2015 MBP and Lightroom

[Dave410]

Hey Guys,

I'm considering a 2015 MBP and looking to optimize Lightroom performance. Would the quad-core i7 in the 15-inch MBP be significantly faster than the dual-core i7 in the 13-inch MBP? I guess this is really a question about how well Lightroom uses additional cores in the Mac OS.

Additionally, is the "Use Graphics Processor" option in Lightroom available for either the 13-inch MBP or the 15-inch MBP, keeping in mind that discrete graphics is no longer available on 2015 MBPs. Both the 15-inch and 13-inch 2015 MacBook Pros use onboard graphics, much to my dismay.

Many thanks for your expertise.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[tryrtryrtryrt]

Note 13" '15 has Broadwell iGPU while 15" '15 has Haswell iGPU. As per Wikipedia - Iris Pro Graphics 5200 832 Gflops (15"), Iris Graphics 6100 844.8 Gflops (13"). So you should not lose specifically iGPU performance if "Use Graphics Processor" is available.

 

[Dave410]

Many thanks. Judging by those numbers, the graphics performance is about the same. Still wondering about overall performance in Lightroom.

 

[Chancha]

Quad core can almost literally double the speed in brute multi-thread tasks, which in LR the RAW processing and exporting do utilitze. So if you do a lot of batch adjustments, previews generation, and batch save/export then you will be better served by the 15". Other than that The 15" screen is quite significantly larger than 13" in real estate and max resolution, so if you use LR without an external monitor the 15" (at 1920x1200 scaled) can at least leave some palettes on screen without the photo being less than half size than full screen, which is what happens on 13".

Despite the dGPU model already not available now, but I got it off Apple Online Store refurb, in fact after the 2016 was announced. It is a 2015 maxed out 15", having "use GPU" option turned on in LR it quite frequently fires up, and I think it never even switches back to iGPU until I quit LR. I didn't do a very throughout test but if I turn that option off using just the iGPU, the overall interface, preview rendering speed, feels slightly slower than dGPU. It's not to the point of useable but noticeable.

 

[Dave410]

Thanks for the info, Chancha. Glad you were able to snag a 2015 with dedicated graphics. I've been watching the refurb store and local classifieds for one, but, so far, no dice.