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13-Inch Retina MacBook Pro Shows Up in Benchmarks

constantsnags! said:
So. ****ing. What. Considering that practically nothing works properly on the 15" Retina, I'm certainly not terribly interested in a 13" version. It'll be exactly 2 inches less useful than the first version. Utter waste of time and money until CS6, Office, and the software everyone actually uses is updated to take advantage of it. And I don't mean demonstrated at a product release; I mean actually available to BUY to the person on the street.
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It is extremely unrealistic to expect that every app be made Retina-ready on the very day MBPR was released.

Keep whining.

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stewacide said:
Are you talking about the Vaio Z? That uses a dedicated GPU only when docked, over Thunderbolt in fact.
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Not through Thunderbolt. The Z-series has Light Peak functionality in the dock port that doubles as a more conventional USB 3.0 port, but Sony cannot call it Thunderbolt simply because it does not meet all of Intel's TB spec requirements.

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jav6454 said:
It is still nonsense... Yes, you can have an Intel 4000 GPU drive the display, but you will get bad quality in daily use. You will see this as jagged or lagged frames. You will get nice results when word processing, but not everyone does that all day long. See recent Facebook web page viewing and how frame rates drop to low 24 fps.... thats barely making it. GPU is finding it hard to keep up.

If I want a retina Mac, I want something with a good GPU behind it. Quality over hype.
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Did I read this correctly?

The screen FPS drops to the low-20s on Facebook, not because of the GPU, but because Safari does not support GPU acceleration. All the work going into rendering Facebook is done by the CPU, and one core gets tapped out at 100% usage.

If the user doesn't use Facebook, this "lag" has little to no effect.

The MBPR already has a great mobile GPU, the software just isn't coded to always take advantage of it. The CPU can't finish the work fast enough, while the GPU was behind the lounge sipping a tequila sunrise and browsing through electrical wiring smut.
 
jcpb said:
Not through Thunderbolt. The Z-series has Light Peak functionality in the dock port that doubles as a more conventional USB 3.0 port, but Sony cannot call it Thunderbolt simply because it does not meet all of Intel's TB spec requirements.
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This seems like a better design to me. I'd rather have a port that can double as USB3 than display port.

And I agree all this lag business can't be pinned on the GPU. The GPU doesn't draw windows the CPU does.
 
jcpb said:
It is extremely unrealistic to expect that every app be made Retina-ready on the very day MBPR was released.

Keep whining.

This machine is genuinely nothing but a curio until software that actually gains by using the higher res display is openly available. Obviously it's not realistic to expect that on day one; however we're now a good bit down the line with not a peep from Adobe or Microsoft. Believe me, if this machine had the toolkit available to match I'd be at the front of the line. I still may buy if the updates appear...but I'm not holding my breath. I'm a freelance and the light weight, speed and display are definitely attractive but right now it's pointless and will be for a good few months to come, I suspect.
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Digital Skunk said:
That's a tricky decision if weight isn't a major concern. Both machines are rather portable, the 15" giving you much more power and a dedicated GPU, the Air giving you one of Apple's sleekest designs.

Depending on what you intend to use it for, you may want to consider the Air over the 15" unless you need FW800 and a dedicated GPU.
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At least the Macbook Air has the backlit keyboard once more. I would just love to be able to play Battlefield 3 on the road right now. I plan on staying in Mexico for a month next year and I would really not want to miss out.

Not to mention the condition and age of my current Macbook. External Thunderbolt GPUs are still pie in the concept products.
 
jav6454 said:
It is still nonsense. You need a strong GPU to drive a strong display. Period. There is no science to that. Try running a Retina display of GMA X3100 graphics... try running Retina of the nVidia 9400M. Ok, lets go higher, the 320M.. or the 330GT. You won't because although he resolution is supported, the amount of GPU compute power isn't there to deliver quality.

Yes, you can have an Intel 4000 GPU drive the display, but you will get bad quality in daily use. You will see this as jagged or lagged frames. You will get nice results when word processing, but not everyone does that all day long. See recent Facebook web page viewing and how frame rates drop to low 24 fps.... thats barely making it. GPU is finding it hard to keep up.

If I want a retina Mac, I want something with a good GPU behind it. Quality over hype.



Architecture, pipelining of data, memory bandwidth. 16 cores is useless if the pipeline towards those cores is small. Moreover, if the memory is limited then yo can't store much pixel information. Even more important, if those memory lanes aren't wide enough or fast enough, you won't move data as required... hence you end up with lower frame rates.
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Are you seriously implying that the SGX535MP4 is as powerful as the HD4000 (or even the GT330M)?
 
jav6454 said:
With respect to your inquiry. No I did not imply that. I gave you several other factors that have to be taken into account for a GPU to be considered ok. Core count is not the only important thing.
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I understand. I was just curious as to why you thought the iPad GPU ran 2048*1536 well but the HD4000 wouldn't be able to run 2560*1600 well. Even though (for the most part) it seems to run 2880*1800 just fine.

If I am mistaken then sorry.
 
End of an Era, aint that the truth. im still not exactly sure why users are happy to trade a DVD drive for a thinner mbp. I really thought the last one was thin enough.
 
Casey MAC said:
End of an Era, aint that the truth. im still not exactly sure why users are happy to trade a DVD drive for a thinner mbp. I really thought the last one was thin enough.
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simply because i had a mbp for the past 3 years and had never used the dvd drive for once. not even once. if it doesn't serve most people a purpose, it is a waste of space.

you might be right that the last one was thin enough. in that case i would trade the dvd drive for something else like more battery power or some gpu
 
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