Advice: 2016 13"+egpu vs 15" w/460

[appleish19]

Hey everyone so I'm looking at buying a 2016 model MacBook Pro in the next few days due to an unavoidable opportunity.

Mainly like playing Forza horizons on windows, flight simulators and Diablo three like stuff. Mainly at 1080p but looking to upgrade to 4K in the future.

I know the 15 inch has TB3 directly connected to the CPU. Yet from what I've read the 13 inch is easier to get set up with a desktop class card.

I also use Final Cut Pro for ~10 minute videos comprised of 4K 30fps video and pictures. Render times really don't bother me but speed is nice though. Currently have a 2012 13" i7 and it's not bad per se.

Any recommendations or personal experience with either of the above? Any advice is most appreciated.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Well if you want to do 4K video editing and that is likely to become more of your usage in the future the 15 inch is the way to go simple as that really the quadcore makes all the difference and helps a lot in gaming as well.

Your gaming may require a eGPU in the future but the 15 inch should do you ok for now with the 460 (that graphics card has the same graphics processing power as a play station 4) but 4K gaming does require a more powerful desktop card for modern games at decent frame rates.

To be honest you may be better buying the 13 inch for your laptop needs and getting a windows PC with a better graphics card and quadcore CPU for gaming and rendering.

 

[theitsage]

I would recommend the 13". It's a much easier process to pair an eGPU with integrated-only-GPU Macs. When your Mac has a discrete GPU, you'll face with resource-allocation issues in Windows (typically error 12). On top of that, Apple firmware disables the iGPU in favor of dGPU in operating systems other than macOS.

 

[appleish19]

Well if you want to do 4K video editing and that is likely to become more of your usage in the future the 15 inch is the way to go simple as that really the quadcore makes all the difference and helps a lot in gaming as well.

Your gaming may require a eGPU in the future but the 15 inch should do you ok for now with the 460 (that graphics card has the same graphics processing power as a play station 4) but 4K gaming does require a more powerful desktop card for modern games at decent frame rates.

To be honest you may be better buying the 13 inch for your laptop needs and getting a windows PC with a better graphics card and quadcore CPU for gaming and rendering.

I know what you mean I could build a Windows machine I just really like sticking with Mac products. Plus with an EGPU I feel like it will move from machine to machine.

I would recommend the 13". It's a much easier process to pair an eGPU with integrated-only-GPU Macs. When your Mac has a discrete GPU, you'll face with resource-allocation issues in Windows (typically error 12). On top of that, Apple firmware disables the iGPU in favor of dGPU in operating systems other than macOS.

Definitely I've heard about and read about the error 12 when there is already discrete graphics in play. How would the performance be with the i7 dual core with a good egpu and card? You always hear so many people saying that a quad core is needed for gaming.

 

[darksithpro]

How would the performance be with the i7 dual core with a good egpu and card? You always hear so many people saying that a quad core is needed for gaming.

Simple, take a 15 inch RMBP, disable two cores and bring the power factor down from around 45 watts down to 15. It's a big difference.

 

[nph]

How would you do that? Sounds intriguing for travel to extend battery life...

 

[darksithpro]

How would you do that? Sounds intriguing for travel to extend battery life...

Haha, yea really. Probably have to be some high level Intel engineer with some type of BIOS alterations and kernel level coding. However I do know modern versions of Windows do utilize "Core Parking" techniques, where 1, or more cores are not used at the software level to save power on modern Intel CPUs. I do not know if modern Mac-OS implements these techniques like Microsoft.

 

[votehart407]

Hey everyone so I'm looking at buying a 2016 model MacBook Pro in the next few days due to an unavoidable opportunity.

Mainly like playing Forza horizons on windows, flight simulators and Diablo three like stuff. Mainly at 1080p but looking to upgrade to 4K in the future.

I know the 15 inch has TB3 directly connected to the CPU. Yet from what I've read the 13 inch is easier to get set up with a desktop class card.

I also use Final Cut Pro for ~10 minute videos comprised of 4K 30fps video and pictures. Render times really don't bother me but speed is nice though. Currently have a 2012 13" i7 and it's not bad per se.

Any recommendations or personal experience with either of the above? Any advice is most appreciated.

[doublepost=1494071862][/doublepost]Hope you are well. There is a great forum on egpu and Macs. My set up is at the link below. Trust me, if I can set up a egpu with a MBP 15 then anyone can. I am using a Titan x Pascal so the 1080ti should expect similar results.

https://egpu.io/forums/implementati...-pascal-better-than-blade-and-gs40/#post-9776

At this point it is close enough to plug and play for me. The MBP simply performs better than the Blade and GS40. The numbers speak for themselves.

3DMark Ultra - Razer Core with Titan X Pascal

GS40 - 6070

Blade - 5889

MBP - 6190

MBP (Titan overclocked) - 6683

3440x1440 - Highest Settings - No AA unless noted

• Far Cry - 70 to 90
• Tomb Raider 2016 - 74
• Tomb Raider 2014 - 108
• Unigine 4.0 (2560x1440) - Ultra - 4AA - Scored 2829 and 112 fps
• Sleeping Dogs - 101
• Witcher 3 - 60 (Griffin Scene)
• Just Cause - 65 to 90
• Deus Ex MD Full AA - Benchmark - 43
• Deus Ex MD No AA - Gameplay - 60 to 90
• Shadow of Mordor - 100
• Shadow of Mordor - Full AA - 90
• Grid Autosport - 106
• Division - 57
• Far Cry 4 - 70 to 90
• GTA 2015 - 80 to 90

Titan X Pascal - Overclocked

• Shadow of Mordor - Full AA - 109 (19 fps increase)
• Tomb Raider 2016 - 80 (6 fps increase)
• Grid Autosoort - No change
• Far Cry 4 (80 to 110) - No AA - I check and rechecked. (15 fps increase)
• Sleeping Dogs - No change
• Tomb Raider 2014 - 119 (11 fps increase)
• Witcher 3 - No change
• More to come...

 

[Patcell]

[doublepost=1494071862][/doublepost]Hope you are well. There is a great forum on egpu and Macs. My set up is at the link below. Trust me, if I can set up a egpu with a MBP 15 then anyone can. I am using a Titan x Pascal so the 1080ti should expect similar results.

https://egpu.io/forums/implementati...-pascal-better-than-blade-and-gs40/#post-9776

At this point it is close enough to plug and play for me. The MBP simply performs better than the Blade and GS40. The numbers speak for themselves.

3DMark Ultra - Razer Core with Titan X Pascal

GS40 - 6070

Blade - 5889

MBP - 6190

MBP (Titan overclocked) - 6683

3440x1440 - Highest Settings - No AA unless noted

• Far Cry - 70 to 90
• Tomb Raider 2016 - 74
• Tomb Raider 2014 - 108
• Unigine 4.0 (2560x1440) - Ultra - 4AA - Scored 2829 and 112 fps
• Sleeping Dogs - 101
• Witcher 3 - 60 (Griffin Scene)
• Just Cause - 65 to 90
• Deus Ex MD Full AA - Benchmark - 43
• Deus Ex MD No AA - Gameplay - 60 to 90
• Shadow of Mordor - 100
• Shadow of Mordor - Full AA - 90
• Grid Autosport - 106
• Division - 57
• Far Cry 4 - 70 to 90
• GTA 2015 - 80 to 90

Titan X Pascal - Overclocked

• Shadow of Mordor - Full AA - 109 (19 fps increase)
• Tomb Raider 2016 - 80 (6 fps increase)
• Grid Autosoort - No change
• Far Cry 4 (80 to 110) - No AA - I check and rechecked. (15 fps increase)
• Sleeping Dogs - No change
• Tomb Raider 2014 - 119 (11 fps increase)
• Witcher 3 - No change
• More to come...

OMG... That sounds awesome. I am very happy to hear someone got this working!
[doublepost=1494076899][/doublepost]

Hey everyone so I'm looking at buying a 2016 model MacBook Pro in the next few days due to an unavoidable opportunity.

Mainly like playing Forza horizons on windows, flight simulators and Diablo three like stuff. Mainly at 1080p but looking to upgrade to 4K in the future.

I know the 15 inch has TB3 directly connected to the CPU. Yet from what I've read the 13 inch is easier to get set up with a desktop class card.

I also use Final Cut Pro for ~10 minute videos comprised of 4K 30fps video and pictures. Render times really don't bother me but speed is nice though. Currently have a 2012 13" i7 and it's not bad per se.

Any recommendations or personal experience with either of the above? Any advice is most appreciated.

To the OP... I would lean toward the 15" if I were you. The Radeon Pro 460 GPU should hold you over for now given your needs.

 

[appleish19]

[doublepost=1494071862][/doublepost]Hope you are well. There is a great forum on egpu and Macs. My set up is at the link below. Trust me, if I can set up a egpu with a MBP 15 then anyone can. I am using a Titan x Pascal so the 1080ti should expect similar results.

https://egpu.io/forums/implementati...-pascal-better-than-blade-and-gs40/#post-9776

At this point it is close enough to plug and play for me. The MBP simply performs better than the Blade and GS40. The numbers speak for themselves.

3DMark Ultra - Razer Core with Titan X Pascal

GS40 - 6070

Blade - 5889

MBP - 6190

MBP (Titan overclocked) - 6683

3440x1440 - Highest Settings - No AA unless noted

• Far Cry - 70 to 90
• Tomb Raider 2016 - 74
• Tomb Raider 2014 - 108
• Unigine 4.0 (2560x1440) - Ultra - 4AA - Scored 2829 and 112 fps
• Sleeping Dogs - 101
• Witcher 3 - 60 (Griffin Scene)
• Just Cause - 65 to 90
• Deus Ex MD Full AA - Benchmark - 43
• Deus Ex MD No AA - Gameplay - 60 to 90
• Shadow of Mordor - 100
• Shadow of Mordor - Full AA - 90
• Grid Autosport - 106
• Division - 57
• Far Cry 4 - 70 to 90
• GTA 2015 - 80 to 90

Titan X Pascal - Overclocked

• Shadow of Mordor - Full AA - 109 (19 fps increase)
• Tomb Raider 2016 - 80 (6 fps increase)
• Grid Autosoort - No change
• Far Cry 4 (80 to 110) - No AA - I check and rechecked. (15 fps increase)
• Sleeping Dogs - No change
• Tomb Raider 2014 - 119 (11 fps increase)
• Witcher 3 - No change
• More to come...

Thanks, I am doing well just finalizing my decision on which one to get. Leaning towards a new 2.7 GHz 455 or slightly used 2.7 with the 460.

I just found that forum yesterday and signed up. Great place to learn about that stuff. Thanks so much for the frames per second stuff really appreciate it.

OMG... That sounds awesome. I am very happy to hear someone got this working!
[doublepost=1494076899][/doublepost]

To the OP... I would lean toward the 15" if I were you. The Radeon Pro 460 GPU should hold you over for now given your needs.

That's what I'm thinking. It seems like it's a pretty decent step up from the 455.

 

[votehart407]

Thanks, I am doing well just finalizing my decision on which one to get. Leaning towards a new 2.7 GHz 455 or slightly used 2.7 with the 460.

I just found that forum yesterday and signed up. Great place to learn about that stuff. Thanks so much for the frames per second stuff really appreciate it.

That's what I'm thinking. It seems like it's a pretty decent step up from the 455.

If possible get the 460. The extra juice opens up more newer AAA games at lower resolution and makes more causal less intensive games better to play.

 

[appleish19]

If possible get the 460. The extra juice opens up more newer AAA games at lower resolution and makes more causal less intensive games better to play.

That's definitely what I'm leaning towards. Here's a YouTube video of a guy showing the 455 and gaming. Pretty impressive for the mid range card.

 

[darksithpro]

That's definitely what I'm leaning towards. Here's a YouTube video of a guy showing the 455 and gaming. Pretty impressive for the mid range card.

Not to be a smart arse, but you could buy a $1,200-1500 dollar gaming laptop with a 1060, or a 1070 that would do circles around that Macbook. They are definitely poor choices for gaming. Thumbs up to a 3,000 dollar machine that can play games equally as well as an $800 dollar Laptop is nothing to gloat about.

 

[appleish19]

Not to be a smart arse, but you could buy a $1,200-1500 dollar gaming laptop with a 1060, or a 1070 that would do circles around that Macbook. They are definitely poor choices for gaming. Thumbs up to a 3,000 dollar machine that can play games equally as well as an $800 dollar Laptop is nothing to gloat about.

I completely understand that. I just gave up windows OEM manufacturers 10 years ago and I refuse to go back, windows 10 is already a hassle for gaming.

I really don't mind paying around $3000 for a efficient, light and well engineered MacBook Pro even if I need an EGPU for more intense gaming. In my opinion money well spent with the level of service, lack of frustration and of course macOS.

Looking like a 2016 15" w/460 and then in a month or two a Mantiz Venus Egpu. Can't wait.

 

[darksithpro]

I completely understand that. I just gave up windows OEM manufacturers 10 years ago and I refuse to go back, windows 10 is already a hassle for gaming.

I really don't mind paying around $3000 for a efficient, light and well engineered MacBook Pro even if I need an EGPU for more intense gaming. In my opinion money well spent with the level of service, lack of frustration and of course macOS.

Looking like a 2016 15" w/460 and then in a month or two a Mantiz Venus Egpu. Can't wait.

You make very good points. It's all about the individual needs and wants of the consumer. I fully understand people when they refuse to run Windows. The are personal experiences where Windows in the past was a major PITA, with viruses/malware, instability and just a poor experience. One could even argue, just get a gaming console, or two like the PS4 and Xbox and have the best of both worlds.

 

[appleish19]

You make very good points. It's all about the individual needs and wants of the consumer. I fully understand people when they refuse to run Windows. The are personal experiences where Windows in the past was a major PITA, with viruses/malware, instability and just a poor experience. One could even argue, just get a gaming console, or two like the PS4 and Xbox and have the best of both worlds.

Definitely. And that's my experience with windows even today. It just doesn't suit me. Antivirus software, UI and just the overall experience.

Funny enough I actually have a PS4. Just find that it doesn't have the versatility I'm looking for. Some games are a good point. But it would be nice to be able to carry around your entire life and be able to play some games at ~1080p with decent settings.
Plus that 15" in space gray is a looker.

 

[votehart407]

Definitely. And that's my experience with windows even today. It just doesn't suit me. Antivirus software, UI and just the overall experience.

Funny enough I actually have a PS4. Just find that it doesn't have the versatility I'm looking for. Some games are a good point. But it would be nice to be able to carry around your entire life and be able to play some games at ~1080p with decent settings.
Plus that 15" in space gray is a looker.

The space gray looks great day to day.

I think the OP brings up good points and I would add $1200 to $1500 1060 laptops typically have very poor battery life, look like it belongs to a teenager and will have subpar UI. All the dollars going towards the GPU.

For $700 to $1000 he can play all his games maxed out on a 1080p screen with a egpu.