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my thinking is that the upgrade to the 4GB 5500m is quite small considering the cost of the computer that its worthwhile even if it gives a small boost when gaming. But if I can save the cost I’d the 8GB I rather would.

If I want the 5500M 4GB I need to buy from Apple at 3055€.

Base model on Amazon.es for 2500€.
 
Wondering how World of Warcraft manages on that 5300M 4GB. I've seen videos on the 8GB which is what most people seem to get when they want to game on their Macs, but really it's more for graphic professionals.

As a developer I opted for the following:

i9 2.4
32GB Ram
1TB SSD
5300M

That'll give me the fastest compile speeds while still able to play some games occasionally (realistically I'd probably just want to play Rise of the Tomb Raider as I haven't got around playing that on a console yet).

But I'm interested to see the WoW benchmarks regardless.

Anyone?
 
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(realistically I'd probably just want to play Rise of the Tomb Raider as I haven't got around playing that on a console yet).

Side bar, but you're really going to want to play those games on a ps4 pro or x1x. The HDR is simply fantastically well done and you'll be completely missing out on that using the macbook pros regular ol screen.
 
Ordering today - 8GB 5500m for gaming in OS X. Necessary or not?
my thinking is that the upgrade to the 4GB 5500m is quite small considering the cost of the computer that its worthwhile even if it gives a small boost when gaming. But if I can save the cost I’d the 8GB I rather would.

The gaming benchmarks I've seen show a relatively small increase in FPS between the 5300M and the 5500M 4GB, so if gaming is important to you then the <5% increase in total cost could make the 5500M a worthwhile upgrade, but it's not mandatory (unlike the 15", where the Vega GPU upgrade was practically required for all but the least demanding games).

The 8GB appears to make no difference at all for most games and my guess is it probably never will (i.e. any future games which could benefit from 8GB are likely to be so graphically demanding that in order to get playable framerates the graphics settings on this MBP/GPU will need to be sufficiently turned down such that VRAM usage falls below 4GB.

I'm feeling a bit torn, myself. I had initially planned to upgrade to the 5500M with 8GB VRAM for "future proofing," but I'm toying with the idea of just getting the 5300M 4GB. The games I currently play are not graphically demanding, and even if that changes, streaming of video games is about to become a real thing. Plus, there's always the possibility of adding an eGPU down the line.

Difference between 5300 4Gb vs 5500 4Gb is not worth it. 5500 with 8Gb is worth upgrade, though.
So go for standard model IMO.

The gaming benchmarks I've seen have given me the opposite conclusion.
 
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The gaming benchmarks I've seen show a relatively small increase in FPS between the 5300M and the 5500M 4GB, so if gaming is important to you then the <5% increase in total cost could make the 5500M a worthwhile upgrade, but it's not mandatory (unlike the 15", where the Vega GPU upgrade was practically required for all but the least demanding games).

The 8GB appears to make no difference at all for most games and my guess is it probably never will (i.e. any future games which could benefit from 8GB are likely to be so graphically demanding that in order to get playable framerates the graphics settings on this MBP/GPU will need to be sufficiently turned down such that VRAM usage falls below 4GB.

I'm feeling a bit torn, myself. I had initially planned to upgrade to the 5500M with 8GB VRAM for "future proofing," but I'm toying with the idea of just getting the 5300M 4GB. The games I currently play are not graphically demanding, and even if that changes, streaming of video games is about to become a real thing. Plus, there's always the possibility of adding an eGPU down the line.

The gaming benchmarks I've seen have given me the opposite conclusion.

I got a desktop at home with a ultra wide gaming monitor, I'm only playing on the Mac when I'm on the go and gotta finish a couple of WoW quests or weekly dungeons... So yea base model more than enough for me.
 
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Running WoW it’s the only game I play consistently on my MBP 16 I got the 5300.

Running Retail at 90% resolution and running at 10 on the graphics dial. Getting a solid 57 FPS - 70

Classic seems to run worse, running 90% on 9 getting consistent 60fps
 
Running WoW it’s the only game I play consistently on my MBP 16 I got the 5300.

Running Retail at 90% resolution and running at 10 on the graphics dial. Getting a solid 57 FPS - 70

Classic seems to run worse, running 90% on 9 getting consistent 60fps

Pretty much just sold me base model. I work with virtualisation but I only need a single Windows VM running, so no point getting a 8 Core for that.. Six core is more than fine for a single Windows VM to have some apps running.
 
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Pretty much just sold me base model. I work with virtualisation but I only need a single Windows VM running, so no point getting a 8 Core for that.. Six core is more than fine for a single Windows VM to have some apps running.

You could easily run around 100% and 10 graphics. I ran around 32 FPS - to upper 50’s it generally stayed in the 40 range.

Also, I am a slew of addons so taking that into account as well.
 
The gaming benchmarks I've seen show a relatively small increase in FPS between the 5300M and the 5500M 4GB, so if gaming is important to you then the <5% increase in total cost could make the 5500M a worthwhile upgrade, but it's not mandatory (unlike the 15", where the Vega GPU upgrade was practically required for all but the least demanding games).

The 8GB appears to make no difference at all for most games and my guess is it probably never will (i.e. any future games which could benefit from 8GB are likely to be so graphically demanding that in order to get playable framerates the graphics settings on this MBP/GPU will need to be sufficiently turned down such that VRAM usage falls below 4GB.

I'm feeling a bit torn, myself. I had initially planned to upgrade to the 5500M with 8GB VRAM for "future proofing," but I'm toying with the idea of just getting the 5300M 4GB. The games I currently play are not graphically demanding, and even if that changes, streaming of video games is about to become a real thing. Plus, there's always the possibility of adding an eGPU down the line.



The gaming benchmarks I've seen have given me the opposite conclusion.

Thanks. Based on your input I just ordered the baseline model with the 5500m 4GB GPU. Should do more than fine with my needs!
 
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Again, the 5500m in the Macbook is so nerffed, 4gb may enough for games as you wont get playable frame rates anyways. On a non nerffed 5500m on a Windows gaming laptop, 4GB is not enough for games (depends on your game) it seems. the 5500m in this laptop is allowed to draw upwards to 70watts which it will NEVER do in a Macbook.. lol


 
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I had not read through all 10 pages of this thread, so if you explained why its been nerfed, please point me in the right direction, otherwise, please explain why you say apple nerfed the GPU

Load up bootcamp and load up the GPU, the power draw is limited to 50watts. Sadly, this is much lower than then the 85Watts it's supposed to run at :/ Obviously, they can't have a full power GPU in there as the power budget just isn't there.
 
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I had not read through all 10 pages of this thread, so if you explained why its been nerfed, please point me in the right direction, otherwise, please explain why you say apple nerfed the GPU

Well it runs below 85w due to the USB-C charing on the current line up.. which makes sense?
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You could easily run around 100% and 10 graphics. I ran around 32 FPS - to upper 50’s it generally stayed in the 40 range.

Also, I am a slew of addons so taking that into account as well.

As long as I can do Mythic+ and Normal raids I'm fine... Could you try this out?
 
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right :) I'm sure it could cool it well above 50 watts as well. Maybe Apple will let us dual wield power adapters one day ;)

This doesn't make any sense at all... We always get low powered variants GPUs in the Mac so we don't carry a GIANT brick
 
This doesn't make any sense at all... We always get low powered variants GPUs in the Mac so we don't carry a GIANT brick
It was a joke. I like the small power bricks lol my windows laptop can't even play games on a 90 watt adapter.. it locks the CPU to 15 watts. :mad:
 
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For those who are interested I have made a post about paying League of Legends on my MacBook Pro 16". This is the LINK.
 
Well it runs below 85w due to the USB-C charing on the current line up.. which makes sense?

It runs below 85W since Apple set the TDP to 50W (as they always did with the MBP). But then again you get more CUs and higher binned chips. The efficiency on the Pro 5500M is certainly better than on RX 5500M. I wouldn't really call it "nerving". A different configuration for a different machine.
 
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Is there a chance the gap between them will widen with proper gaming drivers from bootcampdrivers.com? Or is a <5 % increase for 200 € where it will land for sure?
 
It was obvious since the beginning that Apple would have neutered the GPU because they decided to stick with USB-C for power delivery...

We always get low powered variants GPUs in the Mac so we don't carry a GIANT brick

You do not need a GIANT brick to power up mediocre GPUs like the 5300M or the 5500M (even when not underclocked). A 135W power brick (like the one of the X1E) would have been more than enough.

small_power-brick-ThinkPad-X1-Extreme.jpg


But Apple choiches will result in a power starved laptop when both CPU and GPU are being taxed, i.e. during gaming....
 
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