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Maybe it doesn't struggle for you. But there are plenty of others who have commented otherwise. These are people who have been working with Apple products, reviewing and commenting on them professionally for a decade. I think I'll trust their opinions, and my own experiences, than sweeping statements made on here.

What do reviewers know about graphics pipelines and how they operate ? People like Anand know how to stare at Geekbench and 3Dmarks numbers, but I wouldn't trust them to understand how Quartz Extreme blends multiple CALayers, does hidden surface removal before commiting all the changes to the final back buffer prior to waiting for a vsync to swap to the front.

Plenty of others have commented that somehow, HiDPI struggles on a Intel HD 4000 and even on the dedicated GPU. They all point to the GPU, while forgetting there is no such problem when powering equivalent number of pixels on non-HiDPI mode.

Again, how do you explain a nVidia 9400m powering a 30" ACD and its internal monitor ? It's the same number of pixels or really close to, but a GPU 4 years older!

No, something is amiss with HiDPI mode in OS X. I'm sure Apple is working on optimizing it, but somehow, part of the problem is probably that they aren't using the GPU at all to perform some of the required scaling.
 
I say why the HDMI port at this point.

Selfishly I already have a Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter that I got from Monoprice for $10ish.

Secondly Apple has pretty much eschewed the HDMI port before this year save for the Mini which was positioned as a sort of htpc.

Third, Apple's own display doesn't have an HDMI port.

Fourth, Thunderbolt's purpose is one wire for everything - video, ethernet, usb, ...etc. Apple's own display takes advantage of this by having one wire for everything but power. And now you have 2 TB ports and could have 3 even without HDMI.

Fifth, AppleTV. IT is essentially wireless HDMI at this point. Yes maybe not for games, but for many of the reasons any home user hooks up their laptop to their tv it is. STreaming music or video or photos etc it is perfect.

Last, ethernet port. Why this instead of ethernet? Why change the adapter we need except to sell more adapters. I guess that is Apple like though.

The only pro for a HDMI port is that, doh, every hdtv has HDMI. But at this point, between not supporting it for so long and new technology usurping hdmi and with MBP owners of the last few years already owning an HDMI adapter if they needed one then it makes little sense. 3rd party adapters are cheap and work perfect in my experience.

Apple is usually looking forward. With the inclusion of the HDMI port on their laptops I can't help but feel they are looking a little bit backward.
 
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Yeah but that pro of "every TV has hdmi" basically outweighs any cons you can throw at it.

I tried to hook up an Air to a TV ... tried minidisplayport to vga as I had an adaptor; no dice. Then I looked up what could be done with hdmi ... and found that any cable for hdmi to minidisplayport is deemed to be illegal by the hdmi people ... so, one is screwed? Having an hdmi just solves a lot of issues, and it is what the rest of the world is used to now, and TB risks being just another FW.
 
I tried to hook up an Air to a TV ... tried minidisplayport to vga as I had an adaptor; no dice. Then I looked up what could be done with hdmi ... and found that any cable for hdmi to minidisplayport is deemed to be illegal by the hdmi people ... so, one is screwed? Having an hdmi just solves a lot of issues, and it is what the rest of the world is used to now, and TB risks being just another FW.
You are completely wrong here. Apple makes a miniDP to HDMI adapter, and you can also buy cables that have miniDP on one end and HDMI on the other for a few dollars.

http://www.amazon.com/Mini-DisplayPort-HDMI-Adapter-Cable/dp/B003OC6LWM
 
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Good battery design? OK, but I'd also like the battery to not be smaller in size so it can actually last longer.
 
Probably gonna pass if no dGPU... sad :(

So it's either keeping my 2011 13" MBA and upgrade the storage, or go for a refurb 15" rMBP... Main issue with the rMBP path is the size and weight. I don't know if I can get used to the extra bulk having been using a 13" MBA all this time....
 
Yeah but that pro of "every TV has hdmi" basically outweighs any cons you can throw at it.

I tried to hook up an Air to a TV ... tried minidisplayport to vga as I had an adaptor; no dice. Then I looked up what could be done with hdmi ... and found that any cable for hdmi to minidisplayport is deemed to be illegal by the hdmi people ... so, one is screwed? Having an hdmi just solves a lot of issues, and it is what the rest of the world is used to now, and TB risks being just another FW.

I hear ya, but your thinking is outdated. You haven't tried an HDMI adapter and don't have TB. There are no issues. And haven't been for the last few MBP models that supported these.

The Monoprice $10 TB to HDMI adapter has worked perfect for me. And since TB can can carry HDMI etc then it will never be just another FW.

And as I said why now? Your thinking better applies to 2 years ago pre-TB. HDMI made sense then. But now much less so. ADapters are out and cheap. TB seems to carry HDMI perfectly fine. Apple doesn't support BR still. And laptops are getting thinner. HDMI is a big port. TB takes up less space. Wireless HDMI solutions are entering the mainstream. And ATV makes using a HDMI cable for many a thing of the past. Plus Apple only has a TB display whose connectivity seems like a blueprint for cheaper displays in the future as it becomes more affordable. It seems unApple-like.

Another reason: MBAs seems don't have HDMI ports and seem too thin to get one.
 
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Honestly, the single biggest problem with the 15" retina MBPro is that the video card isn't powerful enough to push around that many pixels without performance bottlenecks. It's good enough for your basic use cases, obviously, but not that impressive for a system costing so much. (Your 3D gamers sure won't be impressed by the frame rates.)
There are several other Mac-based options for "3D gamers". Why should this particular model be saddled with a heat-generating, battery-draining chipset that is unnecessary for the majority of users?
 
The lack of Firewire may be one thing, but including an HDMI on the 13"?

This is a former Mac, and always have been, that was never aimed at the Pro market, never been that powerful

Now, it looks like Apple Apples saying "we can now do this" so now, we will soon have an option, we could get the current 15-inch (non-Retina), or go for the smaller form factor with *exactly* the same ports,

Why only Retina-based laptops have HDMI and the 15-inch Macbook Pro (non-Retina 2.3 Gig) must rely on an "arapter" Apple is using to make a bit if extra cash.

All Macbooks have ivy bridge, so if they can do with it on the 13-inch, why can't they bring it to the non-15, if the logic board is exactly the same?

The idea of "no room", has gone out the window. It centenally does't make sense now.

No Technical reason either. Maybe, "because we need space to drive Retina ..." ?
 
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Not having discrete graphics could be a letdown.

And it wasn't on the five iterations of 13" MacBook Pro that have existed before it? It's the way the 13" MacBook Pro has always been.

Hmmm, very interested in seeing what that "unprecedented" battery design is. Will this be the breakthrough in batteries we've all been waiting for?

Glued to the top-case making it non-servicable, just like on the 15".

Indeed, especially since the rMBP is known to lag with its discreet card.

Yeah I can't help but feel this may be a better product in a year or two. Discrete really seems like a must.

Well since the 15" rMBPs integrated graphics is having trouble driving it's screens resolution then this will probably have the same problem, so you definitely don't need to be a Pixar animator to need that.

The integrated graphics in the current rMBP definitely struggles to drive all those pixels at times. I know I'm not the only one to notice it. Several podcasters on 5by5.tv have said the same. So if integrated is your only option with this, good luck. :D

Yep, I already consider this a letdown.

Honestly, the single biggest problem with the 15" retina MBPro is that the video card isn't powerful enough to push around that many pixels without performance bottlenecks. It's good enough for your basic use cases, obviously, but not that impressive for a system costing so much. (Your 3D gamers sure won't be impressed by the frame rates.)

It's a forgivable problem only because there really weren't any mobile GPUs available capable of doing the job .... but it's all the more reason not to further gimp a 13" retina MBPro by leaving the discrete video out completely!

I know Apple probably thinks, "Who needs it if the 13" display has fewer pixels?", but we're starting out from a situation where graphics performance is one of the weakest parts of the system as a whole.

HD 4000 just won't be enough.

I'll wait for the haswell revision coming in q1 of next year, at which point will allow me to get a year out of it as there won't be any foreseeable upgrades after that. Just like the yearly iPhone release.

They did it before, so no is certainly not out of the question.

HD 4000 is just not enough to drive the retina display from what I've experienced in my 15 inch. Open up a video and do other tasks at once and the system will become fairly choppy. That is not the experience worth 2k.

And no, nobody in their right mind would game on a laptop, especially one running OSX. I have a custom built watercooled rig for that. Also nobody in their right mind would blow 1.6k just to get the most basic necessties. "it only cost 1600 so do you really expect more than a Facebook machine".


Okay, guys, for the zillionth time, 2880x1800 < 1280x800 + 2 x (2560x1440); the Intel HD 4000 is plenty capable on its lonesome to drive the 15" rMBP's display let alone the 13" rMBP. The fact that it struggles in practice has NOTHING to do with hardware and EVERYTHING to do with software. Be it the OS or the drivers, I couldn't tell you. But it's definitely a software issue as that IGP is capable of smoothly outputting the number of pixels just fine. GPUs don't care about how densely packed your pixels are. That being said, software sure as **** does!

All of you really ought to do some research before you say such incorrect things!

Exactly! these moroooons who keep saying 'buy a console for gaming' need to realize some of use like to game on whatever device we have. It wouldn't be all that hard for Apple to make a version of the 13'' MBP with a dedicated GPU, thereby giving those of us who would like to game on it the option of paying al little more for that luxary.

It would require maintaining the current thickness. Apple would rather a thin 13" MacBook Pro than a 13" MacBook Pro with discrete graphics. Only a small percentage of users even buying a 13" MacBook Pro know what discrete graphics are anyway.

So are a lot of the retina MBP's problems down to GPU or CPU?

Neither! Software!

There's a third option: lose the optical drive and give us quad-core and discrete graphics.

Won't happen! Apple will want to make the machine thinner before it cares about giving you those features. And as things currently stand with Ivy Bridge, you can't provide those features while increasing thinness.

So it's a software issue? Because those aforementioned devices never got smoothened out, even after software updates.

Mountain Lion brought a marginal improvement, but I suspect the problem may be with drivers more than with OS design. It's not like Intel and NVIDIA are currently having to allow for HiDPI on any other shipping product.

I would say Broadwell actually. Haswell seems very incremental to me. Broadwell is supposedly all new architecture.

Haswell is the new architechture. Broadwell is the die-shrink. Just as Sandy Bridge was the new architecture and Ivy Bridge was the die-shrink.

How much of an impact with the HD4000 have on me?

I will not use the machine for gaming.
I will use it occasionally for photoshop/illustrator/xcode for app programming.
I will use it regularly for analyzing large data sets in Stata, R, and Excel.
I will use it all the time for web surfing and microsoft office.

I usually have 9 desktops with R, Stata, Excel, Word, Preview, Acrobat, Chrome, and Safari with 20-30 tabs running simultaneously.

Any other questions/thoughts about 13" rMBP specs I should go for? I am definitely buying this thing barring a big issue.

For your needs, the Intel HD 4000 will be plenty sufficient. The only people for whom it will be less than favorable will be those wanting to play a game newer than three years old (barring StarCraft II and probably Diablo III), and those doing serious 3-D/video work.

You are completely wrong here. Apple makes a miniDP to HDMI adapter, and you can also buy cables that have miniDP on one end and HDMI on the other for a few dollars.

http://www.amazon.com/Mini-DisplayPort-HDMI-Adapter-Cable/dp/B003OC6LWM

Apple doesn't make such a cable. They differ you to buy one made by Moshi. What you have linked there is neither made by Moshi nor Apple. Good day, sir!
 
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I hear ya, but your thinking is outdated. You haven't tried an HDMI adapter and don't have TB. There are no issues. And haven't been for the last few MBP models that supported these.

The Monoprice $10 TB to HDMI adapter has worked perfect for me. And since TB can can carry HDMI etc then it will never be just another FW.

And as I said why now? Your thinking better applies to 2 years ago pre-TB. HDMI made sense then. But now much less so. ADapters are out and cheap. TB seems to carry HDMI perfectly fine. Apple doesn't support BR still. And laptops are getting thinner. HDMI is a big port. TB takes up less space. Wireless HDMI solutions are entering the mainstream. And ATV makes using a HDMI cable for many a thing of the past. Plus Apple only has a TB display whose connectivity seems like a blueprint for cheaper displays in the future as it becomes more affordable. It seems unApple-like.

Another reason: MBAs seems don't have HDMI ports and seem too thin to get one.

Heh, and it is very Apple-like to leave a couple of years ago in the dust :). In my life, HDMI is far more relevant now than it was a couple of years ago; I have a TV with it and have also bought one for my mother and one for my father, and a Dell with it ... with no connection issues; it is only the minidisplayport that causes issues, and I would rather not have to bother with another cable or adapter - that is just too Apple-like for me now.

As for the other reply to mine about HDMI - I know the cables are available, but that doesn't stop the ruling of their being illegal ... one kind of came before the other there. In any case my main reaction was to find it amusing - this port business be insane :D.

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'Unprecedented battery'= fuel cell

Will it be allowed on planes :D?
 
"Rarely used"? Now you're being generous. Try "never used".

I was trying to be fair and objective. :D Obviously the average consumer and especially those targeted by the 13" aren't Thunderbolt users. IMHO, it is mindless to put two of these ports on these computers. If and when the tech becomes widespread, these current machines will be obsolete. USB 3 is far more useful and practical for the vast majority and will be for at least a few years. And I'm being generous again. ;)
 
Looking for rumors, not for leaks - otherwise you'd be on a MacLeaks forum...

Like I said in an earlier post, you cannot expect a rumors site about future technology not to post leaked material about said technology. This isn't the first time MacRumors has done it and surely this won't be the last.
 
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The 15" rMPB has 2 GPUs one of which is an Intel 4000, and it's running a screen higher in resolution than the one in the coming soon 13" rMBP. AND it can run at least another display outside.

It can power two 27" Monitors from the Thunderbolts, and another from the HDMI port, for a grand total of four displays.
 
Well this effect is observable on more than just Apple software, I believe.

Sorry, since Linux can't really run in HiDPI, that only leaves Windows. But I do think people talking about the "laggy" graphics on retina displays do it when talking about OS X. What non-Apple software are you talking about ?

Or are you confusing the application level with the display server ? Quartz is Apple software, all applications run on top of it, it is the display server in OS X.
 
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