9400m vs HD 4000 vs HD 5100

The HD 4000 is a huge improvement being multiple times faster than a 9400M.
The 5100 is a bit of an odd one. It can be quite a lot faster but it can also be only just as fast as a HD 4600. Which doesn't put it too much ahead of the HD 4000. The problem is the HD 5100 only shows up in in 28W ULV chips and as soon as there is a significant CPU demand the GPU side has not that big of a power budget to work with and is also somewhat limited by the memory bandwidth in many situations. It is good for 28W but compared to 35/45W chips it isn't as good as the name might imply.

In some benchmarks it can pull ahead if they put load almost entirely on the gpu. In games it barely is any better than a HD 4000 (from the higher TDP chips).

Intel meant this chip for notebooks that used to come with 15W ULV chips + a small 15W dGPU. Now with an all in one 28W chip you can have more CPU speed when need and still have the gpu speed. It is just more versatile. I think it is an inadequate chip for a notebook called Macbook Pro. They should really use a 37W quad core for that. It is more of a MacBook Air chip IMO.

Does the 5200 make a more significant difference than what you just described for the 5100?

Yes a lot because the 5200 comes in 47W chips and has a 50GB/s bidirectional cache with reduced latency. That is 19W more and 50GB/s to significantly reduce the load on the 25GB/s dual channel main memory.

5100 and 5000 only get a bit of extra efficiency out of their 40EUs compared to the HD 4600/4400/4200 but not the performance they really should.
5200 is a completely different beast because it has the infrastructure to support it. The HD 5100 chips are IMO still great for ultrabooks and overall more desirable than the 15W CPU+ dGPU setting because you get more CPU speed when needed and in some cases the GPU can do quite well. They are also faster than the cheap dual cores Apple currently uses in the 13" (r)MBP but that is mostly because Apple only uses the cheapest Intel chips there are for the 13 inchers.

dusk007 said:

Yes a lot because the 5200 comes in 47W chips and has a 50GB/s bidirectional cache with reduced latency. That is 19W more and 50GB/s to significantly reduce the load on the 25GB/s dual channel main memory.

5100 and 5000 only get a bit of extra efficiency out of their 40EUs compared to the HD 4600/4400/4200 but not the performance they really should.
5200 is a completely different beast because it has the infrastructure to support it. The HD 5100 chips are IMO still great for ultrabooks and overall more desirable than the 15W CPU+ dGPU setting because you get more CPU speed when needed and in some cases the GPU can do quite well. They are also faster than the cheap dual cores Apple currently uses in the 13" (r)MBP but that is mostly because Apple only uses the cheapest Intel chips there are for the 13 inchers.

Click to expand...

I'm planning to get rMBP 13" Haswell, but from what you're saying I feel confused. Maybe I should get rMBP 15" base model of Ivy Bridge instead...

Depends on what you are looking for. The 13" is the more mobile version. The Haswell version won't be any worse than the current one and probably come white impressive battery life if they get the panel under control. That 28W System on a Chip can pull of MBA power consumption. It also still faster than the old 13" rMBP with those mediocre dual cores.
It is just not as fast as some would hope and an increase from 16 EUs to 40 in the new GPUs should imply.
The HD 5100 has been tested.
http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Asus-Zenbook-Infinity-UX301LA-Ultrabook.102304.0.html
This zenbook however really tries to compete more with a MacBook Air in thiness and weight than a rMBP.

The 5200 is pichted against the 5100 and the former is about 70% faster despite having the same 40EUs and almost the same clock speed on the GPU. The number chrunching power is almost the same on these but the results are far apart. If they put in a HD 4600 into that tablet, the 5100 would loose slightly.
The 5100 would need DDR4 at least or even better HMC (Hyper Memory Cube) and probably the 14nm process node or more TDP too.

If Apple really only offers those 28W chips, it is probably to keep their practice up of pushing people to the (higher margin) 15" who want speed.
A 4702HQ would be better (speed wise) in almost every situation than a 4558U and is possible. The Geekbench leak said it will be a 4558U but that doesn't mean it is certain. With a 4558U a rMBP would be more like that Zenbook with a bigger battery.
It is not like a 15" Quad Core by any means, then again the current one isn't either. With a 4702HQ they could probably still manage the current 7h battery life.

Great summary of the CPU options dusk.

It's disappointing that we are unlikely to get quad core or Iris Pro in the 13". I'd be happy with either. The Ivy Bridge 13 had a 35W part right? So maybe the quad core isn't completely out of the question.