Why does Apple completely ignore GPU performance in the design of it's laptops?
Answer: higher performance GPU's require higher capacity batteries. Higher capacity batteries add more weight.
Actually, i would posit that running ANY discrete GPU on battery is pretty useless - they'll all drain your battery in an hour or two (and put a huge amount of wear on the battery doing it due to fast drain and heat). So having a garbage discrete GPU that doesn't do the job in the hope of saving power to run on battery is stupid. So the battery excuse doesn't pass muster...
Far better would be to not run the discrete GPU unless manually enabled when on battery. You don't want to run a heavy workload on a macbook with discrete GPU on battery with it on your lap anyway. You won't burn your legs, but its close...
Then, when at a desk, on AC power, turn it on.
But hey, that would require:
- apple build a thermal solution that will handle the power/heat
- apple supply a power adapter that can supply an adequate amount of power (even on the current machines, the top end power supply is marginal.
- apple actually buying high end GPUs
Top end polaris (e.g., RX480, on which the current RX580 is based) is a mid-range GPU
in 2016. I know, i own one.
Low end polaris (anything RX560 or lower)
in 2018 is a joke. These are supposedly
high end professional machines, remember. Not budget mid-range machines.
I say that as a total AMD fanboy with an RX480 (my old one) in the girl's PC and dual vega 64s in mine...
Give the Macbook pro a decent thermal solution. Give it a 150-200 watt power brick.
Give it a Vega 56 or Vega 64, down-clocked to fit inside 100 watts (it can be done by lowering clocks a bit, and will run relatively cool doing it - you'll make up for the lower clocks with the CU count).
That's a Macbook with a discrete GPU i'd actually buy. That is well within Apple's ability to produce. But they are not interested.
