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750m is slower than last years 650m?

J

Jaimi

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 22, 2009
135
2
This site is benchmarking the new mbp:

http://elie.im/blog/web/high-end-macbook-pro-retina-late-2013-15-benchmark/#.Um6Lv_lwrTQ

But if you look down, you'll see that the "Heaven" benchmark is slower on the new macbook pro (on the 750m) than it was on the 2012 model 650m. Does anyone else have any benchmarks? Did they go the cheap route, and use an underclocked version with DDR3 or something?

PS - I'm aware that some of you don't care about having a faster computer or faster graphics, so please don't tell me that no one needs it because you don't need it. The faster the graphics, the faster I can actually get my work done. Thanks!
 
This could be caused by a driver issue. But the Starcraft Benchmark is impressive. The 750m is 44% faster than the Iris 5200 Pro with 2880x1800 and settings and textures high. The missing VRAM is clearly the bottleneck of the Iris 5200 pro.
 
Maybe their benchmarks are wrong or it's just nonsense.

The 750M is the 650M... It's just slightly higher clocked and comes with twice the VRAM. Perhaps it's being mixed up with the less powerful Iris Pro?
 
Jaimi said:
This site is benchmarking the new mbp:

http://elie.im/blog/web/high-end-macbook-pro-retina-late-2013-15-benchmark/#.Um6Lv_lwrTQ

But if you look down, you'll see that the "Heaven" benchmark is slower on the new macbook pro (on the 750m) than it was on the 2012 model 650m. Does anyone else have any benchmarks? Did they go the cheap route, and use an underclocked version with DDR3 or something?

PS - I'm aware that some of you don't care about having a faster computer or faster graphics, so please don't tell me that no one needs it because you don't need it. The faster the graphics, the faster I can actually get my work done. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I have to think this is a software issue. I was also trying to figure out how the 750m could perform so poorly on Unigine Heaven (was comparing it to the Iris Pro performance and they were within 1% of each other).

When I actually switched to testing real games the results were much more in line with expectations, with the 750m beating Iris Pro by at least 20%. Until I tried Minecraft, at which point the 750m put out 45fps compared to Iris Pro's ~100. I'd say there's definitely something to be sorted out on the software end.
 
SCOLANATOR said:
Maybe their benchmarks are wrong or it's just nonsense.

The 750M is the 650M... It's just slightly higher clocked and comes with twice the VRAM. Perhaps it's being mixed up with the less powerful Iris Pro?
Click to expand...

While it is true that the 750m is just the 650m, what is also true is that in the 2012 model, the 650m was overclocked and used GDDR5. Is this still true? If so, I would suspect a driver issue like they say. I don't believe they are confusing it with the integrated gpu, since they list that as a separate (and significantly slower) item. Still, seems backward to have the highend option to be slower than last years.

I'm wavering on whether to go forward, or wait for a possible mid-year bump. NotebookCheck is also showing benchmarks now - From slower to slightly faster. hmmm.
 
Last edited:
I'm interested to see how the graphics switching works out. Seeing as how there are a couple strong points of the 5200 vs. the 750 (OpenCL), I wonder what applications end up using the "wrong" chip if at all? Might be a moot question, but I'm still interested in the implications of the "overlap" of processing power between the 5200 and 750.
 
Jaimi said:
While it is true that the 750m is just the 650m, what is also true is that in the 2012 model, the 650m was overclocked and used GDDR5. Is this still true? If so, I would suspect a driver issue like they say. I don't believe they are confusing it with the integrated gpu, since they list that as a separate (and significantly slower) item. Still, seems backward to have the highend option to be slower than last years.
Click to expand...

It's not slower. Apple overclocked the 650m to 900MHz while the 750m comes standard (without additional overlock) with 967MHz.

The cause could be Mavericks / OS X. Benchmarks on notebookcheck clearly show that the 750m is faster.

edit: The 650m on your site is run on OS X 10.7 (Lion) while the 750m is run on OS X 10.9 (Mountain Lion). There has been report that Mountain Lion 10.9 caused a drop in fps. So it's comparing apples with oranges.
 
Jaimi said:
I would suspect a driver issue like they say.
Click to expand...

I'm unfamiliar with Apple's driver update methods (coming from an old iMac that I don't care much about anymore).

Would Apple release an update for something like this? Or a package update with other hardware optimizations rolled in after a few months?
 
Jaimi said:
While it is true that the 750m is just the 650m, what is also true is that in the 2012 model, the 650m was overclocked and used GDDR5. Is this still true? If so, I would suspect a driver issue like they say. I don't believe they are confusing it with the integrated gpu, since they list that as a separate (and significantly slower) item. Still, seems backward to have the highend option to be slower than last years.
Click to expand...

Yes they are still using GDDR5, it says so on their site! Why would they remove that advantage?

Yes the 650M was overclocked, it was a special 'golden sample', basically high quality binned chips that can be clocked higher while remaining stable. The 750M will at the very minimum have the same clock speed, most likely a little higher! I believe the 650M was clocked at 900MHz and came with 1GB GDDR5, the 750M I believe is clocked at 967MHz with 2GB GDDR5.

If these benchmarks are real then there is a driver/software issue. The 750M wont be much more powerful than last years 650M but it wont be less powerful, that is absolutely certain!

Wait until we see proper benchmarks, hopefully some in bootcamp as well!
 
SCOLANATOR said:
Yes they are still using GDDR5, it says so on their site! Why would they remove that advantage?

Yes the 650M was overclocked, it was a special 'golden sample', basically high quality binned chips that can be clocked higher while remaining stable. The 750M will at the very minimum have the same clock speed, most likely a little higher! I believe the 650M was clocked at 900MHz and came with 1GB GDDR5, the 750M I believe is clocked at 967MHz with 2GB GDDR5.

If these benchmarks are real then there is a driver/software issue. The 750M wont be much more powerful than last years 650M but it wont be less powerful, that is absolutely certain!

Wait until we see proper benchmarks, hopefully some in bootcamp as well!
Click to expand...

The benchmarks for the 650m and 750m are run on a different Operation system.
 
UBS28 said:
It's not slower. Apple overclocked the 650m to 900MHz while the 750m comes standard (without additional overlock) with 967MHz.

The cause could be Mavericks / OS X. Benchmarks on notebookcheck clearly show that the 750m is faster.

edit: The 650m on your site is run on OS X 10.7 (Lion) while the 750m is run on OS X 10.9 (Mountain Lion). There has been report that Mountain Lion 10.9 caused a drop in fps. So it's comparing apples with oranges.
Click to expand...

As cautious as I am interpreting benchmarks already, seeing all these variables made it difficult for me to take away any solid results - or even feelings - about the data. Not to disparage the author (not familiar with him, and I know he didn't have all the hardware/software on hand), and I certainly appreciate these first rounds of real life testing (finally), but the controls need to be more consistent across the board.
 
UBS28 said:
The benchmarks for the 650m and 750m are run on a different Operation system.
Click to expand...

Then there's the discrepancy. No need to go scaremongering.

This is why we should be waiting for reputable reviews from the likes of Anandtech. I have no doubt about the Macs gaming potential, I've already settled for a 750M version, just wish there was an option for perhaps a 765M.
 
SCOLANATOR said:
Then there's the discrepancy. No need to go scaremongering.

This is why we should be waiting for reputable reviews from the likes of Anandtech. I have no doubt about the Macs gaming potential, I've already settled for a 750M version, just wish there was an option for perhaps a 765M.
Click to expand...

It was two different versions of OSX. So either: Mavericks is making it slower, or the driver is slower. End result: it's slower than the 2012 version, like stated. Notebookcheck is looking better, some are slower, some are faster. Overall, it's not looking like an upgrade at all. Good news on the GDDR5 though, hopefully it's just driver/software and can be fixed.
 
GSPice said:
I'm interested to see how the graphics switching works out. Seeing as how there are a couple strong points of the 5200 vs. the 750 (OpenCL), I wonder what applications end up using the "wrong" chip if at all? Might be a moot question, but I'm still interested in the implications of the "overlap" of processing power between the 5200 and 750.
Click to expand...

As a rule, whenever possible the graphics switching will make the wrong choice. You really need gfxCardStatus to effectively make use of a dual GPU Macbook.

To put this in more serious terms, basically anything that asks the OS for more serious GPU power will cause a switch to dGPU regardless of what makes sense. Application developers that want to take advantage of HD 5200 compute in dual GPU systems will have to make adjustments to ensure their software doesn't trigger the switch (and I don't know what this implies as the development work I do is all for Windows).

Fortunately virtually everything I've tried (except when an external display is involved) will respect the gfxCardStatus setting.
 
Jaimi said:
PS - I'm aware that some of you don't care about having a faster computer or faster graphics, so please don't tell me that no one needs it because you don't need it. The faster the graphics, the faster I can actually get my work done.
Click to expand...

Then buy a Mac Pro. ;)

Even the high-end iMacs pack faster graphics, the 750M is really quite ho-hum if you're after super speedy graphics.
 
Atomic Walrus said:
As a rule, whenever possible the graphics switching will make the wrong choice. You really need gfxCardStatus to effectively make use of a dual GPU Macbook.

To put this in more serious terms, basically anything that asks the OS for more serious GPU power will cause a switch to dGPU regardless of what makes sense. Application developers that want to take advantage of HD 5200 compute in dual GPU systems will have to make adjustments to ensure their software doesn't trigger the switch (and I don't know what this implies as the development work I do is all for Windows).

Fortunately virtually everything I've tried (except when an external display is involved) will respect the gfxCardStatus setting.
Click to expand...

Would you say Apple-developed software would get the logic right? (no pun intended)
 
UBS28 said:
It's not slower. Apple overclocked the 650m to 900MHz while the 750m comes standard (without additional overlock) with 967MHz.

The cause could be Mavericks / OS X. Benchmarks on notebookcheck clearly show that the 750m is faster.

edit: The 650m on your site is run on OS X 10.7 (Lion) while the 750m is run on OS X 10.9 (Mountain Lion). There has been report that Mountain Lion 10.9 caused a drop in fps. So it's comparing apples with oranges.
Click to expand...

yup.
 
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