option..

 

[undermined]

um intel and nvidia are settling their suit so i bet they will be able to use a nvidia gpu with a sandybridge cpu if intel cannot get openCL up and running the way apple wants. Besides apple will not rush out and new laptops with sandybridge very fast eitherway.

They still sue the core2 across many models and product lines let alone the current core i3/i5's so they have time to mess with designs and the first half of the year will be all iPad 2.0 and then the iPhone on Verizon maybe so Apple will take their sweet time updating to sandybridge IMHO

 

[etmorgs42]

Battery life on OS X vs W7 on my MBP is light and day. I even use the power saver profile and i get 3:40 vs 1:30~. So it maybe just a W7 problem. But generally all apple products have some crazy rated battery life like their iPhone which is still leagues ahead of any android phone in actual usage.

I do hear that the battery life on the iphone is good. although, I've never had a problem getting through the day with my droid 1. I guess it just tends to vary more with android phones

 

[shlooky]

The only reason Apple is going Intel and AMD (ATI) I can think of is because of of Adobe.
Apple does not have a good relationship with Adobe, Nvidia's CUDA however is one of CS5's key strength. Apple wants to sell Final cut pro, not Adobe CS5.

Another reason is more historical with all the bad Nvidia GPU's that caused major crashes on all their mobile line of GPU's

Me thinks anyway

 

[NoOther]

Well color me surprised. Still a few hours short, though


So all the battery life testing various reviewers perform on MacBooks showing that Apple's claims tend to be quite accurate, even sometimes fairly conservative, is nothing but "rhetoric" and "superstition". Yet you expect us to take your own clearly "unbiased" and entirely unsubstantiated claims as being legitimate?

When all you do is look at apple sites, sure. I have seen other sites show the exact opposite. It also depends on what you are doing with the laptops as well. Sure if you are only using a notepad or surfing the web, you can last longer, but if you try to do any real work, that battery life goes down tremendously.

All the users I am talking about are system admins and network engineers who have to use the apple notebooks for specific purposes. They never seem to last for more than an hour and when having to run VMs or listening and penetration tools for networks, they often last little more than 30 min. On the other hand, their Dell and HP laptops usually last for about 2 hours doing the same kinds of applications.

If you want to look at all the reviews that only test laptops by using wifi and surfing on the web sure, go at it. Because everyone knows that is all anyone ever does with a computer...use wifi and surf the web...

 

[phide]

I have seen other sites show the exact opposite.

Link me to them, please.

 

[jeremyshaw]

Link me to them, please.

You haven't linked to anything, you first. Prove your stance before attacking others.

 

[DTN107]

Last time I checked, Apple was also using the Core i7 processors. This really has little to do with which generation of processor Apple uses, but more what the processor offers in capability with what Apple wants to provide its customers. If they can get everything on one chip and offer the same services they have been and more compatibility with Snow Leopard, then its a no brainer for Apple.

Definitely doesn't make me want to shell out the ridiculous amounts of money to buy an slightly inferior product imho.

I think he is referring to the 13" macbooks which are still using C2d and not the newer i3, i5, i7 cpus.

Also good riddance. I for one will never buy another nvidia mobile gpu because of that shitty defect in almost every 6-series to 9-series mobile gpu that would take out the entire motherboard.

 

[Zumino Zufeilon]

You haven't linked to anything, you first. Prove your stance before attacking others.

Actually, as you are the one making a claim that runs contrary to the accepted wisdom, it is your onus to back it up.

Most people, even Apple haters, admit and acknowledge that Apple products have impressive battery lives. It's a critical key to the way OSX was built to maximize powersavings on the laptop lines. And it's not just "surfing the web", though it might not be running VM's.

Personally, from purely anecodital view point, I think you're partially on to something with the VM situation, but I still easily push past 3 hours running a VM on my BlackBook. And it's old, with the original battery.

(I can run an entire lab class (3 hours) running a Win7 VM without any issues. Battery life is ~15% at the end of lab.)

That is still a far cry from your claims of "30 minutes or less". Of course different uses will use the battery faster or slower, and VM's will be the worst because you are forcing OSX to run a non-power optimized OS, which causes it to use power much faster.

 

[jeremyshaw]

Actually, as you are the one making a claim that runs contrary to the accepted wisdom, it is your onus to back it up.

Most people, even Apple haters, admit and acknowledge that Apple products have impressive battery lives. It's a critical key to the way OSX was built to maximize powersavings on the laptop lines. And it's not just "surfing the web", though it might not be running VM's.

Personally, from purely anecodital view point, I think you're partially on to something with the VM situation, but I still easily push past 3 hours running a VM on my BlackBook. And it's old, with the original battery.

(I can run an entire lab class (3 hours) running a Win7 VM without any issues. Battery life is ~15% at the end of lab.)

That is still a far cry from your claims of "30 minutes or less". Of course different uses will use the battery faster or slower, and VM's will be the worst because you are forcing OSX to run a non-power optimized OS, which causes it to use power much faster.

I didn't make any claims to the contrary... you might be quoting the qrong person


I only refuted a statement of the MSI GX640 having crap battery life (it does, but not as bad as claimed).

 

[Zumino Zufeilon]

Your right, my mistake, my post was more directed at NoOther who seems to think that the battery life on Mac's can be measured in minutes.

Mainly because you're response to phide was also in reference to NoOther's post, not to your own concerning the MSI laptop.

 

[jeremyshaw]

Your right, my mistake, my post was more directed at NoOther who seems to think that the battery life on Mac's can be measured in minutes.

Mainly because you're response to phide was also in reference to NoOther's post, not to your own concerning the MSI laptop.

Ach, I posted links for my statement, so I asked the same of phide

Mac battery life in win7 mode is horrid because the nVidia GPU doesn't shut off in bootcamp. Though I'd be interested to see if the macbooks would pick up an AMD GPU

 

[Zumino Zufeilon]

No worries, phide even stated

Well color me surprised. Still a few hours short, though

in response to your point.

I agree, I'm interested in seeing Apple back in with AMD, even more so with the Fusion concept, I am very interested. But we'll have to wait and see if it even happens, let alone if it works.

 

[jeremyshaw]

No worries, phide even stated



in response to your point.

I agree, I'm interested in seeing Apple back in with AMD, even more so with the Fusion concept, I am very interested. But we'll have to wait and see if it even happens, let alone if it works.

Yeah, it would allow even smaller macbooks, at the very least

 

[phide]

You haven't linked to anything, you first. Prove your stance before attacking others.

I'm not sure how a request for links, with a "please" at the end, could be interpreted as an "attack", but I'll gladly supply some links.

Battery life on the 13" MBP rated by Apple at "up to 10 hours" for "light productivity", wireless on, with the display at 50%:

The results here are comparable to what you'd see typing a document in TextEdit or reading documents. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro lasts another 19% longer compared to the new 15-inch. This is now the best battery life Apple offers in a notebook. At 9.75 hours we're in netbook/CULV territory but with a normal 2.40GHz Core 2 Duo.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3762/...ly-2010-reviewed-shaking-the-cpugpu-balance/4

We were pleased that the previous 13-inch MacBook Pro saw 6 hours and 13 minutes on our LAPTOP Battery Test (web surfing via Wi-Fi), so we were more than happy to see the newest version reach 7:48 on the same test.

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/apple-macbook-pro-13-inch-2010.aspx?page=4#axzz17jmBofRy

Battery life is where the MacBook continues to wipe its competition off the board. We ran our highly demanding DVD rundown test, in which we loop a movie until the battery dies. The battery lasted 7 hours and 28 minutes. That time bests the 2009 version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro by a whopping 2.5 hours.

http://computershopper.com/laptops/reviews/apple-macbook-pro-13-inch-2010-version

Battery life on the 15" MBP rated at "up to 8 hours":

Through a day of "regular use," which involved some benchmarking and some iMovie, but mostly just web browsing and typing, with screen brightness hovering around 60-75 percent, WiFi on and an hour of Bluetooth we managed four hours and 34 minutes of juice. The video rundown test actually fared better, with five hours and 18 minutes of SD video with the screen at 65 percent brightness, WiFi and Bluetooth on.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/14/macbook-pro-core-i7-review/6

Battery life on the 11" MBA rated at "up to 5 hours" using a bit more aggressive testing protocol than before:

Real-world battery life reflects Apple’s claims of five hours of use. We used it in a real-world trial, on the train between home and the office running a Citrix client with the notebook tethered to an iPhone 4 over a Bluetooth connection. We were not only able to use it for the two-hour trip in to the office and another two hours on a return trip but, back home, use it for just over another hour surfing the web. Formal tests have also confirmed these figures.

http://www.electronista.com/reviews/macbook-air-11-inch-2010.html

Apple gives the 11" MacBook Air a five-hour runtime rating, based on light Web use over a WiFi connection, which we found to be pretty spot on during testing. This involved using the Air regularly during a normal work day, with iChat, Colloquy, Tweetie, NetNewsWire, Mail, Safari, Pixelmator, and TextEdit constantly running, as well as a lot of alternating between browsing the Web and writing. Brightness of the LED-backlit display was set to just one notch under half (or seven pips). Under these conditions, the MacBook Air consistently ran slightly more than five hours, for an average of about 5:30.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/review...otebooks-ars-reviews-the-11-macbook-air.ars/2

The results here are comparable to what you'd see typing a document in TextEdit or reading documents. As glorified typewriters, you can’t beat the battery life offered by the MacBook Air. Light web browsing, document creation and music playback have minimal impact on the Air’s battery life. In fact, we actually beat Apple’s battery life claims in our light tests. The 11-inch Air delivers nearly 7 hours on a single charge and the 13-inch managed 11.2 hours.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3991/apples-2010-macbook-air-11-13inch-reviewed/9

I'm not seeing anyone pulling a scant 30 minutes of battery life out of these units. There's certainly variance in the way these machines are tested which results in varying levels of battery life, but was I able to find any reviews of MacBooks, of any type, getting 30 minutes or an hour of battery life? No.