13" rMBP (Haswell) and Gaming

[Vanilla35]

The 13" rMBP will most likely come with the 28W TDP Haswells. These include the newest HD5100 graphics core (Iris). Consensus seems to be that these will be significantly more capable than HD4000. They have twice as many execution units, and are a few Mhz faster. I would reccomend looking at the MacBook Air gaming reviews and expecting a decent improvement from that (some people are saying around 10-20% increase in performance). This is due to the HD5100 being clocked 100Mhz higher, and having a higher TDP to play with.

I am still holding hope that the 15" rMBP will have a dGPU but the overwhelming majority are expecting it to only come with Iris Pro HD5200 which is the same as HD5100 but with 128MB eDRAM cache to speed things up.

I will say that HD5100 is more than enough for the 13" rMPB. It will be the perfect machine if you ask me.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6926/intel-iris-iris-pro-graphics-haswell-gt3gt3e-gets-a-brand

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7072/intel-hd-5000-vs-hd-4000-vs-hd-4400

This exactly ^

I think you personally would be almost perfectly happy with the new 13" retina assuming it is announced with the 5100. We're finally getting to a point where the lower spec'd options are actually turning out half decent (good for your type of customer). Unfortunately on the other end; for people like me, who find a 13" screen a bit too small, or want to play games on higher than medium graphics, we're stuck with a similarly spec'd 5200 in the 15" version. With the absence of a dGPU, that is. I'm not a power user, I just like games, so that's my personal suffering. But if I were actually a power user, I'd be getting shot in the foot, basically forced to digress all portability and get an iMac.

That is of course, unless you let apple tell you that this is a worthy upgrade, and better than the previous generation in every way.

 

[NbinHD]

Do you guys think that the 13'' rmbp will be able to run gta v on medium/low settings - 30 fps? Or should i buy the gen old 15'' retina mbp.

 

[PDFierro]

The 5100 that should be in the 13-inch rMBP should definitely be enough for anyone buying the machine, unless you want to do some really serious gaming.

 

[iMacBooked]

The 5100 that should be in the 13-inch rMBP should definitely be enough for anyone buying the machine, unless you want to do some really serious gaming.

Exactly. For daily use and normal gaming, it'll be perfect.

 

[Vanilla35]

Do you guys think that the 13'' rmbp will be able to run gta v on medium/low settings - 30 fps? Or should i buy the gen old 15'' retina mbp.

This is a card that the 5100 "Matches" according to notebookcheck.com

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-640M-LE.72199.0.html


(Original link) <--http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Graphics-5100.91977.0.html

If you wanna see if there are any games at the bottom that you think would be comparable to GTA

 

[tgi]

This is a card that the 5100 "Matches" according to notebookcheck.com

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-640M-LE.72199.0.html


(Original link) <--http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Graphics-5100.91977.0.html

If you wanna see if there are any games at the bottom that you think would be comparable to GTA

It's kinda hard to speculate when GTA V hasn't been released yet. Isn't there pretty much no way of knowing until it drops? Unless they have a beta or demo to play beforehand, correct?

 

[Aylan]

This is a card that the 5100 "Matches" according to notebookcheck.com

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-640M-LE.72199.0.html


(Original link) <--http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Graphics-5100.91977.0.html

If you wanna see if there are any games at the bottom that you think would be comparable to GTA

I am not sure that this is a good comparison. Iris Pro is about on par with 650M GT and Iris is supposed to only be 10-20% slower than Iris Pro. Can't wait until these babies are out and we can finally test them!

 

[Aylan]

It's kinda hard to speculate when GTA V hasn't been released yet. Isn't there pretty much no way of knowing until it drops? Unless they have a beta or demo to play beforehand, correct?

You can get a good sense of gaming performance by looking at the recommended requirements on the GTA V site. They are recommending an NVIDIA GTX 480M which notebookcheck.com is saying is about 10% faster than Iris Pro.

I think that Iris should be able to run this game in low to mid settings. GTA V seems to be quite the demanding game.

 

[Vanilla35]

I am not sure that this is a good comparison. Iris Pro is about on par with 650M GT and Iris is supposed to only be 10-20% slower than Iris Pro. Can't wait until these babies are out and we can finally test them!

The website itself says it matches the GT 640M not the 650M. I think notebookcheck.com would know, they're the ones who do these comparisons and run the benchmark tests. I am definitely looking to see how the thorough testing shows them compared to current mid range dGPU's as well though. I'm hoping in a couple years intel graphics will be worthy. But imo, today is not the day. Games are demanding more and more graphical performance too, especially from 2012 on. So imo intel finally upping their graphical processes are only benefiting us only half the amount of what it may actually look like.

You can get a good sense of gaming performance by looking at the recommended requirements on the GTA V site. They are recommending an NVIDIA GTX 480M which notebookcheck.com is saying is about 10% faster than Iris Pro.

I think that Iris should be able to run this game in low to mid settings. GTA V seems to be quite the demanding game.

My assumption is, based on GTA is you'll be getting around 35 frames per second with the iris 5100 with medium graphics. That's a little slow for me. I would bump it down to low and enjoy the game there. GTA is a sandbox so you're gonna have to load distance (like WoW, or Fall out 3, or skryim - all games where you load the land ahead of you) so you'll probably only be running that at high frames in low settings, with those graphics.

 

[yaymath]

Would a current-generation 15" rMBP be better suited for playing GTA IV? What about GTA IV?

 

[Vanilla35]

Would a current-generation 15" rMBP be better suited for playing GTA IV? What about GTA IV?

Ok so I just ran the benchmarks on GTA 5 game's minimum and recommended graphics cards.

(http://gta5systemrequirements.com/)

The minimum requirement GPU for this game is the ATI X1900 (512mb)

(http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-X1900.2750.0.html)

The recommended requirement is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M

(http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-480M.30196.0.html)

The Iris 5100 definitely meets the minimum requirements. But the recommended requirements card is about on par with the 15" rMBP's dGPU, the Nvidia 650M. So you're probably looking at low-med settings. Could it run mostly medium settings at 30fps? Probably, but it might slow down when lots of things get on the screen, especially in GTA where you've got cop cars all over the place and stuff like that. You're more likely looking at low settings. Just being realistic

 

[NbinHD]

Ok so I just ran the benchmarks on GTA 5 game's minimum and recommended graphics cards.

(http://gta5systemrequirements.com/)

The minimum requirement GPU for this game is the ATI X1900 (512mb)

(http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-X1900.2750.0.html)

The recommended requirement is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M

(http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-480M.30196.0.html)

The Iris 5100 definitely meets the minimum requirements. But the recommended requirements card is about on par with the 15" rMBP's dGPU, the Nvidia 650M. So you're probably looking at low-med settings. Could it run mostly medium settings at 30fps? Probably, but it might slow down when lots of things get on the screen, especially in GTA where you've got cop cars all over the place and stuff like that. You're more likely looking at low settings. Just being realistic

Intresting, what kind of frames does a xbox/playstation get? And what settings would they run be equivalent on the pc?

 

[Vanilla35]

Intresting, what kind of frames does a xbox/playstation get? And what settings would they run be equivalent on the pc?

Not sure the exact comparison (would have to do some research - idk if this game is gonna be out for Xbox one only, or 360 and Xbox one, ect) but I would assume probably medium graphics out of the 360 and maybe high out of a Xbox one since it has multi-core GPU pretty sure. Both would outperform the 650M in the 15" retina I'm almost certain. I'm no professional though, just my assumptions. None of Apple's laptops have great cards. And in fact the 15" retina is the only one left with a card. But it won't anymore come this fall

 

[NbinHD]

Not sure the exact comparison (would have to do some research - idk if this game is gonna be out for Xbox one only, or 360 and Xbox one, ect) but I would assume probably medium graphics out of the 360 and maybe high out of a Xbox one since it has multi-core GPU pretty sure. Both would outperform the 650M in the 15" retina I'm almost certain. I'm no professional though, just my assumptions. None of Apple's laptops have great cards. And in fact the 15" retina is the only one left with a card. But it won't anymore come this fall

Day one, gta v will only come out on xbox 360 and ps3, possibly later pc and than after that a xbox one and ps4 port of the pc version. Do you think the imac 21.5 will have a 1gb dgpu?

 

[bill-p]

Not sure the exact comparison (would have to do some research - idk if this game is gonna be out for Xbox one only, or 360 and Xbox one, ect) but I would assume probably medium graphics out of the 360 and maybe high out of a Xbox one since it has multi-core GPU pretty sure. Both would outperform the 650M in the 15" retina I'm almost certain. I'm no professional though, just my assumptions. None of Apple's laptops have great cards. And in fact the 15" retina is the only one left with a card. But it won't anymore come this fall

Xbox One has just one GPU core clocked at 853MHz (boosted from 800MHz from early beta).

In terms of GPU performance, though, it's estimated that both the PS4 and XBO would be close to Radeon HD 7790 or 7850 performance.

That basically means both consoles will handily outpace the 650M in the rMBP by quite a bit. (on average around 50-65%)

And that level of performance is multiple grades above the 360 and PS3, so if 360 can get "medium", then the XBO and PS4 would get something like "ultra" rather than just "high".

They really went all out and made a pretty decent gaming rig out of those next-gen consoles.

 

[Count Blah]

When you're talking about a notebook smaller than 15 inches, there will always be compromises, be it in terms of internal hardware, screen, whatever.

When dealing with Apple, a notebook smaller than 15" will always be outfitted such that you will be forced to upgrade(pay more) to get a dGPU. It's the same for the mini/iMac.

Apple can, but they won't.

 

[Vanilla35]

When dealing with Apple, a notebook smaller than 15" will always be outfitted such that you will be forced to upgrade(pay more) to get a dGPU. It's the same for the mini/iMac.

Apple can, but they won't.

Or not have a choice to upgrade at all. Like they're currently doing

 

[Alvi]

OP, I'm in the same boat as you. I have a MacBook Pro with the 9400M, I love the machine, it is the best computer I've ever had but I just hate it's freaking graphics card and how the machine blows up even when I watch an HD Video on YouTube.

I would get the 15" rMBP in a heartbeat if it wasn't for the price tag. I don't think size is an issue, especially since the 15" rMBP is lighter than our 13" MBP's. Also, I suppose this is your main machine as in my case, and in this case extra screen space is a blessing.

My MacBook experience which I love pretty much resumes to doing all my email, media (Music Library, hooking it up to my projector to watch movies etc...), browsing and pretty lightweight stuff, but that's because it can't do more than that without getting really hot. I love Aperture and other programs for photo editing which I need but sadly it's too slow to do that.

 

[Count Blah]

Or not have a choice to upgrade at all. Like they're currently doing

When I say upgrade, I mean going from a 13" -> 15" or mini -> iMac

 

[Vanilla35]

When I say upgrade, I mean going from a 13" -> 15" or mini -> iMac

Oh. Well I don't consider that "upgrading", because you would be choosing mobile (laptop) or non-mobile (desktop) before you make any decisions on how big or small you'd want to go. If I want a laptop I'm already ruling out the mac-mini and iMac. And vice versa

 

[Apple Forex]

Depending on the kind of games you play, the MBPr is perfect for gaming. However, for very serious gamers and the latest games that are very graphic intensive, I would highly recommend anything along the PC lines of computers or a step up to 15in MBPr.

Reason being, those graphic hungry games tend to put out a lot of heat. By sacrificing portability and form, it would be best to buy the bigger 15in + laptops. In my opinion, these computers are too beautiful to just be doing prolonged intensive gaming. If anything, I'd look into which games you are going to play.

Some games would run real well on a 13in MBPr, but others would best benefit from screen real estate and the cooling capabilities of a larger laptop. Yet alone, much better specs. These little factors can really determine the gaming experience.

-my 2 cents