Comparing Iris Pro vs 750m

[827538]

Since I'm aiming to keep this machine for the next 5 years, gotta be sure I made the right decision

All I would say, if it is going to be in use with you for half a decade then spend the extra and get the 16GB and 750M or you'll spend the next five years wishing you had. Even if Iris Pro pulls ahead in obscure OpenCL environments - of which I am slightly skeptical then you can just disable the dGPU, aside from cost there isn't a downside.

Half the people on here that are going a bit nutty over Iris Pro vs 750M need to realise unless they are gaming I doubt any of them would notice. These systems have very capable CPU's, plenty of RAM (providing you opt for it) and great overall hardware. Ever since Sandy Bridge I've felt processors have become more than fast enough, now Intel realises that and wishes to spearhead into the lower TDP field that ARM dominates we are seeing very powerful chips with relatively low power requirements. I feel providing you get your rMBP with atleast 8GB of RAM then you'll be fine.

 

[AzN1337c0d3r]

You guys realize that gfxCardStatus hasn't been able to force integrated graphics since Mountain Lion right?

http://apple.stackexchange.com/ques...s-x-10-8-mountain-lion-when-working-with-vmwa

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Is this true? From the comments I have read, it's not so easy to simply turn of the 750M in Windows. Or is there really such an easy solution that nobody knows?

It's patently false. When the EFI runs in CSM (Compatibility Support Module) mode, which is true for any Windows install, the integrated graphics is powered done and only the discrete graphics is powered up.

This is the same reason why you must run an EFI bootloader in Linux to get access to the integrated graphics.

 

[TooSmooth]

Is there any performance hit playing games in bootcamp rather than osx?

 

[wheelhot]

Is there any performance hit playing games in bootcamp rather than osx?

Nope, it's actually better to play games in bootcamp then in Mac OS, the pfs is usually much higher

 

[LiveinRiot]

Hi,

I was one of the lucky few who received their high-end macbook pro yesterday. Today I took the time to run a few benchmark to compare the Iris to the 750m. Overall on synthetic benchmark (heaven), it seems that the 750m is like 33% faster but on Starcraft 2 it is close to 45%.

Interestingly enough when I compared to the first generation (but on OSX 10.7) the 750m is less performant than the 650m so there might be a driver issue. My friend didn't have Starcraft 2 so I can't compare on SC2.

Overall, I feel that unless you need a ton of ram (e.g for photo editing) or you want to play there is not a whole lot of value to get the high-end.

I wrote a small blog post with all the benchmark results if you are interested: http://bit.ly/1ij77d5

Hope this help answer your questions.

Can you test League of Legends with everything on high on 1800p?

 

[ahhitsalan]

Im interested in the last post ^

 

[actuallyinaus]

Im interested in the last post ^

i have some rough dota 2 numbers in windows:
2880x1800 (all max): 34fps
1920x1200 (all max): 73fps

 

[kerimr]

Hi,

I'm also considering which rMBP I will buy...maybe you can help me

I waited for a very long time to get a Haswell Macbook, but now it is just the "high end model" which includes a dGPU..

I think I want it because I would like to play Battlefield and maybe 1-2 more Games. I use Windows just for that reason (and rarely Visio).
So I have no problems that Bootcamp isn't able to switch between the Iris Pro and the dGPU, right? The dGPU is always switched on, but if I just play these games it makes no difference anyway?!

On the other hand I don't need a 512 GB SSD..

Another question: I read that the Macbook with dGPU is getting hotter? Is this right or is the CPU using Iris getting hotter than the CPU without using it so that there is no big difference?

 

[LiveinRiot]

up

 

[cirus]

Given intel's shoddy driver support (newer drivers generally don't do anything for HD 3000 currently), I may be concerned about intel graphics a few years down the road. Nvidia on the other hand provide excellent legacy driver support.

Hardware wise the reason nvidia isn't that great with applications such as Solidworks is drivers rather than any sort of architectural limitation. If you want good solidworks performance with a nvidia gpu then you are going to have to buy one of their professional products.

The K2000m with 384 cores at 745 mhz with 900 mhz DDR3 demolishes iris or the 750m with 34 fps in Solidworks and 25 fps in seimens NX (from notebookcheck).

(Aside I have no reason why Apple doesn't provide an option for something like a quadro K2000m in its 15" pro line. Its the same chip after all).

Intel's igp's have very strong geometry and compute performance (OpenCL, tesselation) but weak texturing performance. Iris also generally has problems gaming at higher settings and higher resolutions.

if you look at the notebook check review for iris in games there is just no comparison

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html

(restrict list to 660m and iris 5200- the 750m versions they have listed uses DDR3 and performs much worse).

With the exception of Dota 2 the 660m is faster in almost every case (take the results with a grain of salt like the sims 3 results in which the 660m was benched at release when the game was really buggy while iris was benched later). A 750m with DDR5 is going to be about 10% faster than the 660m too.

Edit: looking around it seems that its about the same as a 640m (note the 740m often has a neutered 64 bit bus).

 

[bornmann]

Driver update perspective

Today I tried to update the driver for my 750M (late 2013 MBPR 15″) in Bootcamp Windows 7 (64 Bit Ultimate). The Nvidia driver installer software told me that no compatible hardware was found. A check on the Nvidia website turned out that the notebook manufacturer is responsible for delivering updates. I’d say in case of Apple, that’s highly unlikely.

What do you think, is this a bug and official Nvidia driver updates will follow? I’d really like to have the perspective of updated drivers in the future, especially regarding gaming performance of course.

 

[827538]

The Haswell rMBP will be my first Mac and I do plan on gaming on it via bootcamp but this sounds rather odd. It isn't proprietary and it's running on W7 x64, so it should work fine with the regular Nvidia updates.

Did you download the most up to date driver and get this error when you tried to install it or did you use one of those search for the most recent driver type things?

If it was the former then you should contact Apple about this. I don't want to wait a year for the most up to date drivers in order to play a game. Nvidia are pretty good at releasing drivers so if this was true it would be a real shame.

 

[actuallyinaus]

Given intel's shoddy driver support (newer drivers generally don't do anything for HD 3000 currently), I may be concerned about intel graphics a few years down the road. Nvidia on the other hand provide excellent legacy driver support.

what do you mean, the 3000 drivers were last updated 8/18/2013

on the other hand, intel have all their drivers as open source and have dedicated themselves to providing great linux support, while nvidia has done nothing helpful for linux

 

[simon48]

According to Notebookcheck a 750m with DDR5 VRAM beats a 660m and a 660m is only slightly slower than a 570m. I'd say the rMBP with the 750m is about the same speed as a 570m or a 6950m. But I want AnandTech’s review out now!

 

[AzN1337c0d3r]

Today I tried to update the driver for my 750M (late 2013 MBPR 15″) in Bootcamp Windows 7 (64 Bit Ultimate). The Nvidia driver installer software told me that no compatible hardware was found. A check on the Nvidia website turned out that the notebook manufacturer is responsible for delivering updates. I’d say in case of Apple, that’s highly unlikely.

What do you think, is this a bug and official Nvidia driver updates will follow? I’d really like to have the perspective of updated drivers in the future, especially regarding gaming performance of course.

The same situation happened for the Mid-2012 (GT650M) release. Give it a week or two, Nvidia will put the graphics card into their drivers.

 

[bornmann]

The same situation happened for the Mid-2012 (GT650M) release. Give it a week or two, Nvidia will put the graphics card into their drivers.

That sounds promising. Thanks.

In the meantime, I’ve found a solution that has let me update the driver for my 750M. It’s a known problem, not only for Apple laptops, DELLs amongst others do have these issues as well.
Follow these steps (lengthy but not too complicated): https://forums.geforce.com/default/...find-compatible-graphics-hardware-installer-/
If these steps don’t suffice, googling will help you find more guides. They differ slightly because of different driver versions.
Hint: When editing the inf File, 6.1 means Windows 7, 6.2 means Windows 8.

 

[cirus]

what do you mean, the 3000 drivers were last updated 8/18/2013

on the other hand, intel have all their drivers as open source and have dedicated themselves to providing great linux support, while nvidia has done nothing helpful for linux

Its similar to AMD's legacy support drivers. What I mean primarily is HD 3000 isn't likely going to see any performance increases or bugfixes as most of intel's driver team is working on drivers for HD 4600-5200 and broadwell (Gen 8) graphics. For example intel's major driver release didn't help HD 3000 at all (v15.31) while substantial gains were seen on HD 4000.

 

[827538]

what do you mean, the 3000 drivers were last updated 8/18/2013

on the other hand, intel have all their drivers as open source and have dedicated themselves to providing great linux support, while nvidia has done nothing helpful for linux

That will hopefully change with Valves Steambox.
Intel aren't great at updating their drivers for gaming, whenever a new game comes out it is usually a long wait if ever for intel to optimise their drivers.

Good to hear! Might have a try of the beta drivers to see if that helps if they haven't sorted it by next week or so.

 

[Mac.User]

All this says to me is that Apple should have used the 765m like I wanted the to.

 

[theCraigLaw]

I'll pop my two cents into here. I have the new rMBP base model with Iris Pro obviously. I have a bit of a decision whether to save $100 and go for an older refurbished one with twice the SSD space and of course, the 650m. It's whether the gaming performance benefit is enough to warrant sacrificing the extra battery life and PCIe drive speed benefits.

Decisions, decisions. Waiting for Anandtech.

 

[tomtom101]

Ok, so I read somewhere that windows doesn't recognise the iGPU on the RMBP, so does that mean in windows the model with intigrated graphics will preform terribly, and the model with the dGPU will have terrible battery life?

 

[iKrivetko]

Ok, so I read somewhere that windows doesn't recognise the iGPU on the RMBP, so does that mean in windows the model with intigrated graphics will preform terribly, and the model with the dGPU will have terrible battery life?

I believe it doesn't recognise the Iris if you have the 750

 

[dusk007]

Ok, so I read somewhere that windows doesn't recognise the iGPU on the RMBP, so does that mean in windows the model with intigrated graphics will preform terribly, and the model with the dGPU will have terrible battery life?

Yes that is basically the problem.
The only way around it is to install Windows 8 in EFI mode in which case Windows runs natively on the hardware and not on top of the BIOS emulation layer (aka bootcamp). That can work in theory but nobody really managed to get it to work and Apple doesn't seem inclined to help out.
It is not like Windows 8 showed up yesterday so I doubt Apple will change their mind and while some managed to get it running there are various things that don't seem to work in EFI mode. Maybe somebody eventually gets it to work but again since there wasn't too much progress in the last year from the initial attemps I wouldn't have too high hopes.

In theory if Windows had access to both GPUs it would allow for an Optimus driver to work. I am not very up to date with booting Windows in EFI mode. I think it usually installs but audio and other stuff doesn't work. Ever since Windows 8, bootcamp actually shouldn't be necessary, maybe Windows 8.1 and the newest haswell MBPs work better together without bootcamp but I wouldn't get my hopes too high.

 

[BanHquez]

Hello, I just have a quick question... If gaming is out of the picture and I'll be using the mbp 15" just for working purposes (Mostly After Effects and Maya) what would be the difference in performance between the IrisPro and the 750 and what would suit me better?

Thnx guys

 

[ooans]

I'm curious, some please explain this to me:

I've been running The Wolf Among Us on OSX with both Iris Pro and 750m. And it runs WAY better with Iris Pro. Does this mean my 750m is faulty in some way or what?

With Iris Pro I can have a higher resolution and anti-aliasing on to receive acceptable frames per second. With 750m these need to be toned down. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around! (I'm using gfxCardStatus to choose the GPU.)

What's going on? :O