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

JustThinkin' said:
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.
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Technology rarely lives up to the marketing hype.

I will believe those numbers when I see them.

Why is it so hard for you to understand this?
 
wizard said:
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.
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Agreed .. nVidia compared to AMD is not nearly comparable for apps like Final Cut X.
 
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Polaris 11 has the code name "Baffin"- okay...you sure it's not "Baffle?"
I hope they will implement high end gpu on mac pro...or Mr. Kool aid will come by to Tim's house and give him a PUNCH of his life.
 
wizard said:
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.
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They focus on different types of workload for sure. Another example of this being that for Bitcoin mining, if you aren't running an ASIC, AMD is a much better choice over nVidia.
 
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Well this is nice news. I've got a 2011 iMac that could be handed down or perhaps sold. Next fall would be a nice upgrade. Nearly $3k will be a tough pill to swallow. But a new machine will fly compared to my current iMac with an HD in it.
 
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prowlmedia said:
Wow what a completely insane response.
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Anyone doing professional audio or video should not touch Apple hardware (without being paid to), because you cannot depend on Apple to stick to anything other than satisfying the teen crowd. Mac Pro 3 years old no upgrade/update. No hardware between Mini and Mac Pro. No top end laptops. I could go on. When these people move away from Apple, it no longer makes sense to stay in the Apple ecosystem, except of course for the phone, which is now a commodity with limited growth. I am one of the few professionals that I know in my profession that still uses Apple hardware, the others have moved to windows.
 
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nawk said:
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.
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The reason why Nvidia must use drivers is that their GPUs do not have Hardware Schedulers. This is very important for DX12 games, and HSA2.0 compute capabilities, and VR. Because you want the lowest possible access to GPUs. If you will want to use Nvidia hardware for VR - you will get huge latency because of scheduling.

At this moment the situation looks like this: R9 380X competes with GTX 970 and GTX 980. R9 390X competes with GTX 980 Ti. Explicit APIs have shown true performance of AMD GPUs. And the newest games like KIller Instinct, even if they are DX11 games, with most current drivers share similar view.

P.S. Most of people and market buys Nvidia because of the mindshare that brand has. It is extremely apparent on this very forum.
 
tomnavratil said:
Please bring Nvidia for dedicated cards. That would be a much better switch.
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You might think so, but in reality, no. After using ATI for ages, I tried nVidia in my Mac Pro, and cards that should theoretically get 25%-50% better performance according to benchmarks, typically do more like 25%-50% worse in the apps/games that I use. I thought it would be worth supporting them since they actually support Macs, coming out with web drivers typically a few days after OS X updates, whereas AMD does nothing. But the performance just isn't there, at least on OS X, so I went back to AMD.

--Eric
 
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69Mustang said:
If Apple announces a proper new mac mini I will get all caught up in my feels.:oops: It's the only thing I want from Apple. Am I asking for too much?:confused: I will pretend that last updated mini never happened, and all will be forgiven.
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No you are not. From what I understand the issue with the Mac Mini is not desire to make a higher end device but with supplier issues and supplier margins.

Ideally, I would love to see a "Mac Mini Plus" with the following improvements:
Quad-core processor
SSD (512 M to 2 T)
64 GB RAM
all in their own slot for field service
Apple TV integrated into the motherboard, if so, make it running an A-series ARM processor instead of a quadcore.
 
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Radio Signal said:
Ironic that Apple's testimony of a GPU's prowess is 1K gaming, when the iMac is making its bones at 5K. I'm not even going to address gaming. If Apple wants that market it should just flat out commit Pippin, I mean AppleTV, to it.
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Their answer to a stock "controller" is the Siri remote. ATV is not a Pippin.
 
tomnavratil said:
Please bring Nvidia for dedicated cards. That would be a much better switch.
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Nah, between rubbish software for handling GPU switching on Windows, and causing several lifetime replacement programmes with Macs, two of which I just happened to buy back in the day, I would rather they steer clear of Nvidia.

Really interesting that AMD starts hitting the headlines again right when Intel is slowing down. Hopefully some fun times ahead!
 
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nvidia gets way too many free passes, and this coming from someone who uses an nvidia card his rig.(GTX 970)

I for one, hope AMD really hits home with Zen and Polaris. nvidia and Intel are getting way too arrogant. nvidia proprietary standards are anti-consumer. Intel killing the tick-tock cycle reeks of lack of competition. They know that the industry will wait for their new schedule because there is no alternative.
 
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pedrom said:
I know how Apple sees Intel (stalled) and Nvidia (useless pieces of garbage) and dGPUs in general (power hungry, outdated processes, points of failure, useless on any lightweight/well built mobile PC). But frankly, they are paid to find alternatives.

I can't get excited for any of this until Apple resolves the big picture: OS X and its graphical performance that is milleniuns behind Windows. Looking at how FCP takes advantage of OS X and Apple hardware (enough to annihilate competition) one can only imagine what they would be able to do if the support was up-to-date.
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How are Nvidia GPUs “useless pieces of garbage”?
[doublepost=1461107331][/doublepost]It’s nice to see Apple continuing to make MacBook Pros with dedicated GPUs, but AMD isn’t the best option. AMD might cost less, but it generates a lot more heat than a comparable Nvidia chip and that’s a big problem in a laptop, especially a thin laptop like the Retina MacBook Pros. The problem is only worsened by the lead-free solder which eventually shorts out the logic board. Otherwise, external graphics is the only other route for MacBook Pro users.
 
Crosscreek said:
Give me a Mac Mini option with one of these in it and I may stay with Apple. My patience has grow thin.
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Sounds awesome and lets just add a high end Skylake i7 with user upgradable RAM as well. Okay, wake up, dreaming again.

I think the most that can possibly be gained from Mac Mini's (and it'd be unlikely) would be a true quad core option like the prior generation Mini had. Apple is done with separate GPU's for anything except Pro's and iMac's. JMHO...
 
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nt5672 said:
Anyone doing professional audio or video should not touch Apple hardware (without being paid to), because you cannot depend on Apple to stick to anything other than satisfying the teen crowd. Mac Pro 3 years old no upgrade/update. No hardware between Mini and Mac Pro. No top end laptops. I could go on. When these people move away from Apple, it no longer makes sense to stay in the Apple ecosystem, except of course for the phone, which is now a commodity with limited growth. I am one of the few professionals that I know in my profession that still uses Apple hardware, the others have moved to windows.
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This is what irks me in regards to Apple. Tim and his pals are fond of teen followers. It's almost like they are nothing but pedo bears in technology.
 
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I have preferred AMD GPUs for a number of years now. In general, they have been much more power efficient than comparable nVidia GPUs. The last few PCs I have built, I've built with power consumption in mind because I focuses on as few fans as possible (and just because I don't like being a power hog).

I'm glad Apple is going in their direction. Here's to hoping these are low power enough to justify putting them in a 13" MBP. That's my dream machine right there (in space gray, of course).

(Not to mention, it would be nice if Apple was working closely with AMD and getting advance products, more driver attention, etc.)
 
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