15-Inch MacBook Pro AMD Radeon Pro Vega Graphics Options Now Available to Order

[wilhoitm]

Should I spend a ton of money now on this MacBook Pro with a Vega 20 or should I wait for the elusive Mac Pro?

When is the elusive Mac Pro supposed to come out again? :-o

 

[Brian Y]

Not true. Apple HAD a choice. They, however, chose the sensible thing to do and switched to the superior manufacturer. This time, the situation is similar: They should switch GPU manufacturers; it would be the sensible thing to do. But they don't, apparently.

Btw, it actually does not matter if you compare CUDA with Windows or the CPU market situation.
Point being that Apple certainly does not care at all about the GPU market. They did not care about the CPU market either, so why should they? Apple is trying to make money, looooots of money. Maybe they even care about their customers, trying to create better products (as they tend to claim). But no, they certainly have no desire to act as saviors of the GPU market; even the thought seems preposterous (no insult intended). Why would they want to sell inferior products, putting them in a bad, bad market position. That's the last thing they'd do

Whatever the reason is - it seems unreasonable. They intentionally sell inferior products to customers at extremely high prices without a good cause. Very, very, very irrational

Quick question here - granted, I know AMD chips have had their issues - but has there ever been an Nvidia card in a MBP that didn't have premature failures?

8600 - boot failures due to poor solder joints
9600M - repair extension program
330M - Issues with automatic graphics switching
650M - Repair extension program
750M - might have been okay?

 

[MrGunnyPT]

Should I spend a ton of money now on this MacBook Pro with a Vega 20 or should I wait for the elusive Mac Pro?

When is the elusive Mac Pro supposed to come out again? :-o

Whenever it's ready I guess? It's more than a pipe dream at least we know that.

 

[Mydel]

We do not agree on much...well, anything, but I do agree that Apple ditching eGPU support on Thunderbolt 2 after having it in the High Sierra beta was as sour grapes as it can get. Given that you can find Certified Refurbished Six-Core 2013 Mac Pros on eBay for as low as $1799 (OBO), I gave serious thought to buying one. What I think would have pushed it over the edge for me would be official support for eGPUs under Thunderbolt 2. What better way to show support for your existing 2013 Mac Pro owners than to give them a way to extend the life of their systems a bit longer while waiting for the NEW Mac Pro. I imagine any number of users would take advantage of adding a Radeon Vega 56 or 64 to their setup to a bit of extra Final Cut Pro X oomph....those D300, D500 and D700s are a bit long in the tooth, to be charitable.

Restricting it to Thunderbolt 2 might have raised the ire of the Thunderbolt 1 crowd, I think...but from what I have read Thunderbolt 1 should not be impossible, just slower. But would it have mattered? The MacBook is using USB 3.1 to run a monitor, so what’s the harm, other than the extra work dealing with Thunderbolt 1/2, which seems to be work that was already done, but I digress.

This is the part of Apple that has slowly diminished over time, IMHO...a bit of investment in its users that has given way to a more impersonal Apple.

I agree. Im not happy with the move. I have 2013 MP and Im really pissed about the propertiary connector on the internal SSD and inability to connect eGPU. But I ordered the case and will try to go through the TB3 to TB2 dongle. If it doesn't work I will be using it for MBP. But that is cheap move on apple side as you basically can't upgrade D700

 

[chucker23n1]

Quick question here - granted, I know AMD chips have had their issues - but has there ever been an Nvidia card in a MBP that didn't have premature failures?

8600 - boot failures due to poor solder joints
9600M - repair extension program
330M - Issues with automatic graphics switching
650M - Repair extension program
750M - might have been okay?

Hard to say how much of that is on Apple.

That said, whenever GPUs in MacBooks come up, someone complains that Apple has chosen AMD in recent years, and the explanation for that does seem very simple: NVIDIA seems unwilling or unable to ship (in high volume, to boot) GPUs at the power profile Apple is interested in.

 

[obiwan]

Should I spend a ton of money now on this MacBook Pro with a Vega 20 or should I wait for the elusive Mac Pro?

When is the elusive Mac Pro supposed to come out again? :-o

I actually think the 2018 Mac Mini is a more compelling purchase, and then if the Mac Pro ever does live up to it's promise (and you don't have to sell a kidney to purchase one) - it may be a good time to trade up, when it get's released. It's a bit of a gamble I know, but I'm working on the assumption that any peripherals bought for the Mac Mini (eGPU, external monitor, keyboard, trackpad etc.) will still be useable with the Mac Pro. If it doesn't deliver - just keep the Mac Mini. - Obviously if you need portability, this isn't an option. For me personally, the MacBook Pro's have just got way too pricey - even if they do now have a Vega GPU as an option. I'd still rather go for Mac Mini/eGPU combo.

 

[Glockworkorange]

The iPad 3 one I can understand a lot better. Apple must've known when shipping it that it was underpowered, and that they intended to announce a better one just seven ones later.

This GPU option is significantly different. It's not as though its presence indicates a flaw in the existing MBP options; it merely adds some more. It doesn't make those any less valuable either; if anything, I would've liked if they had dropped pricing on the other GPU options slightly. They did not.

Thus, it's really more as if they added, seven months after the iPad 3, a high-end storage option. Sure, you might feel like you'd rather have picked that had you known one was going to become available. But with the iPad 4, they immediately dropped its predecessor. That's quite different, IMHO.
[doublepost=1542264752][/doublepost]

Keep in mind the revision was already overdue (in the sense that there were an unusually high 402 days between the 2017 and 2018 releases).

This is speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if the reason the MBPs shipped in July (which is very unusual timing for Apple) is that they had been waiting for a commitment on AMD's part regarding Vega Mobile, but then grew tired and decided to more or less quietly ship with what they have.

Then, a few months later, they got confirmation that Vega Mobile was still coming in the year, so they put up that information on the page in October.



Maybe they simply didn't know. Maybe they didn't trust AMD on it — Vega Mobile, I understand, has been delayed several times this year.



I mean, sure, I don't feel sorry for Apple. I just think this complaint is a little out of touch — I want Apple to make speedier revisions, especially given what happened with products like the Mac mini.
[doublepost=1542264966][/doublepost]

Are you perhaps confusing Louis Rossman and Linus Sebastian?

Yes. You’re right re: iPad version 3. Lighting was a significant issue as well.

I just remember thinking what the f—-ck?

 

[chucker23n1]

Yes. You’re right re: iPad version 3. Lighting was a significant issue as well.

I just remember thinking what the f—-ck?

Yeah, the Lightning thing is a good point as well.

They really shouldn't have shipped that frankenPad.

 

[jawtab]

Hey old dude

I used to build PCs when Wolfenstein 3D (used to create RAM drives and load the game on it for instant boot up) and DOOM first hit the scene and played multiplayer (breakthrough stuff!) on the LAN at school. Now I'm in the same boat, I'll play a console system. Do work on computer but definitely a market for gamer PCs who want to customize. I had enough with PCs when my power supply kept on having issues and didn't have the patience anymore to trouble shoot my computer anymore.

I don't game on a Mac or a PC anymore, I have an Xbox One. My son has an Xbox One X and a 4K TV, but insisted on building a gaming PC for himself. I helped him pick the parts, but he built it himself and he likes his system, for now. I used to be able to game with a keyboard and a mouse, but I do not think I can do that any more. Too old.

[doublepost=1542289489][/doublepost]You should sign up the yearly upgrade program for your MacBook Pro laptop, just like they do with phones for one low monthly payment of $199 a month.

SIGN ME UP!

Seriously.

Wow! Apple just screwed people who shelled out as much as $7000 just a few months ago. These Vegas most likely have 3x the bandwidth. Probably around 240 GB/s vs. 81 GB/s. This is a HUGE difference. The decent thing to do would be to offer a logic board swap upgrade for anyone who bought a 4-7000 BTO. It’s really a huge slap in the face after promoting eGPUs. A better GPU was obviously expected but not until next year.
If this were HP or Dell it’s different because they refresh all the time. Apple does not. This was a silent upgrade added to BTOs. It’s just not right.

 

[wilhoitm]

I actually think the 2018 Mac Mini is a more compelling purchase, and then if the Mac Pro ever does live up to it's promise (and you don't have to sell a kidney to purchase one) - it may be a good time to trade up, when it get's released. It's a bit of a gamble I know, but I'm working on the assumption that any peripherals bought for the Mac Mini (eGPU, external monitor, keyboard, trackpad etc.) will still be useable with the Mac Pro. If it doesn't deliver - just keep the Mac Mini. - Obviously if you need portability, this isn't an option. For me personally, the MacBook Pro's have just got way too pricey - even if they do now have a Vega GPU as an option. I'd still rather go for Mac Mini/eGPU combo.

I hear you and I thought about doing the same thing with the Mac mini 2018. But I do not want to buy a desktop Mac again that is not expandable! I bought the Mac Pro 2013 with the D700 GPUs. Someone said that the new iPad Pro is now faster than the Mac Pro 2013. I wonder if this is really true? :-o Another thing to think about is when/if the Thunderbolt 4 ports are going to come out?

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/7rhbzk/thunderbolt_4/

 

[Zdigital2015]

I don’t know how I missed so many articles. That was the day of the Brooklyn event. I don’t recall it being mentioned during the event and I did come here to post my thoughts. Everything was MBA, iPad Pro w/pencil and Mac Mini. There must’ve been one post that didn’t get much attention. My bad.

I just feel bad for people who bought one a month or less ago. These aren’t cheap things. It’s expected of most other companies but Apple usually sticks to one refresh per year. I will now be more vigilant in the future so as to avoid buying at the wrong time.

In fact I will probably hold off upgrading until the next generation is released. Hopefully Intel will have its act together by 2020 and maybe AMD will have a competitive mobile GPU rivaling nVidia by then. Back in the ATI days they were extremely competitive with one taking the lead with every new release like Apple and Samsung with iPhone and Galaxy.

AMD has been behind nVidia for the better part of the decade now and Turing is light years ahead.

No worries...PCMag.com, Mashable, Gizmodo, The Next Web and some others did not cover it. One thing Apple did do was to bury the Vega announcement in the MacBook Air press release, which drives me a little nuts as those things that are not directly related to the three major announcements (iPad Pro, min and MBA) should have broken out into a "Everything thing else we announced at the Apple Event" press release. But I don't run MarCom or PR, so it is what it is.

It would be great if Apple instituted an upgrade program for qualified owners of the July 2018 15" MacBook Pro, but it would need to include some sort of transfer fee beyond the simple $250 or $350 upgrade cost. It also doesn't apply to the 2.2GHz version, so I suspect Apple will not do this on a company-wide scale as this then starts involving certain legalities and obligations that Apple may not want to deal with since those owners would be excluded. I suspect that people inside the 30 day timeframe may have better luck with the honey approach one on one with Apple, but I guess we'll see.

AMD is a bit of a conundrum right now as they are quietly making moves and gains in both the CPU and GPU space. They are quite tight-lipped about it until they actually announce stuff, or at lest that is what I am seeing. Catching NVIDIA should not be there goal, but there is room for improvement.

FYI - They did finally, formally announce the RX590 just a few minutes ago via Twitter. Hopefully, this is a drop in for anyone wanting to get an eGPU with the latest Polaris-based card instead of Vega.

https://twitter.com/Radeon/status/1063070327251525633

 

[leman]

They are quite tight-lipped about it until they actually announce stuff, or at lest that is what I am seeing.

Well, they did announce mobile Vega at the CES back in January. But since they went completely silent on the topic afterwards, I guess everybody forgot about it...

 

[Tonyyyperez]

Okay someone please help. If you use these for gaming (I know that it’s not meant or really great for gaming) is it good to upgrade to Vega 16 or 20. Or stay with the 560x. Like I assume the bigger the better but is the Vega just different and would actually be worse than the 560x?

 

[Larvas]

Okay someone please help. If you use these for gaming (I know that it’s not meant or really great for gaming) is it good to upgrade to Vega 16 or 20. Or stay with the 560x. Like I assume the bigger the better but is the Vega just different and would actually be worse than the 560x?

Wait for another week until the reviews come out, the Vega 20 should be your best bet when it comes to gaming though.

 

[transpo1]

Apple had to have engineering samples to design, test, rework and then certify for production, but the Vega 16 and 20 have been under the radar for awhile. The worst kept secret in GPUs right now is the RX590, yet AMD has still not announced it.

If the engineering cut off for the July 2018 MacBook Pros was before the Vega 16 or 20 had even started getting viable production yields, it would never be in Apple’s interest to say anything, especially if AMD ended up not being able to fill their orders. AMD may have only reached decent yields in the last 45 days.

Which is why Apple should have waited for the new GPU options to release the 2018s or announced that stronger GPU options would be coming later in the year. Ethically, it's questionable for a company that typically only releases one update per year to then sneak in an update 3 months after that. Have they ever done this before? Not to my knowledge.

They wanted the fall / back to school sales from the MBPs but also wanted the strongest GPUs available in their machines. Bad decision for loyal customers who bought as soon as the refresh hit and it will make many think twice about upgrading right away the next time...

 

[koyoot]

Which is why Apple should have waited for the new GPU options to release the 2018s or announced that stronger GPU options would be coming later in the year. Ethically, it's questionable for a company that typically only releases one update per year to then sneak in an update 3 months after that. Have they ever done this before? Not to my knowledge.

They wanted the fall / back to school sales from the MBPs but also wanted the strongest GPUs available in their machines. Bad decision for loyal customers who bought as soon as the refresh hit and it will make many think twice about upgrading right away the next time...

Apple could wait for AMD, to be ready with high volume manufacturing of this GPU. But it was AMD who was not ready.

 

[leman]

Okay someone please help. If you use these for gaming (I know that it’s not meant or really great for gaming) is it good to upgrade to Vega 16 or 20. Or stay with the 560x. Like I assume the bigger the better but is the Vega just different and would actually be worse than the 560x?

I'd bet that Vega 20 will be roughly 40-50% faster in games than 560x...

 

[Ener Ji]

Okay someone please help. If you use these for gaming (I know that it’s not meant or really great for gaming) is it good to upgrade to Vega 16 or 20. Or stay with the 560x. Like I assume the bigger the better but is the Vega just different and would actually be worse than the 560x?

Apple claims (on their website, on the MBP page) that Tomb Raider is 50% faster on the Vega 20 compared to the 560x. We'll have to wait for reviews to see whether this is a cherry picked statistic, but I'm estimating it won't be too far off. I bet most games will see at least a 30-40% increase in FPS, which is pretty significant even if you have a more casual interest in gaming on your MBP.

That said, some people on this thread have made convincing arguments that if you are a more serious Mac gamer, an eGPU with the full-size Vega 56 or Vega 64 isn't that much more expensive and will be much, much, faster still. The nice thing about eGPUs is they can be upgrades down the line, whereas we're stuck with the internal GPU for the life of the machine.

 

[leman]

Which is why Apple should have waited for the new GPU options to release the 2018s or announced that stronger GPU options would be coming later in the year.

Are you seriously suggesting that Apple should have released no new 15" model in 2018? After they have been under all that criticism for not providing updates?

Ethically, it's questionable for a company that typically only releases one update per year to then sneak in an update 3 months after that. Have they ever done this before? Not to my knowledge.

It's 5 months, not 3 months. And yes, they have done it on multiple occasions. Since they are a company that typically releases two updates per years. It's just that in recent few years the CPU/GPU market has stagnated so there were no upgrade options to take.

The fact is: Apple and AMD are giving you (the Apple customer) exclusive preview of these GPUs. They are brand new, haven't been used anywhere else and there won't be anything better coming out on AMD front until 2020 at earliest. Yes, they are expensive, and their availability is seriously limited, but its literally either this option or no option. I also doubt that they will appear in any other laptop, since they are too expensive and a gaming-oriented customer will simply pay less for a larger laptop with a GTX 1070...
[doublepost=1542297462][/doublepost]

That said, some people on this thread have made convincing arguments that if you are a more serious Mac gamer, an eGPU with the full-size Vega 56 or Vega 64 isn't that much more expensive and will be much, much, faster still.

Unfortunately, eGPU is not an option when you are traveling or want to get acceleration in Windows without the external monitor.

 

[crsh1976]

Hard to say how much of that is on Apple.

That said, whenever GPUs in MacBooks come up, someone complains that Apple has chosen AMD in recent years, and the explanation for that does seem very simple: NVIDIA seems unwilling or unable to ship (in high volume, to boot) GPUs at the power profile Apple is interested in.

I'd certainly bet on "unwilling", Nvidia's wide range of notebook GPUs are configurable (HP periodically ships models with underclocked GPUs to keep the heat down, as do other manufacturers) and available in great numbers. I can't imagine Apple not finding anything in Nvidia'a offer fit for the MBP.

Apple may try to yank a special deal to get them cheaper, who knows, but the quality issues of years past also is not to be forgotten.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Do you have any evidence to back this up or are you a fan of being sued for libel?

Yes.
[doublepost=1542305476][/doublepost]

Yeah, I gotta tell ya, those are pretty strong words. Louis may be a bit high strung, arrogant if you will, in his appraisal of Apple, but calling him a cheat and a liar needs evidence to back it up. You might want to rephrase that unless you have a link to a civil suit bearing his name and/or business name.

PSA: I am not an attorney spokesperson. Nor am I a member of the Louis Rossman Fan Club, but I do enjoy his videos and I suspect there is more truth than some may want to believe.

PPSA: I believe that what you said could be construed as defamation of character.

There was a Canadian(?) TV expose that was trying to prove that Apple was unnecessarily duping customers into high-cost repairs, when a simple fix was all that was required.

Rossman was supposed to have been an independent service tech that the reporter just-happened to bring a pre-broken MacBook pro to, after Apple had said it needed a logic board replacement.

Rossman takes the laptop, and IMMEDIATELY zeros-in on a ridiculously rare in real-life issue with a bent-back connection "finger" on the display connector. The take-home message was that Apple couldn't even be bothered to look for this (really uncommon!) failure, when a "random independent tech" found it in 2 seconds.

The deceit came in because it was OBVIOUS that Rossman was TOLD by the Reporter BEFORE the cameras rolled exactly what the problem was. I have been an electronic tech before, and you simply DON'T find the out-of-the-ordinary failures right away, absent blind luck. How do I know that would be an out-of-the-ordinary failure? Because it was a failure that simply would never happen on a laptop, unless the owner was in the habit of disassembling and reassembling it on a regular basis. That connector gets plugged in at the factory, and pretty much NEVER gets unplugged. So, unless that failure occurred the FIRST time the connector was mated, and then simply didn't "fail" until later (hard to believe if you see the folded-back connector finger), then it just simply wouldn't occur.

THAT's why I say he is a liar and a cheat.

 

[wilhoitm]

Yes.
[doublepost=1542305476][/doublepost]
There was a Canadian(?) TV expose that was trying to prove that Apple was unnecessarily duping customers into high-cost repairs, when a simple fix was all that was required.

Rossman was supposed to have been an independent service tech that the reporter just-happened to bring a pre-broken MacBook pro to, after Apple had said it needed a logic board replacement.

Rossman takes the laptop, and IMMEDIATELY zeros-in on a ridiculously rare in real-life issue with a bent-back connection "finger" on the display connector. The take-home message was that Apple couldn't even be bothered to look for this (really uncommon!) failure, when a "random independent tech" found it in 2 seconds.

The deceit came in because it was OBVIOUS that Rossman was TOLD by the Reporter BEFORE the cameras rolled exactly what the problem was. I have been an electronic tech before, and you simply DON'T find the out-of-the-ordinary failures right away, absent blind luck. How do I know that would be an out-of-the-ordinary failure? Because it was a failure that simply would never happen on a laptop, unless the owner was in the habit of disassembling and reassembling it on a regular basis. That connector gets plugged in at the factory, and pretty much NEVER gets unplugged. So, unless that failure occurred the FIRST time the connector was mated, and then simply didn't "fail" until later (hard to believe if you see the folded-back connector finger), then it just simply wouldn't occur.

THAT's why I say he is a liar and a cheat.

This is pretty common in the industry and there is nothing wrong with it. In most of the industry they do not waste the time to troubleshoot the exact circuit that is bad, it is faster and less time consuming to just start replacing components until the system is fixed. This is also used for large screen TVs and even in cars in the auto industry. The repair costs can be more on parts but much lower on labor. So instead of a repair taking 4 to 5 hours or days it can take 20 minutes. Logistically this also makes sense on a large scale. Time is money!

 

[chucker23n1]

Ethically, it's questionable for a company that typically only releases one update per year to then sneak in an update 3 months after that. Have they ever done this before? Not to my knowledge.

They released the first Intel-based iMac just three months after a PowerPC-based revision. That was fairly significant.

 

[MrUNIMOG]

so if the iPhone 11 came out next year and Apple decided to break the cycle and an iPhone 11S gets released a couple of months later, you’re saying that no one should be pissed? you’re telling me that you wouldn’t be pissed if you bought the iPhone 11?

Bad analogy is bad.

It's more like if in January '19 they decide to introduce a 1 TB option for the iPhone XS, when higher capacity NAND chips become available. That one will obviously be more expensive than the 512 GB model.

Really that's a much better analogy to the MBP Vega situation right now. It's still the same model as before, they just added higher end GPU options (at higher prices) since higher end chips became available.

 

[lec0rsaire]

Is it better than RTX 2080?

It’s not even close but it does put it firmly in 1050 territory if not slightly ahead. That’s totally fine for a 15” ultrabook. Expecting something with the power of a 1080ti in this chassis right now would be asking for too much.
[doublepost=1542308177][/doublepost]

Should I spend a ton of money now on this MacBook Pro with a Vega 20 or should I wait for the elusive Mac Pro?

When is the elusive Mac Pro supposed to come out again? :-o

Honestly I would buy the next one. It should come with this standard and there may be a stronger GPU by then. Also the hardware Meltdown/Spectre fix but honestly who knows. Intel was supposed to be on 10nm a while ago. They may release Skylake for the 4th time!

Honestly now this 15” MBP is a complete machine. It really has no weakness. The GPU is not desktop quality but it is almost the best that can be achieved without sacrificing battery life.