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Do I need dedicated GPU?

anandadavananda

anandadavananda

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 16, 2014
18
2
Fazis
I am planning to buy a 15 inch Macbook Pro with retina display (Mid 2014) and have a trouble in deciding whether I need dedicated GPU or not.
I will be using it daily basis for following tasks:

1. Programming.
2. Virtualization (several Windows Server VM instances running simultaneously)
3. Video conversion/encoding.
3. Very seldom video editing (not professional)
4. Photoshop.
5. No gaming.

Can anyone with similar usage pattern suggest if Low end Macbook pro will be sufficient? Will it be uncomfortable and lagging without dedicated card?

Thank you.
 
I believe the base 15" would more than suit your needs, now that it has 16gb of ram.
 
I have the 750M model but run it exclusively on the Iris Pro chip with gfxcard status. The base model is fine for you now that they have 16GB of RAM.

I've run multiple VMs at the same time on this machine and it runs far faster than my old macbook did with only one VM despite its dGPU. Plentiful RAM plays a much more important role here than a slightly faster GPU. If you need top quality GPU performance, which it sounds like you don't, then you'd need to use bootcamp anyway.

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anandadavananda said:
So their will be no lags?
Click to expand...

All Macs, epically the retina models have occasional UI lag when, for example, swiping between multiple destops while streaming videos. It's not bad and as I said above, it runs far faster and smoother than any Macs I've owned/used to date, even with simultaneous VMs.

Also consider Apple's horrid track record with dGPUs. Many instances of system failures after a few years.
 
Traverse said:
I have the 750M model but run it exclusively on the Iris Pro chip with gfxcard status. The base model is fine for you now that they have 16GB of RAM.

I've run multiple VMs at the same time on this machine and it runs far faster than my old macbook did with only one VM despite its dGPU. Plentiful RAM plays a much more important role here than a slightly faster GPU. If you need top quality GPU performance, which it sounds like you don't, then you'd need to use bootcamp anyway.

----------



All Macs, epically the retina models have occasional UI lag when, for example, swiping between multiple destops while streaming videos. It's not bad and as I said above, it runs far faster and smoother than any Macs I've owned/used to date, even with simultaneous VMs.

Also consider Apple's horrid track record with dGPUs. Many instances of system failures after a few years.
Click to expand...


Thank you. This was helpful. Also is there any credible information about release date of new Broadwell Macbook Pros and is it worth to wait for better architecture and promised 40% increase in GPU performance?
 
anandadavananda said:
Thank you. This was helpful. Also is there any credible information about release date of new Broadwell Macbook Pros and is it worth to wait for better architecture and promised 40% increase in GPU performance?
Click to expand...

Broadwell rMBP is probably 10-12 months away. And that's assuming Intel doesn't have (yet more) delays. If you're actively in the market now I don't think you should really wait on Broadwell.
 
anandadavananda said:
Thank you. This was helpful. Also is there any credible information about release date of new Broadwell Macbook Pros and is it worth to wait for better architecture and promised 40% increase in GPU performance?
Click to expand...

Nothing is concrete, but there is a good chance you could be waiting at least a year.
 
anandadavananda said:
Thank you. This was helpful. Also is there any credible information about release date of new Broadwell Macbook Pros and is it worth to wait for better architecture and promised 40% increase in GPU performance?
Click to expand...

Broadwell won't be out for some time. If macbook pros with Broadwell were right around the corner, we would not have seen this refresh. I noticed on this one only the base model became a better value. Ram was probably cheap enough that it made sense to go with a single configuration.
 
Don't mean to hijack this thread, but I am in a similar situation. I have the same usage pattern, but use Photoshop quite a lot.

How is the Iris Pro in Photoshop? How much performance loss shall I expect if I skip the dGPU?

Thanks,
 
Giev said:
Don't mean to hijack this thread, but I am in a similar situation. I have the same usage pattern, but use Photoshop quite a lot.

How is the Iris Pro in Photoshop? How much performance loss shall I expect if I skip the dGPU?
Click to expand...
None there isn't much difference. It is games or CUDA code paths that Nvidia is better. In general they are equal, no noticeable difference.
 
anandadavananda said:
Thank you. This was helpful. Also is there any credible information about release date of new Broadwell Macbook Pros and is it worth to wait for better architecture and promised 40% increase in GPU performance?
Click to expand...

As others have said, Broadwell should be a ways off. There is no set deadline and Apple just refreshed their lineup with minor upgrades. To do that this close to what would be an announcement leads me to believe there won't be any significant upgrades.
 
I'm convinced that I don't need the processing power of the discrete GPU.

However, I'm wondering if having the extra 2 GB of VRAM and relieving the system's RAM will be of any value? I don't do gaming or video editing, but I generally have a very large number of windows open and have experienced poor video performance on my late-2009 MBP (integrated graphics only).

Is having the 2 GB of VRAM to relieve the system useful, or is system dedication to graphics usage relatively low?

Thanks for your advice!
 
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