New MacBook Pro GPU
Apple will unveil new MacBook Pro lineup with Core i3 and Core i5 mobile cpu. Maybe Core i7 mobile CPU if we are lucky, but it will be an built-to-order option on MacBook Pro 15″ and 17″ if it ever appears on a MacBook.
On the GPU side, as nVidia seems to be unable to launch new GPU since 2007 and G80, GeForce 8800, for the gamer or fot he mobility market, just trying to hide evolutions of this old chip with marketing rebranding, and Apple choose ATI GPU for the iMac, it seems nVidia wont be the next generation MacBook Pro choice.
Obviously, the new Radeon HD 5830 Mobility seems to be the best GPU for MacBook Pro, with 24W TDP, compatible with actual design and cooling fan, it offers up to 800 Gflops raw processing power for OpenCL and 3D, and 25.6GB/s memory bandwidth, it might be a great choice for OpenCL but a bad one for 3D.
Effectively 3D performance will be just a little better than last-generation 8600M GT or actual 9600M GT (nVidia rebranded the 8600M GT to hide it’s inability to create new chips) with same 25Gb/s memory bandwidth, but will shine on the raw processing side for OpenCL software, such as video encoding, photo processing, antivirus, compression, encryption, raid management… In OpenCL the Radeon HD 5830 Mobility could deliver up to 6.5X the raw processing power of actual MacBook Pro GPU while keeping same TDP.
Radeon HD 5750 Mobility might be a better choice for OpenCL and games, with “only” 500 Giglaflops of raw processing power because of it’s memory bandwith of 51 GB/s, that will help for both games and applications. This will be my GPU of choice, even if the name seems to imply that it is less performing than the 5830!
I suspect there will be two choice, as in the iMac lineup, with probably the HD 5650 Mobility as entry-level GPU, with same raw processing power but only 25.6GB/s GDDR3 memory.
My guess will be Apple offered Radeon HD 5650 Mobility with 512MB DDR3 or GDDR3 on all MacBook Pro and HD 5830 with 1GB GDDR3 on 17″ or built-to-order configuration. But alas we won’t see the really interesting HD 5770 on MacBook Pro.
PS: with same TDP, nVidia offers the GT 240M, that is marginally faster than the 8600M GT and the n-th evolution of GeForce 8xxx G80 chip, with only 25GB/s memory bandwidth (same as GeForce 8600M GT), and 178 Gflops, so Radeon HD 5770 offers 2.5X memory bandwidth and 3X raw processing power, nVidia is totally out of the mobility market!
