AMD's New 400-Series 'Polaris' Graphics Chips Headed for 2016 Macs

[neuropsychguy]

Contrary to popular belief AMD never left the GPU game. They in fact have very good GPU's with a slightly different forces than Nvidia and often far better performance than Nvidia.

They have very good GPUs now (and always but AMD has improved a lot within the past 1.5 years), nvidia just has about 80% of the market share for dedicated GPUs (if these numbers can be believed): http://wccftech.com/gpu-market-share-q3-2015-amd-nvidia/

AMD used to have a larger market share than they do now. I think Polaris will help a lot (although we'll see how nvidia's Pascal cards turn out relative to AMD).

 

[macduke]

I bit on the first-gen retina MBP and yeah, the display can get kinda laggy—especially when doing stuff like quickly switching spaces when the machine has been running for a while. However, it got somewhat better with software updates over the years. When the 5K iMac came out I held off due to the reports about display lag. Double the performance should straighten that out real quick.

Only reason I want one, however, is for the large, high-res display. Otherwise my rMBP is still pretty fast. So I'm basically waiting for Intel to make it worth my while with a decent processor update. The 64-bit multi-core 12359 score that my mid-2012 2.6GHz i7-3720QM gets just isn't that much lower than the current top-end iMac's 4GHz i7-4790K score of 16638. 35% performance increase is nothing to sneeze at, but over four years it seems pretty lame. This is especially true when you consider my 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo T8300 in the early 2008 MBP scored 2416. In four years from 2008 to 2012 the performance increased 412%. It's even lamer would you consider that I'm comparing a laptop to a desktop for a 35% increase, and a laptop to a laptop for the 412% increase. I realize we're nearing the end of silicon, but Intel needs more competition. And there probably needs to be more done to tap into the power of this graphics chips which are advancing at a faster pace.

EDIT: After looking at things closer, it seems that the Geekbench Browser doesn't list the Skylake Update for the iMac on their official "Mac Benchmarks" page. I assumed the 16638 score was for the latest model since it was near the top. From a quick search, the latest top-end processor might be around 1000 points higher, so about 43% faster. So better than I thought, but still pales in comparison to the improvements seen over the previous four year period. So the next update should be at least a 50% improvement for me, which makes me more likely to buy-in.

 

[wizard]

After seeing over 23 years of products not living up to the hype, I'm hugely sceptical about these claims, especially since the source is also the creator.

Well marketing is often a form of educated lying. However this is a massive change in process node and should lead to measurable improvements no matter what. The is if Apple is willing to implement the right chips. Knowing Apple they will select a cooler running GPU, that barely meets the performance levels of this year MBPs, simply to be able to make the next MBP a millimeter thinner.

I'll believe it when I see it, but the norm is that people get all hyped up about the numbers, and then the product hits the real world. Then, people quickly find out that those specs were only for "optimal conditions" or maximum possible values that can never be sustained for very long.

Tha tis so true however this is an entirely different situation as they are making a BIG jump to a much improved process node.

I think what's more important for mobile systems is the power management. Performance is important too, but I think that for long term reliability, the power usage of them will be more important. Less power usually equates to less heat, which in the case of mobile systems (Mac's especially) is a good thing. Hopefully this marks the end of the failing mobile dGPU's, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that either.

I suspect that this will be OK! Remember that the high failure rates on many GPUs a few years back was due to the move to lead free solders. Running cooler will help with this but maturity with respect to the soldering processes is helping too. Honestly I'm not hearing about a lot of these sorts of failures anymore. With Apple though you run into the problem of them putting the processor into a thinner machine if it is of lower power usage so in the end the chip runs just as hot. You can't always blame the chip makers for Apples tendency to run the hardware hot.

 

[ChrisCW11]

Well, if these new AMD GPU's end up competing with nVidia, then good for Apple. However there is a reason why AMD has taken a nosedive in recent years for sales and that is that their CPU's and GPU's are just not keeping pace with the likes of the Intel and nVidia juggernauts.

I think we can safely say that discrete graphics, whether from AMD or nVidia, is a good thing in general and Apple has to stop crippling their systems with anemic on-board graphics, at least if anybody hopes to play a VR game on an Mac in the near future.

 

[Count Blah]

Can't wait to see what they are actually putting these in and how much the upgrades will be.

In the upsell/add-on category, certainly not be base models.

 

[PTLove]

(i)GPU driver development for Kaby Lake began also in October 2015. Enough time for Apple to develop ultra-thin Kaby Lake rMBPs.

Too bad the chips for Kaby Lake Gt3E wont exist until this time next year.

 

[EvilEvil]

Too bad it's not 4k @60fps.

 

[Daws001]

When I read Polaris I think of nukes.

When I read Polaris I think of Magneto's daughter.

 

[soupcan]

In other news, water is wet.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Will this fix the VR situation on OS X?

I was looking into it earlier today and... neither SteamVR/HTC Vive nor Oculus Rift support OS X.

 

[Naaaaak]

Enables incredible form factors

Polaris-material watch bands confirmed.

 

[inkswamp]

If Apple announces a proper new mac mini I will get all caught up in my feels. It's the only thing I want from Apple. Am I asking for too much? I will pretend that last updated mini never happened, and all will be forgiven.

I'm partway there with you. I'm of the opinion that the Mini and iMac both need to be killed and replaced with a single consumer-level desktop. The iMac and Mini were great in their day, served the purpose they needed to serve but it's over. The proof of that is the fact that every new revision of these models is mostly aesthetic and mostly dropping features users want in a desktop machine (graphics cards, upgradeable RAM, optical drive, lots of ports, etc.) The fact that Apple can only keep making them thinner and nicer looking is telling. They're out of ideas for those form factors. Time to dump them and start over from the ground up.

 

[Kevsta26]

I don't care about the GPU... Tell me about the dGPU! That is if the new rMBP even has one with all their focus on thinness

 

[HangmanSwingset]

I'd take Pascal over Polaris any day. Nvidia makes AMD look weak every generation.

 

[JustThinkin']

After seeing over 23 years of products not living up to the hype, I'm hugely sceptical about these claims, especially since the source is also the creator.

I'll believe it when I see it, but the norm is that people get all hyped up about the numbers, and then the product hits the real world. Then, people quickly find out that those specs were only for "optimal conditions" or maximum possible values that can never be sustained for very long.

I think what's more important for mobile systems is the power management. Performance is important too, but I think that for long term reliability, the power usage of them will be more important. Less power usually equates to less heat, which in the case of mobile systems (Mac's especially) is a good thing. Hopefully this marks the end of the failing mobile dGPU's, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that either.

It's your responsibility to know your application and figure out whether the performance gains will be appreciable for your model, not decry the fact that new technologies can't be all things to all people or provide uniform performance improvements across the board.

 

[BeefCake 15]

So new mac mini's at WWDC? Eh eh??

Tears will be flowing if that happens...

 

[_mdavenport]

Usually like Nvidia better, but will keep an open mind...

 

[prowlmedia]

When you quit dancing with the ones that brought you (the Pro computer users) then you can expect to be left alone at the end of the dance. Lets see if Apple thinks their Ivy League MBAs can evade reality.

Wow what a completely insane response.

 

[iMcLovin]

it would be nice with a swift update from apple, doesnt need to be new iMacs, just a BTO option to add this new GPUs to the current top 5K model. then Ill replace my 1st gen 5K iMac in an instant.

 

[sl1cksta]

I'd take Pascal over Polaris any day. Nvidia makes AMD look weak every generation.

Yes AMD has been doing terribly at new APIs like DX12 and vulkan/sarcasm

 

[Rocketman]

All the future apps are more graphics intensive than CPU. This is a great start. I wonder when someone will simply make a 4xGPU that can double as a co-processor like the good ole' days.

Virtual reality and augmented reality apps are massively GPU intensive.

Apple should bring high I/O (TB3) and high throughput (GPU) down to their "lower end" devices because people buy devices based on a use case not necessarily a price point. I know this because the MacBook is priced 2x a comparable windblows machine, yet they sell better in terms of revenue.

 

[nawk]

Contrary to popular belief AMD never left the GPU game. They in fact have very good GPU's with a slightly different forces than Nvidia and often far better performance than Nvidia.

As someone who just built a gaming PC and put in a lot of research into finding a GPU I can say that this statement is very inaccurate. For the same price range the AMD GPU might slightly out perform Nvidia, but with better driver support I choose Nvidia. There is a reason a large share of the market runs Nvidia cards and it is NOT because AMD offers "far better performance than Nvidia." If that was the case, the gaming PC people would not touch Nvidia Cards.

Nvidia and AMD have an answer to each other's models (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html). The performance is very comparable. As I said, AMD might have a slight edge for some price point categories, but nothing that good drivers generally balances out.

As for Polaris, the architecture needs to be compared to Nvidia's Pascal, which is being released in two months and offers amazing power/performance ratios. A PowerMac with a GTX 980Ti would be great (or whatever the new equivalent Pascal architecture would be).

I don't give a crap what GPUs Apple decides to use as long as 1) They support the current generation of PC equivalents and 2) they ensure that the drivers are constantly updated.

 

[GeneralChang]

Will this fix the VR situation on OS X?

I was looking into it earlier today and... neither SteamVR/HTC Vive nor Oculus Rift support OS X.

Well, yes, and that's because of the GPUs, but to be fair, something like 90% of desktop PCs don't support those VR headsets either. Mine runs brand new AAA games just fine, but it's miles off the required specs for VR. That gap will close, though, and I'm sure we'll be seeing Macs capable of powering a VR headset in the next year or two, about the same time as most PCs.

 

[Larry-K]

Who doesn't want #11?

 

[inscrewtable]

When I read Polaris I think of nukes.

I think of The North Star which is the brightest and best north star that ever inhabits this special position in the sky. It is currently occupying it's 200 year best position, in the 26,000 year cyclic precession.