Macopinion

Is The MacBook’s Integrated Graphics Fudge Too Much Of A Compromise?

Apple has a history of slightly crippling its entry-level portables. One of the most controversial was the PowerBook G3 Series Series I "MainStreet" 233 MHz with a passive-matrix dual-scan screen, a measly 2 MB. of video RAM, and no backside L2 cache.

Some have accused this machine as being, quote: "dog slow." In fact, the cache-less 233 MacBenched at 445 in processor performance - one third faster than the previous "fastest-in-the-world" PowerBook 3400c 240 (337). Neither was the dual-scan fast supertwist nematic (FSTN) screen as doggy as some reviewers imply. I used one of these machines daily for a couple of months in late 1998, and found the performance reasonably lively in the context of the time, and the FSTN screen quite pleasant viewing, albeit not as crisp and speedy as the TFT units.

Nevertheless, my friend Dan Knight at Low End Mac has declared the Cacheless "MainStreet" PowerBook G3/233 to be a "Road Apple," - one Apple's more compromised hardware designs. "To shave maybe $200 from retail, Apple seriously compromised the performance of this PowerBook G3/233," says Dan.

OK, much as I liked the demo MainStreet, when I purchased a G3 PowerBook myself, I went with the MainStreet's successor in the low-end slot - the "PDQ" model that did have an L2 cache (providing an approximately 70% performance enhancement) and an active matrix TFT display.

Another example of a crippled Apple price leader 'Books is the last of the original PowerBook 100 Series form factor machines - the PowerBook 150 - which was more notable for what it didn't have than what it offered - notably various ports: only one serial port; no Ethernet; no expansion slots; no video-out jack, and it was also the first Apple laptop with an IDE hard drive instead of a SCSI drive - and an oddball one at that, needing a special HD formatting utility. The PowerBook 150 had a decent RAM capacity, and was substantially lighter than the other 100 series 'Books, but seriously compromised - much more so than the later mainStreet was.

Then there was another serious deficit of connectivity ports on the original ClamShell iBooks, which boasted (?) just one, lonely USB port, and Ethernet port, and a modem connector port, but No SCSI or FireWire ports, No PC Card slots, no video out, no microphone or sound-in port. Those deficiencies combined with a (diabolically difficult to upgrade) tiny 3.2 GB hard drive and no DVD support available rendered the original Clamshell, despite it's other charms, beyond consideration as a serious workhorse laptop.

Now we have the MacBook, and while I don't anticipate it ever being tagged a "Road Apple," it does have some resonances of those older low end 'Book compromises. With the new Core 2 Duo MacBooks released a couple of weeks ago, the base model has only half the Level 2 cache (2 MB vs. 4MB) that you get on the two higher MacBook models, half the RAM (still respectable at 512 MB) and a Combo drive rather than a SuperDrive DVD-burner. However, something you don't get in any MacBook is a real, free-standing graphics processor unit with its own dedicated video RAM. Instead, the MacBook uses an Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics system for video support. The downside of this is that the GMA 950 technology expropriates 64 MB of system memory for its graphics buffer plus 16 MB more for general startup (total 80), which means 80 MB less for running programs and tasks. Not the most elegant solution.

How serious a deficiency is this video support fudge? That depends. A new report this week by BareFeats' Rob-ART Morgan calls the GMA 950 integrated GPU a "party pooper".

"Whether you are doing serious apps with Core Image effects or playing your favorite 3D accelerated game, the 13" MacBook C2D is going to spoil your day. Even the PowerBook G4 plays games faster than the 13" Macbook C2D," declares Morgan.

OK, But I, and a lot of other present and potential MacBook users are not gamers, so is this a real concern for us? Yes, Morgan contends: "Games are not just something people do for fun. We include them in our testing because they rigorously test the advanced graphics features like shading, reflectivity, dynamic shadowing, transparency, distortion - features used by the Mac OS's Dashboard, Finder windows, and Video FX in iMovie HD. If OpenGL and Core Image features can't be rendered quickly and accurately, it detracts from the whole Mac experience," and suggests that because of the GMA 950 handicap, the MacBook is only ideal for "light computing." He argues that a MacBook Pro is a better investment, even if it's a refurb.

I'm sure this will be a controversial assessment, but Rob-ART Morgan is a well-respected benchmarker and computer reviewer, and his opinion shouldn't be casually dismissed. He's certainly given me more food for thought in my system upgrade deliberations. Perhaps like him I'm getting "spoiled" by my wonderful 17" PowerBook, and it is nice to use a machine that demands few compromises and has a full feature set, whether you use it intensively or not.

Macworld's Henry Norr also criticizes the MacBook's the graphics subsystem in his generally positive review of the Core 2 Duo MacBooks, noting that "the Pro models' separate ATI Radeon X1600 graphics chip is considerably faster than the MacBooks' integrated graphics processing. That last point is worth considering not only for publishing and video professionals, but also for anyone looking for a good gaming machine."

To be fair, there is a lot of praise for the MacBook out there by reviewers, and in the big picture, the MacBook, particularly the Core 2 Duo revision, packs in a whopping pile of value for the money, especially in the the two SuperDrive-equipped models, which have been kicked up to double-layer 6x drives, 1 GB of standard RAM, their level 2 processor caches doubled to 4MB, and larger capacity hard drives (80GB for the white model and 120 GB for the blackie), and a gaggle of returning good stuff including a slightly unconventional keyboard that most users seem to like and some rave about, a 13.3" 1280 x 800 glossy display that also gets glowing reviews from most for brightness and clarity, Apple's Sudden Motion Sensor and Scrolling TrackPad technologies, built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, built-in 10/100/1000 BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 400 port, a built-in iSight video camera, Apple's MagSafe Power Adapter (a new MagSafe Airline Adapter is also available), combination analog and optical digital audio input and output ports and a mini-DVI video output port to connect up to a 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display.

Compromised or not, that feature set won't be too much of a hardship to live with.

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Charles W. Moore

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