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[Based on rumors] Gaming performance Haswell rMBP

HipsterGG

HipsterGG

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 30, 2013
71
2
Since I didn't have any success in the main 'waiting for haswell rMBP' thread I'll try my best in my own thread.

All,

I've been following the rMBP threads for quite a while now and I was wondering what your thoughts were on gaming on the new 13" inch rMBP based on all the rumors written in these threads.

I'm not talking about gaming on ultra settings. But I'd love to see some better FPS in games like World of Warcraft, Diablo III and some new Steam games through Boot Camp.

Currently I'm gaming on my MacBook Pro 13" (mid 2010) 2.66Ghz C2D with 8GB's of RAM. Graphics card is the Nvidia GeForce 320M with 256MB memory.

Just wondering what you're thinking, so let me know.
 
I think whatever GPU the 13" rMBP is will be better than what you have.

The iGPU will be the Intel 5100 or 5200 which are both 1/2 decent. Haswell had two real areas of improvement and GPU was one of them (the other being power consumption).

I'm REALLY hoping that the next 13" rMBP will have a dedicated GPU option. I have the 15" rMBP right now because I like to be able to game on the go. It's primarily my work computer, which I carry around all day, so gaming is definitely not the priority, but being able to game on the go is a huge perk to me.

If the next 13" rMBP has a dGPU I'll sell my 15" the next day and buy one. I'd love to shave a whole pound off, and get the benefit of Haswell's battery life. No dGPU, no sale.
 
Trubbles said:
Both are very slow compared to the GT650 in the current 15" rMBP... Hopefully won't cut out the dGPU - there would be a lot of unhappy people out there!
Click to expand...

Posts like this are the reason the OP didn't get very far in the Haswell mega thread. ;)
 
GSPice said:
Posts like this are the reason the OP didn't get very far in the Haswell mega thread. ;)
Click to expand...

Exactly, I just want to now what the current graphic cards do in comparison with my GeForce 320M..

I'm not a high end gamer, but as stated before, would love to see some good performance increase.
 
13 rMBP will be sufficient. When it comes to 13 vs 15 rMBP this forum seems to go on a tangent with specs orgasm.
 
HipsterGG said:
Exactly, I just want to now what the current graphic cards do in comparison with my GeForce 320M..

I'm not a high end gamer, but as stated before, would love to see some good performance increase.
Click to expand...

The HD5000 is somewhere around 2-3 times faster than the 320M as far as real-world game performance goes.
 
3lite said:
13 rMBP will be sufficient. When it comes to 13 vs 15 rMBP this forum seems to go on a tangent with specs orgasm.
Click to expand...

Sufficient? For what?

Just barely playing games?

dGPU makes a huge difference. The thread asked about gaming performance of a rMBP - I think specs are important?

----------
GSPice said:
Posts like this are the reason the OP didn't get very far in the Haswell mega thread. ;)
Click to expand...

Huh? What did I do wrong there?

I was answering in the context of the thread... you know ... How good will Haswell rMBPs do at gaming. Whether or not it gets a dGPU will make a huge difference.
 
HipsterGG said:
Since I didn't have any success in the main 'waiting for haswell rMBP' thread I'll try my best in my own thread.

All,

I've been following the rMBP threads for quite a while now and I was wondering what your thoughts were on gaming on the new 13" inch rMBP based on all the rumors written in these threads.

I'm not talking about gaming on ultra settings. But I'd love to see some better FPS in games like World of Warcraft, Diablo III and some new Steam games through Boot Camp.

Currently I'm gaming on my MacBook Pro 13" (mid 2010) 2.66Ghz C2D with 8GB's of RAM. Graphics card is the Nvidia GeForce 320M with 256MB memory.

Just wondering what you're thinking, so let me know.
Click to expand...



I'm in a similar position as yourself. I'm waiting to see what happens with the new MPB's. I have a 2011 15" that uses a little better video card than yours, a Radeon 6750M. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I've enjoyed games like the Dragon Age series, Neverwinter etc. My MBP held up great until I got to games like the Witcher and Skyrim. Didn't play well at all on my machine so I'm looking for a better processor. I hear the current 650M plays well, but was hoping to somewhat "future-proof" my laptop as best I can.

Now, about your original question... the 13" MBP might not come with it's own dedicated GPU, but with the Iris gpu (Integrated) you will likely get a bit better gaming than with the current ones (with the Intel HD 4000) . If you stick with the 13, I think it's definitely worth the wait. Games coming out next year, and some current ones, may not play on the current 13" lineup.
 
appleii.c said:
I'm in a similar position as yourself. I'm waiting to see what happens with the new MPB's. I have a 2011 15" that uses a little better video card than yours, a Radeon 6750M. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I've enjoyed games like the Dragon Age series, Neverwinter etc. My MBP held up great until I got to games like the Witcher and Skyrim. Didn't play well at all on my machine so I'm looking for a better processor. I hear the current 650M plays well, but was hoping to somewhat "future-proof" my laptop as best I can.

Now, about your original question... the 13" MBP might not come with it's own dedicated GPU, but with the Iris gpu (Integrated) you will likely get a bit better gaming than with the current ones (with the Intel HD 4000) . If you stick with the 13, I think it's definitely worth the wait. Games coming out next year, and some current ones, may not play on the current 13" lineup.
Click to expand...

So, do you plan on upgrading your current MacBook to a new rMBP if there will be a dGPU?
 
Trubbles said:
Sufficient? For what?

Just barely playing games?
Click to expand...

Sufficient for playing most of the games at medium settings and 1280x800 res (I'm talking about 13" rMBP). Look at this another way: 13incher will most definitely include the 5100 graphics, which is about 50% faster than the hd4000 used in 2012 rMBP. Pretty nice step forward, if you ask me.
 
kaellar said:
Sufficient for playing most of the games at medium settings and 1280x800 res (I'm talking about 13" rMBP). Look at this another way: 13incher will most definitely include the 5100 graphics, which is about 50% faster than the hd4000 used in 2012 rMBP. Pretty nice step forward, if you ask me.
Click to expand...
So, if the 5100 graphics is 50% faster then the HD4000. How much faster will it be compared to the GeForce 320M 256mb?
 
HipsterGG said:
So, if the 5100 graphics is 50% faster then the HD4000. How much faster will it be compared to the GeForce 320M 256mb?
Click to expand...

5100 is on par with 520m which has 1.5x more cores and roughly 40% higher clocks than 320m. So I believe, 5100 is quite an upgrade compared to the 320m:)
 
HipsterGG said:
So, if the 5100 graphics is 50% faster then the HD4000. How much faster will it be compared to the GeForce 320M 256mb?
Click to expand...
You can expect about double the frame rate at the same settings. It is quite a lot faster. Also the CPU side is a lot too coming from a C2D.
 
dusk007 said:
You can expect about double the frame rate at the same settings. It is quite a lot faster. Also the CPU side is a lot too coming from a C2D.
Click to expand...

Never thought of it that way actually. Good one!
 
If Broadwell will bring Quadcore ULV it will be a game changer. The battery life of Haswell with significant more power. With the stagnation of the performance in desktop space, it's very possible.


Plus, if you counter in DDR4 ram and Thunderbolt 2. If those two will make it for next year, it's going to be incredible significant. The biggest leap since Core 2 Duo came around. For realz homies. For reallzzz
 
HipsterGG said:
So, do you plan on upgrading your current MacBook to a new rMBP if there will be a dGPU?
Click to expand...

Yes definitely. if the new MBP have their own dGPU i will upgrade to that, if not I'm hooping to get the current rMBP with the invidia chip (if they dont pull it off the market).
 
This seems like the appropriate thread to jump into with my own theoretical question about gaming on the Haswell 13" rMBP.

In general I don't plan on gaming being the main use of the rMBP. It's replacing my 2.0 ghz C2D 2008 MB. So it's main uses will be lots of word processing, spreadsheets, and photoshop.

Assuming the base 13" comes with 5100 there are likely only going to be 3 current games I'll want to play on it. Sim City, Star Craft II, and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.

I'm a bit of a strategy fan. For anything else I have my Xbox. I'm pretty sure RTC3 and Star Craft II will play alright on the Iris 5100. Sim City is apparently a more demanding game though. Do you guys think I'll be able to get a decent frame rate whilst playing?

I'm not planning on using the highest settings, but medium would be nice.
 
Nee412 said:
This seems like the appropriate thread to jump into with my own theoretical question about gaming on the Haswell 13" rMBP.

In general I don't plan on gaming being the main use of the rMBP. It's replacing my 2.0 ghz C2D 2008 MB. So it's main uses will be lots of word processing, spreadsheets, and photoshop.

Assuming the base 13" comes with 5100 there are likely only going to be 3 current games I'll want to play on it. Sim City, Star Craft II, and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.

I'm a bit of a strategy fan. For anything else I have my Xbox. I'm pretty sure RTC3 and Star Craft II will play alright on the Iris 5100. Sim City is apparently a more demanding game though. Do you guys think I'll be able to get a decent frame rate whilst playing?

I'm not planning on using the highest settings, but medium would be nice.
Click to expand...

I'm serious, for the money you spend on rMBP 13", you could have spent on a gaming laptop like Alienware, MSI, Asus RoG, Sager, Clevo, Razer Blade etc. which delivers far better fps compared to rMBP 13". Sure, Mac is nice, but don't buy it to play games.
 
NickPhamUK said:
I'm serious, for the money you spend on rMBP 13", you could have spent on a gaming laptop like Alienware, MSI, Asus RoG, Sager, Clevo, Razer Blade etc. which delivers far better fps compared to rMBP 13". Sure, Mac is nice, but don't buy it to play games.
Click to expand...

Did you even read the majority of my post. I'm not buying it to specifically play games. I'm buying it to replace my aged 2008 MacBook as my Mac portable for work. For the majority of my gaming I use my Xbox console.

I was curious as to the frame rates for Sim City because it's one of the very few games I might try on the rMBP. I was hoping for a decent answer, not a Macs aren't for games rant.

I don't think it's a good financial decision to buy a windows gaming laptop for one game when I'm already invested in the Apple OSX/iOS ecosystem.
 
actuallyinaus said:
[/COLOR]notebook check has benchmarks for many games:
notebook check 750M
notebook check iris pro

rmbp 650M runs at 900mhz
new 750M runs at 967mhz
they are the same gk107 chip so the benefit should match the % mhz increase, so you can look at these charts from anandtech that have the iris pro and the 650M, and add on 7% to the 650M bars
Click to expand...

True except the 750m includes a boost to 1058mhz and is pretty much capable of running at that speed during furmark in most tested laptops.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Asus-Zenbook-Infinity-UX301LA-Ultrabook.103027.0.html

Its too early to tell for sure and possibly something is wrong with this notebook but doesn't look good.

The bandwidth-induced performance issues are even more pronounced in games. Again, the Iris Graphics 5100 is only 20 percent faster than the HD 5000 while now trailing the Iris Pro by more than 70 percent. The HD Graphics 4400 fares surprisingly well (barely falling behind) despite its inferior graphics prowess - another hint that the main problem might be located elsewhere.

Although this does depend on the actual games in question, the performance of the Iris Graphics 5100 is usually only sufficient for medium settings and a resolution of 1366x768 pixels, barely pulling ahead of the GeForce GT 620M used in the UX32VD. In addition, we have had some issues with the graphics driver: Battlefield 3 crashes (a reproducible event) and Bioshock Infinite as well as Splinter Cell will not even start when everything is set to maximum. The worst problem was the missing fullscreen scaling feature in approximately every fourth game we tried - an image of 1024x768 pixels with huge black borders looks ridiculously small on a 13-inch WQHD screen (think smartphone-sized). Hopefully, an upcoming driver update by Intel will solve these issues.
Click to expand...

csm_Anno2070_05837abf12.png
 
Nee412 said:
This seems like the appropriate thread to jump into with my own theoretical question about gaming on the Haswell 13" rMBP.

In general I don't plan on gaming being the main use of the rMBP. It's replacing my 2.0 ghz C2D 2008 MB. So it's main uses will be lots of word processing, spreadsheets, and photoshop.

Assuming the base 13" comes with 5100 there are likely only going to be 3 current games I'll want to play on it. Sim City, Star Craft II, and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.

I'm a bit of a strategy fan. For anything else I have my Xbox. I'm pretty sure RTC3 and Star Craft II will play alright on the Iris 5100. Sim City is apparently a more demanding game though. Do you guys think I'll be able to get a decent frame rate whilst playing?

I'm not planning on using the highest settings, but medium would be nice.
Click to expand...

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Iris-Graphics-5100.91977.0.html

looks like SimCity should work fine at 1280x800 at low-to-medium settings (25-30fps). nothing to write home about though.
 
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