Sorry to disappoint you, but the specs are not everything. I owned a 680MX 2012 iMac before the 2015 m395 and I see improvements of the order of 5-10% depending on game. The only major difference to the 680MX is that I now have 4GB of VRAM which comes in handy for some high-res textures. The FPS gain is negligible, though.
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AMD's New 400-Series 'Polaris' Graphics Chips Headed for 2016 Macs
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Sorry to disappoint you, but the specs are not everything. I owned a 680MX 2012 iMac before the 2015 m395 and I see improvements of the order of 5-10% depending on game. The only major difference to the 680MX is that I now have 4GB of VRAM which comes in handy for some high-res textures. The FPS gain is negligible, though.
Dang. Well there goes the pro market. Nice work, Apple. #cuda
Software is bottlenecking AMD GPUs. Lift up the software barrier, and you will see huge gains, which we can see with new Windows drivers, and DX12 games.
If Apple will properly implement Metal, you will see huge gains.
That was precisely the point of Metal, but AFAIK it hasn't been implemented in FCX or any major app. Adobe is still working on it.
Just out of curiosity, what graphical performance are you speaking of? I run Windows 10 on my macbook air and when I boot to W10, the screen looks amazing, everything is sharp, edges and lines look clean on all windows. It just seems that it's a different screen. When I go back to OSX it looks hazy/fuzzy.. almost as if the resolution is lower. Is this the graphical performance you're speaking of or just in video processing/editing?
The new Polaris lines are 2.5 times more power efficient than their predecessors. Research before any more conjecture. These lines come out in a few months.
I understand but from a research point-of-view, CUDA programming is preferred. OpenCL is a valid alternative but having something multi-platform isn't always best as that will never make it to public, it increases the overhead and programming time. My university has Xeon servers for computing and CUDA allows the same code to run on GPU (with a little tweaking), for a faster workflow.
That has nothing to do with performance (performance is about speed, not looks), and everything to do with you apparently running OS X at a lower resolution. You should go into the settings and fix that, since nothing in OS X is inherently "hazy/fuzzy".
--Eric
The graphics card I chose is an MSI GT 740 with 2 gigabytes of GDDR3. The nice thing about the GT 740 is that it only needs 64 watts, so it can get all of its power through the PCIe slot.
The power supply I chose is just an inexpensive one I found on Amazon. Here's a link for the power supply: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00B8TRF0A/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Though, the Akitio Thunder2 has a loud fan whose speed is fixed. I might just disconnect that fan.
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GT750M? HD550 integrated GPU offers similar performance levels.
Nope. R9 390X is exactly the same performance levels as Nvidia GTX 980 Ti GPU and both of those GPUs use exactly the same amount of power. R9 M395X should be without bottlenecks faster than both GTX 980M and GTX 970M while using similar amount of power(GTX 970 should use 100W compared to 120W of GTX 980M).
Again, AMD GPUs were bottlenecked by software. Lift it up, and things change dramatically. You completely change the markets. As we see with DX12 software: R9 380X competes directly with GTX980, which uses similar amount of power. R9 390X competes with GTX 980 Ti which uses similar amount of power.
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I may be in a minority here, but I want the best graphics card that I can't hear. My Late 2013 27" iMac (w/NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB) is absolutely silent when I'm not gaming. My understanding is that the NVIDIA cards run cooler, so I'll prefer them even if they don't get quite as much performance.
but......they care very much which software / hardware it runs. Give a mac user a PC and they care very very much about the hardware cause it impacts the software/applications they are used to, and the workflow.
Have you ever worked with large video files to meet timelines, hardware matters a heck of a lot, hence why the mac pro exists. Sad thing is that the iMac is better than the mac pro these days for many tasks. Go back to the cMP Prime days, an iMac could not touch a mac pro in through put.
And this is the Problem. This is why people who work or worked in professional environments are complaining. As I stated, just cause u see macs still in use in media cooperations to ESPN etc, does not mean the situation is good.
The 2013 Mac pro, is a very expensive desktop machine in my view, I think its a brilliant machine, I love mine, and it does everything I need it to do, I do though understand why professionals are complaining. If I was running a business that was dependent on meeting timelines to make $$$, id buy a PC, time = money. In which case hardware is the difference at present.
And I was hoping to finally get an Nvidia MacBook Pro again. Have one with AMD and it is realy crap compared to the 2009 Nvidia MacBook Pro I had (which my sister uses now). So I guess will be sticking with my 2011 MacBook Pro for now. Not going to upgrade to a new generation for the time being.
You can talk about potential gains made. But I'll clue you in here, this company has a three year lease cycle. Most of the editors have been on the Mac Pro for the last 1.5-2 years. We haven't gotten one complaint about performance, and these guys are constantly working with 30+GB video files. You know why they haven't complained? Their current machine is better than the ones that it replaced for their workflow.
There is no hand waving about how Apple hasn't updated the Mac Pro yet, because there WILL be a new one out for months before most of these people are up for a new one anyway.
Again I have to stress this point, while the IT guys may get in a nerd rage about the the current line up and how it could be better, the people using them simply don't give a ****. They couldn't tell an i3 from a toaster oven. They just work on their tools, and the current Mac Pro does it more than adequately.
I just want the thermal design to be correct. I'm sick of failed GPUs.
Following up on its rumor of a major AMD design win reported last October, WCCFtech has confirmed via multiple sources that the customer in question is indeed Apple. The latest design win follows Apple's use of AMD 200/300 series GPUs in the top-end 27-inch Retina iMac and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, and is a boon for the chipmaker that has seen its share of the graphics market dwindle over the past several years.
The design wins make mention of two graphics processor families, Polaris 10 and Polaris 11. The former carries a code name "Ellesmere" and is believed to be in the power range that would make it suitable for an upgrade to the iMac. Polaris 11 has the code name "Baffin" and it is believed to be in the power range suitable for an upgrade to the Retina MacBook Pro.
While Apple has limited discrete graphics chips to the top of its MacBook Pro and iMac lines, there would be suitable chips for all but the smallest form factors of Apple notebooks, should the company choose to embrace discrete graphics on a broader array of models.
As we previously noted, the switch to the new Polaris line of GPUs is set to be a significant performance upgrade over the previous 28nm GPUs. Announced by AMD at Computex, the lower-power AMD GPUs are set to be built on Global Foundries' 14nm process. Through an agreement between multiple foundries, the process is equivalent to Samsung's own second-generation 14nm FinFET process, which is the successor of the process used for the A9 and A9X featured in the latest iPhones and iPads.
Performance of these new graphics chips from AMD is expected to be double that of their predecessors, measured on a per-watt basis. This is thanks to the large size reduction and performance gains in going from the 28nm node first seen in 2011 for graphics processors to the new 16/14nm FinFET processes. This would certainly be welcome to the Mac lineup due to the increased graphics demands of the high-resolution Retina screens featured in both the iMac and MacBook Pro computers. It is reasonable to expect that Apple would allocate roughly the same power budget as on current models, meaning the 2x performance could be seen by users in some cases.
According to earlier reports, the chips should be ready to ship in consumer products in time for the back-to-school shopping season. It is not unheard of for Apple to receive priority on new chip designs, though WWDC would be the most logical time to expect these new Macs to debut. The future of the Mac Pro is less certain, though there will certainly be suitable high-end chips from AMD manufactured on TSMC's 16nm process this year.
Article Link: AMD's New 400-Series 'Polaris' Graphics Chips Headed for 2016 Macs
