Get a 2015 MacBook Pro WITH or WITHOUT discrete GPU? CPU/GPU performance question

[Crunch]

I'm in the final stages of deciding on either a mid-2014 or a mid-2015 Retina MBP. I have a couple of CPU/GPU performance questions:

I frequently have 50-70 Safari tabs open, but I don't game or use Final Cut, or anything like that. My current (late-2014) Mac mini only has a dual-core and Iris 5100 graphics, and it's a bit slow keeping up.

Considering how I'm using the computer, would I benefit from the faster GDDR5 memory of a dedicated graphics card? (the AMD in the case of a mid-2015 and the NVIDIA 750M if I got the mid-2014) or is the CPU mostly responsible for Safari-related performance??

The CPU is virtually identical in those two machines, and I would gain some by getting the Iris Pro 5200 with the eDRAM. (over what I have now in the Iris 5100)

I'm hoping I will see MUCH faster performance thanks to the quad-core and the PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD.

If you had the choice between a mid-2014 MBP WITH the NVIDIA 750M but the slower PCIe SSD (to the extent that a PCIe SSD is "slow"), and a mid-2015 WITHOUT a GPU but with the much faster SSD, which one would you go for???

Decisions, decisions! I can't wait to get one of these babies!

Thanks to all who respond!

 

[cltd]

"I frequently have 50-70 Safari tabs open"
Ram is your friend here. As far I know, GPU has not much to do in this case. Focus on ram and CPU.

 

[jerryk]

Any of those tabs doing video or online gaming? If so, the GPU could be a help.

The SSD is as fast as speced. But I notice it mostly when doing long sequential operation like rendering a video file to disk, or transferring large files. In many day to day tasks the old 450-500 MB/sec SSDs seem almost a fast, almost.

 

[rhyzome]

I wish I had machines without dgpus that aren't dinosaurs to compare with... I'm fed up with my 2014 dgpu rmbp...I'm no expert, but it gets too hot and noisy doing basic browsing with lots of tabs and windows, even in safari (forget Firefox or chrome). I notice it often switches to the d gpu during these periods and suspect the switching has something to do with it. I'm not even sure if my dgpu helps with a large photos library or the more intensive tasks I do over plain quad core (like OCRing in abbyy finereader)

Again, I know little about cpus but have been beginning to suspect my mac wouldn't run as hot and noisy during these routine tasks if it didn't have a dgpu to use..


My uneducated take is that the dgpu is a big ripoff unless you know exactly what you're doing and getting into, which I don't!

 

[Crunch]

"I frequently have 50-70 Safari tabs open"
Ram is your friend here. As far I know, GPU has not much to do in this case. Focus on ram and CPU.

I have 8GB now and would be getting 16GB in either case, and the CPU will be quad vs. dual, so a big difference for sure. Looking at the activity, my Mac mini says it's using 5GB of swap memory and memory pressure is at 42%.

And no, zero online gaming.

I remember reading that the Iris Pro 5200 has 128MB of "exceptionally fast eDRAM", which is like a level 4 cache, so maybe that will make a noticeable difference over the Iris 5100? Now that's a lotta last level cache, no?

Thanks to everyone!
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Again, I know little about cpus but have been beginning to suspect my mac wouldn't run as hot and noisy during these routine tasks if it didn't have a dgpu to use..


My uneducated take is that the dgpu is a big ripoff unless you know exactly what you're doing and getting into, which I don't!

I hear you. That's why I'm not willing to spend an extra $500 on one, even though I like the idea of having one "just in case". The just in case simply never materializes, however, but my Mac mini is a bit underwhelming. I love the SSD, though. I can't wait to go to a PCIe 3.0 SSD with 4 wide lanes.

And I used to have the same issue with extremely hot MBP's with fans blaring at full throttle. It's gotten better, though.

 

[Crunch]

Is the Iris Pro 5200 enough to drive a 4K display? I totally forgot to mention that. Duh!

Would NVIDIA 750M be better to push the pixels on a 4K display? I do want 60Hz operation. Ummm...