AMD Details Radeon Pro Graphics in New 15-inch MacBook Pro Models

[\-V-/]

Great. You're one of the ones who chooses to buy someone else's technology. Your dollars will contribute to another company's profits, thereby enforcing their competition, and further driving forward the progress of technology.
Just realize - it's all the same, and whining about one company's decisions is silly, myopic, and self defeating.
Congratulations on your ignorant, self-absorbed indignation and decision to back another company's profit mongering with your hard-earned dollars.
You do realize that NONE of these advancements actually qualify as basic-human-needs, right? That a HUGE percentage of the world can't even fathom such luxuries, because they're just hoping for a bag of rice and a trickle of disease-free-water from the communal well? None of them give a crap about whether you can get a 450 or 460 or 480 for your dollar, or whether or not someone else is offering a better chip for a lesser price. Because they don't live in a country where that choice is even made possible by free-market competition. Stop friggin WHINING about how it works in a free-market economy, make your choice, and enjoy without constantly criticizing the process that makes it all possible.
Or - move to Nicaragua and enjoy the progress they have there.
BTW - you spend a LOT of time negatively commenting on a site which promotes products that you clearly see as inferior. What a miserable, lousy way to waste time... why not just head over to the Microsoft forums and sing the praises of the new Surface products that you're clearly more personally satisfied with? Or else, apply for a job at Apple, because you're clearly more capable of running one of the most profitable companies in history better than the current crew. Either way - you really find the most satisfaction trolling around here and bi***ing about how dissatisfied you are? Sorry, bro.

This is literally all white noise with no point. People are allowed to complain, especially when there's something clearly obvious to complain about ... and many others feel the same way as I do. "You're one of the ones" ... I'm one of the ones that has been a die hard Apple fan since I was a little kid. My entire family uses Apple products. I've supported them and given them tens of thousands of dollars over the years. OS X is still my favorite operating system and it's what I use for my main workflow. Your rant is not only ridiculous, but misplaced. I'm not some anti-Apple fanboy. I'm speaking from the place of someone that has an immense passion for Apple products and I'm sincerely disappointed with their decision to yet again put a subpar GPU in their top of the line laptops. It's an insult to Apple users. Remember when they had GPUs in the 13"? Remember during keynotes when they used to pride themselves on GPU performance compared to the competition? In what world does my dissatisfaction with the way Apple is doing things have anything to do with you thinking I could run Apple better? You're not just drinking the Kool-aid, you are drowning in it. This is the silliest response I've ever read.

God forbid anyone doesn't like what a company they've invested in is doing. Just blindly like everything Apple does. If you don't like people complaining, why are you here? Are you that sensitive? Give me a break.

 

[sevoneone]

So, this is the Final Cut Macbook Pro? Maybe there should be a Photoshop Macbook Pro and a Gamer Macbook Pro.

Listen, maybe everyone that runs Final Cut uses a Macbook Pro, but not everyone that uses a Macbook Pro runs Final Cut Pro. Why would you make a major design decision like choosing a GPU based on one software program? Apple OWNS FCP...they COULD make it work better with nVIDIA if they wanted to.

Oh I am in no way defending the choice, simply stating the probable reasons. Apple could, and should, write CUDA support into Final Cut.

 

[\-V-/]

Why is everyone so surprised that the Razer Blade Pro is so great? It STARTS at $3800. It weighs 8 lbs.

And the maxed out MacBook Pro with incredibly inferior specs is $4300. Try again.

 

[Feenician]

And the maxed out MacBook Pro with incredibly inferior specs is $4300. Try again.

And still weighs 4 pounds and doesn't look like a laptop for a clown at the circus to use.

 

[greyosx]

And still weighs 4 pounds and doesn't look like a laptop for a clown at the circus to use.

To be fair, it's probably too underpowered for a circus clown to even use.

 

[cropas]

And still weighs 4 pounds and doesn't look like a laptop for a clown at the circus to use.

4 pounds is so light that people can run with their new MacBook Pro. Of course it need to be stored in Nike special $200 case.

 

[Feenician]

4 pounds is so light that people can run with their new MacBook Pro. Of course it need to be stored in Nike special $200 case.

Cool. Thanks for registering today for this completely senseless snark.

 

[mehdijobs]

Great. You're one of the ones who chooses to buy someone else's technology. Your dollars will contribute to another company's profits, thereby enforcing their competition, and further driving forward the progress of technology.
Just realize - it's all the same, and whining about one company's decisions is silly, myopic, and self defeating.
Congratulations on your ignorant, self-absorbed indignation and decision to back another company's profit mongering with your hard-earned dollars.
You do realize that NONE of these advancements actually qualify as basic-human-needs, right? That a HUGE percentage of the world can't even fathom such luxuries, because they're just hoping for a bag of rice and a trickle of disease-free-water from the communal well? None of them give a crap about whether you can get a 450 or 460 or 480 for your dollar, or whether or not someone else is offering a better chip for a lesser price. Because they don't live in a country where that choice is even made possible by free-market competition. Stop friggin WHINING about how it works in a free-market economy, make your choice, and enjoy without constantly criticizing the process that makes it all possible.
Or - move to Nicaragua and enjoy the progress they have there.
BTW - you spend a LOT of time negatively commenting on a site which promotes products that you clearly see as inferior. What a miserable, lousy way to waste time... why not just head over to the Microsoft forums and sing the praises of the new Surface products that you're clearly more personally satisfied with? Or else, apply for a job at Apple, because you're clearly more capable of running one of the most profitable companies in history better than the current crew. Either way - you really find the most satisfaction trolling around here and bi***ing about how dissatisfied you are? Sorry, bro.

So let's just buy bags of rice and comment them on Ricerumors.com?
I dont get your point man.. We shouldnt comment on products? And just say whatever we are getting is already way too luxurious because people in Nicaragua are not gettin' em? In that case let's stop updates for the next 50 years, cause for sure nobody needs VR, nobody needs faster internet, nobody needs 4k, 5k, 8k, nobody needs holograms, and 3d printing and augmented reality.. Let's all wait for the world to get water, and then we can start again improving our laptops right?

 

[CoolKid26]

The Razer Blade is relatively thin and has a GTX 1080. Power is not an issue. I would blame Apple's relentless pursuit of thinness as the reason, but it could be that Apple is just greedy.



Probably because it's relatively thin and has the highest GPU available, sans Titan. It's relevant since super thick laptops were given as an example. A laptop doesn't need to be thick to have a decent GPU. The smaller versions use the 9 series. Apple is using the bottom of the barrel GPUs in their 2500 dollar laptops. How do you not see the point based on the context of this conversation?

It's 8lbs and has a power brick lol.

 

[cropas]

Cool. Thanks for registering today for this completely senseless snark.

I'm sorry for being newbie.

 

[robT9]

I know everyone here is whining about how horrible the graphics chipset is, but can someone please answer a few practical questions for those who are contemplating a purchase....

Does it make sense to upgrade to the 460 if you are not a gamer? Would programs like photoshop or premiere run any better?

Does the 460 allow you to run higher res displays at a higher refresh rate or does the increased graphic memory not matter?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Internet Enzyme]

AMD has shared some technical details on the new Radeon Pro graphics cards included in the 15-inch MacBook Pro models, giving some insight into their performance and the differences between the three options.

The Radeon Pro 400 Series Graphics are built on AMD's Polaris architecture and are fabricated using the 14nm FinFET process to achieve high performance without sacrificing power efficiency. They offer memory bandwidth of up to 80GB/s.

The Radeon Pro 460, available as a $200 upgrade in the entry-level 15-inch MacBook Pro and a $100 upgrade in the higher-end 15-inch MacBook Pro, offers 1.86 Teraflops of horsepower and 16 compute units (1024 stream processors).

The Radon Pro 455, the default option in the higher-end 15-inch MacBook Pro, features 1.3 Teraflops of horsepower and 12 compute units (768 stream processors). The Radeon Pro 450, available in the entry-level 15-inch MacBook Pro as the default option, offers 1 Teraflop of horsepower and 10 compute units (640 stream processors).

According to AMD, the Radeon Pro graphics processors inside the MacBook Pro are thinner than a US penny with a Z-height of 1.5mm but still pack in 3 billion transistors. The Radeon Pro features "advanced power technology" to allow the MacBook Pro to stay cool and quiet even during demanding tasks.

On its MacBook Pro website, Apple says the 15-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 130 percent faster graphics performance (with the Radeon 460) and up to 2.5x more computing power per watt compared to the previous-generation 15-inch MacBook Pro.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro uses integrated graphics instead of discrete graphics, but Apple says the Iris Graphics 550 are up to 103 percent faster than the Iris Graphics 6100 in the previous-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Article Link: AMD Details Radeon Pro Graphics in New 15-inch MacBook Pro Models

Only one teraflop? What the hell? I know this is a bad comparison, but my ps4 from 2013 has 4 teraflops, and it wasnt even high end at the time. This is a $2000 laptop coming out in 2016 and its specs are worse than what is essentially a mid-tier pc from 3 years ago? That sounds kinda awful.

 

[Theophil1971]

So let's just buy bags of rice and comment them on Ricerumors.com?
I dont get your point man.. We shouldnt comment on products? And just say whatever we are getting is already way too luxurious because people in Nicaragua are not gettin' em? In that case let's stop updates for the next 50 years, cause for sure nobody needs VR, nobody needs faster internet, nobody needs 4k, 5k, 8k, nobody needs holograms, and 3d printing and augmented reality.. Let's all wait for the world to get water, and then we can start again improving our laptops right?

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/emb.gif

 

[solamar]

And the maxed out MacBook Pro with incredibly inferior specs is $4300. Try again.

You do realize their is no 470, 480, or 490 version yet right?

AMD hasn't created the 14nm versions yet.. literally, these are next gen GPU's AMD JUST released TODAY. They've not even created the 470, 480, or 490 14nm versions.. NO ONE has them..

The one's you're referencing are 75w, 32nm, versions.. these are brand new, today, 35w versions, based on new 14nm process.

I'm excited to get mine.. it big upgrade from my old 750m I've got now.

 

[greyosx]

I'm super disappointed in Apple. I'm on a 2010 15" MBP and I placed the order for it earlier today and after much thinking, I just can't do it. The value for price is just too outrageous. I've been waiting for this forever and I'm so disappointed. I'm gonna go the route of building my first ever PC and it's going to be so much more powerful and cheaper. As soon as I can cancel my order, I'm going to do it.

 

[Feenician]

I'm sorry for being newbie.

No, no. I'm glad you're here on Macrumors to tell us about Dell machines. They're uncannily popular here.

Dell have even better offer. Intel® Xeon® E3-1545M v5 and Intel® Xeon® E3-1575M
Better graphics card NVIDIA Quadro M2000M med 4 GB GDDR5
up to 64GB ECC or non ECC DDR4
15,6" UltraSharp UHD IGZO-skærm (3840 x 2160)

Dell and Lenovo they also doing lightweight products but they not calling those "PRO"

 

[Karma*Police]

Yes, exactly. I think the thinness is probably the main reason for the lack of GPU and the lower PSU. Apple is handicapping themselves with their thin obsession.

Apple is actually doing better than most with their "thin obsession" which, by the way, has a purpose... it's to reduce footprint and weight; both critical factors for a mobile device.

Few people are willing to lug a 8 lb laptop in exchange for more power. The 3 lb MacBook Pro packs more power than 95% of the population would know what to do with.

It sounds like you're looking for a mobile gaming rig. I would buy a PC if I were you and stop whining on here because it's not going to do you any good... Apple will never build such a niche device.

 

[greglo]

The 1060 in the regular Razor Blade, while outperforming this thing, has a TDP of 75 watts. (https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graph...GTX-1080-1070-and-1060-Enter-Gaming-Notebooks) I can't find a firm TDP spec for these Radeons, but I'm betting it's well under 50 watts.

The Razer Blade has a 165 watt power supply (250 in the Pro) vs 61 and 86 in the new 13 and 15 inch respectively. Cramming a 1060 in the 15 inch would leave 11 watts for every other component without increasing the PSU. It's about performance/watt, not just performance. If you have other priorities, cool, but there's no great revelation here and nothing to LOL about. It's the same as it's been for years.

Yet the old MBP was not able to even draw sufficient power to run the CPU and GPU at full power.

The 85-watt power adaptor is hardly adequate and limits the consumption to around 90 watts – which means that the MacBook cannot maintain the maximum clock for the CPU and the GPU simultaneously, even when the temperatures are very low — http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-Retina-15-Mid-2015-Review.144402.0.html
​

Apple chose to put in an insufficient power supply on their pro laptop, even though an increase of 5-10 watts would have been sufficient. No one expects [or should] a 1080m in a 15 inch laptop. But we are getting a GPU which is comparable to a 965m, when thin 14 inch laptops like Aorus X3, AERO 14, GS40, and a few others were using a 970m last year. Now they use the 1060 which gives 2x-3x more performance than that, which is already faster than the 965m/460.

But even that misses the point. If Apple could put a magical 1060 in and still make it thin and cool, but need 5-10 more watts, they would not choose to do so. They choose to "depower" the hardware in favour of thinness.

 

[inhalexhale1]

I'm sorry but this is truly pathetic. They only offer up to the 460 in even the top end MacBook Pro. Where's the 470 or even 480? You can spend nearly 5 grand after tax on the maxed out MacBook Pro and you're getting an AMD 460 and 16 GB of DDR3 RAM. Please tell me how Apple is not trying to rob everyone blind? Prices haven't been this absurd in a very long time.

It may actually not better or even the same as a normal 460. From notebookcheck:

"Compared to the similar Radeon RX 460 (see for benchmarks), the Pro 460 may be either the same or even feature more shaders but at a lower clock speed. The performance of the card could be similar to Radeon RX 460 is similar to the GTX 965M. It is the only card in the MacBook Pro 15 line-up that features more than 2 GB VRAM (Radeon Pro 450 and 455)."

So at best it's about on par with a 460, which is about on par with a GTX965 (which is in the Surface Book), but could be a little slower.

I agree with you on the disappointment. I fully expected Apple to use the 470.

 

[\-V-/]

It's 8lbs and has a power brick lol.

The point was not the weight, the point was the price to power ratio, in which Apple is severely lacking. And who cares about the adapter? It has to power the 250W PSU, which they actually fit into a .8" chassis. The MacBook Pro has a very gimped 80W PSU, which is probably the result of making their laptops too thin, or just a poor choice of hardware for the sake of greed. I honestly don't know the reason, but it's honestly getting pretty tiresome that people are still defending this 460 GPU. For nearly 5 grand after taxes, you are getting a GPU that's half as powerful as the currently outdated iMac ... and even the GPU in the iMac is a mid-tier mobile GPU. Please tell me what point you're trying to make that justifies the implementation of the 460 other than "IT WEIGHZ 8 POUNDS, LOLZ."

Yet the old MBP was not able to even draw sufficient power to run the CPU and GPU at full power.

The 85-watt power adaptor is hardly adequate and limits the consumption to around 90 watts – which means that the MacBook cannot maintain the maximum clock for the CPU and the GPU simultaneously, even when the temperatures are very low — http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-Retina-15-Mid-2015-Review.144402.0.html
​

Apple chose to put in an insufficient power supply on their pro laptop, even though an increase of 5-10 watts would have been sufficient. No one expects [or should] a 1080m in a 15 inch laptop. But we are getting a GPU which is comparable to a 965m, when thin 14 inch laptops like Aorus X3, AERO 14, GS40, and a few others were using a 970m last year. Now they use the 1060 which gives 2x-3x more performance than that, which is already faster than the 965m/460.

But even that misses the point. If Apple could put a magical 1060 in and still make it thin and cool, but need 5-10 more watts, they would not choose to do so. The choose to "depower" the hardware in favour of thinness.

And there you go.

 

[Palliser]

Yep I'm gonna pass on this new model. grabbing a refurb of the old one I guess.

 

[\-V-/]

It may actually not better or even the same as a normal 460. From notebookcheck:

"Compared to the similar Radeon RX 460 (see for benchmarks), the Pro 460 may be either the same or even feature more shaders but at a lower clock speed. The performance of the card could be similar to Radeon RX 460 is similar to the GTX 965M. It is the only card in the MacBook Pro 15 line-up that features more than 2 GB VRAM (Radeon Pro 450 and 455)."

So at best it's about on par with a 460, which is about on par with a GTX965 (which is in the Surface Book), but could be a little slower.

I agree with you on the disappointment. I fully expected Apple to use the 470.

The RX 460 is 2.2 Teraflops and the 460 Pro in the MBP is 1.8 Teraflops, so they're not quite the same. Regardless, the 460 is a very cheap and under-powered GPU. The RX 460 goes for around 120 bucks. It's not meant to be powerful in any way, shape, or form.

 

[Rockadile]

Not the best GPU in the MBP? This isn't new people...

The "Pro" is also a false moniker.

 

[AxoNeuron]

Wow Apple. Another garbage AMD card.

A $2000+ laptop really should have at least a moderate performance video card. This is garbage.

A 1060 would have been so, sooo much better. I can't believe Apple is still using AMD.

I wanted to buy this laptop SO BADLY! I am truly disappointed. I don't expect Apple to cater to gamers, I'm not a gamer myself, but media professionals and software developers really do benefit from good graphics cards...something this definitely isn't.

 

[\-V-/]

Apple is actually doing better than most with their "thin obsession" which, by the way, has a purpose... it's to reduce footprint and weight; both critical factors for a mobile device.

Few people are willing to lug a 8 lb laptop in exchange for more power. The 3 lb MacBook Pro packs more power than 95% of the population would know what to do with.

It sounds like you're looking for a mobile gaming rig. I would buy a PC if I were you and stop whining on here because it's not going to do you any good... Apple will never build such a niche device.

"It looks like you're looking for a mobile rig" ... no it looks like i'm waiting for Apple to not put a crap GPU in their high end laptops. I like that every time someone brings up the crap GPU ... that if anyone wishes it were better, they are looking for a gaming laptop. GPUs are used for far more things than gaming so I really wish that comment would die a horrible death. You clearly don't know what I want. What I want is for Apple to stop handicapping their laptops and crapping all over their customers.

And that 8 pound laptop was just an example for price to power ratio. The smaller Razer Blades are roughly the same size and have far more powerful GPUs in them, so that argument is empty.