Lionel at HardMac mentions a titbit of information regarding NVIDIA SLI, posted on NVIDIA’s own site:
NVIDIA Hybrid SLI technology for notebook computers allows a motherboard GPU and a discrete GPU to work together for extreme multi-GPU SLI performance when needed (called GeForce Boost mode), or use just a single GPU for low power consumption and long battery life (called Hybrid Power mode).
Apple’s Macbook Pro (Late 2008) does feature both the NVIDIA® GeForce®9400M motherboard GPU for everyday computing and theNVIDIA® GeForce® 9600M GT discrete GPU for high graphics performance. You can switch between the Geforce 9400M motherboard GPU (called energy saver mode) and the Geforce 9600M GT discrete GPU (called performance mode), but you cannot use both GPU’s at once in this implementation.
Apple’s hybrid graphics technology is supported under the MacOS X operating system version 10.5.6 and higher only. When running Microsoft’s Windows XP™ or Microsoft’s Windows Vista™ using Apple’s Boot Camp, the system locks into performance mode which uses the Geforce 9600M GT discrete GPU for all graphics related tasks and can not be changed to use the Geforce 9400M motherboard GPU for low power mode.
So in theory, hybrid SLI gives the performance increase of normal SLI but also gives you the opportunity to run in a low power mode. Whether or not users will take advantage of this technology (as you have to log out to swap graphics card) is another matter.
Lionel also notes that NVIDIA has stated (rather unusually) that hybrid graphics technology can be used in Mac OS X 10.5.6, which is unreleased at this time. When companies release information about Apple products before Apple give the signal, Apple typically launch ICBM’s and trained ninja assassin squads to eliminate the leak. We’ll see whether there is anything left of NVIDIA HQ by Friday afternoon.
Could this pave the way for better graphics performance in our Macs? Hopefully. This is potentially a huge boost for Mac gamers, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the next few months.
Currently the choice of cards for a Mac gamer is between the NVIDIA 8800GT and the ATI HD3870. In my brief testing (a full test soon), the HD3870 stabilises Ciderized games compared to the 8800GT. FPS was higher and glitching reduced significantly. However, this is all down to drivers. If Apple and NVIDIA are now making babies, maybe NVIDIA will take the lead? Maybe we’re due a hefty GPU update from NVIDIA? GeForce GTX 280, anyone?
You have to remember that SLI can be quite expensive as you need more than one graphics card to take advantage of the increase in power. Once you’ve shelled out £2000 for your Mac Pro, you can drop another £200 for the latest card. No bother! I don’t know many people who use SLI, but it can be a boost for hardcore gamers wanting the latest and greatest.
Hmmm. Time to stroke the wise man beard on my face and consider these startling events. If only I had a beard…
