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Is Apple underclocking the MacBook Pro's ATI X1600 GPU?
A post at Hardmac.com reveals that Apple may be dramatically underclocking the ATI Radeon X1600 Mobile GPU in the MacBook Pro. From the article:
As the article reports, another user followed the same procedure to increase the GPU's clockspeed and found that the change did not go unnoticed to the laptop's cooling mechanisms.
A little bit scary, that. If the MacBook Pro is, in fact, running the same part as other laptops at a lower clockspeed, Apple's goal in so doing would likely be reduced heat and cooling fan noise and increased battery life. It is unclear whether any of OS X's Energy Saver settings affect the GPU's clockspeed now or down the road in a future release of OS X.
So far, the great majority of reports we've heard concerning the MacBook Pro's 3D gaming performance is positive. I, personally, can't tell the difference in speed between my 2GHz MacBook Pro and my dual G5 2.5GHz Power Mac with GeForce 6800 Ultra when playing the Universal version of Unreal Tournament 2004.
Unable to select DBAfter searching the web for information or reports, I have decided to install ATI tools for WinXP on my MBPro; but the version 0.24 was not working... Then I successfully installed ATI optimized drivers to replace those ones provided by Apple, then I installed ATI Tools beta version 0.25... And I immediately came to the conclusion that once again Apple dramatically underclocked the GPU of its notebook models. Indeed the Radeon X1600 in the MBPro is clocked a 310MHz / 278MHz (GPU and RAM respectively)!
When looking on the web, I have found that many PC notebooks featuring this GPU have a 470MHz/470MHz setting... Then I decided to increase the clockspeed settings of the ATI Radeon X1600 located in my MBPro, while carefully checking heat release and side effects/display artifacts... And as a big surprise: no artifacts and huge performance gain!! When using Counter Strike source benchmarks (all settings to the max and definition at 1440x900) FPS jumped from 61 to 97!
When looking on the web, I have found that many PC notebooks featuring this GPU have a 470MHz/470MHz setting... Then I decided to increase the clockspeed settings of the ATI Radeon X1600 located in my MBPro, while carefully checking heat release and side effects/display artifacts... And as a big surprise: no artifacts and huge performance gain!! When using Counter Strike source benchmarks (all settings to the max and definition at 1440x900) FPS jumped from 61 to 97!
As the article reports, another user followed the same procedure to increase the GPU's clockspeed and found that the change did not go unnoticed to the laptop's cooling mechanisms.
I also did not notice any artifacts, but it took only couple of seconds to turn one the cooling system fan to a rotation speed that I have never experienced before even when performing CPU intensive tests
A little bit scary, that. If the MacBook Pro is, in fact, running the same part as other laptops at a lower clockspeed, Apple's goal in so doing would likely be reduced heat and cooling fan noise and increased battery life. It is unclear whether any of OS X's Energy Saver settings affect the GPU's clockspeed now or down the road in a future release of OS X.
So far, the great majority of reports we've heard concerning the MacBook Pro's 3D gaming performance is positive. I, personally, can't tell the difference in speed between my 2GHz MacBook Pro and my dual G5 2.5GHz Power Mac with GeForce 6800 Ultra when playing the Universal version of Unreal Tournament 2004.