Graphic Designer / Casual Gamer

[stalone_s]

Hi guys!

I was just wondering I already know that i'm going to buy the 460 AMD graphics card, with 1TB of space the only thing is will I notice a difference with the 2.7 CPU vs the 2.9? I work with the Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign (probably will do some 3d work in the future). If there's like seconds of speed difference I don't care.

The thing I do care about is will I feel the difference in cpu gaming? If I go on bootcamp and play battlefield 1 or Overwatch or Witcher 3, Basically any recent-ish game will the fps be affected? Thank you for you're thoughts anyone with 2.7 cpu and has experience with it that would be great.

 

[jerryk]

2.7 vs 2.9 will have minimal difference.

 

[stalone_s]

2.7 vs 2.9 will have minimal difference.

That's what I felt It's definitely not worth the $200 or whatever it costs to add it.
[doublepost=1484180933][/doublepost]Oh yeah does anyone have any experience with bhphotovideo with buying a macbook pro? if anything happens to my mac can I just bring it to apple as if I bought it from apple?

 

[fs454]

That's what I felt It's definitely not worth the $200 or whatever it costs to add it.
[doublepost=1484180933][/doublepost]Oh yeah does anyone have any experience with bhphotovideo with buying a macbook pro? if anything happens to my mac can I just bring it to apple as if I bought it from apple?

The 2.9 vs 2.7 is for sure not a noticeable difference. Apple will warranty service the machine no matter where it was purchased, although you'll lose out on the ability to quickly exchange it within the first 14 days like you could by walking into the Apple Store, for any early onset issues. I went through two MBPs within the holiday return period for defects.


What I really wanted to chime in and say, though, is that the 460 is impressive for gaming - moreso than I had thought. BF1 looks and runs really great, Overwatch looks and runs really great at 70+ fps 1080p-ish (2880x1800, "auto" res scale) high settings, and offbeat games like Spintires run at acceptable framerates on high settings at full native res. It's got more oomph at 35w than most 50-75w chips do. The Witcher 3 will probably be pretty demanding for it, but you'll be able to dial it in to great performance. The 2.7 vs 2.9ghz CPU will absolutely show zero difference with gaming workloads.

 

[jerryk]

That's what I felt It's definitely not worth the $200 or whatever it costs to add it.
[doublepost=1484180933][/doublepost]Oh yeah does anyone have any experience with bhphotovideo with buying a macbook pro? if anything happens to my mac can I just bring it to apple as if I bought it from apple?

Agreed.

At B&H I believe your cannot return your unit once it is opened. So no buy and try. But Apple will repair it.

 

[stalone_s]

The 2.9 vs 2.7 is for sure not a noticeable difference. Apple will warranty service the machine no matter where it was purchased, although you'll lose out on the ability to quickly exchange it within the first 14 days like you could by walking into the Apple Store, for any early onset issues. I went through two MBPs within the holiday return period for defects.


What I really wanted to chime in and say, though, is that the 460 is impressive for gaming - moreso than I had thought. BF1 looks and runs really great, Overwatch looks and runs really great at 70+ fps 1080p-ish (2880x1800, "auto" res scale) high settings, and offbeat games like Spintires run at acceptable framerates on high settings at full native res. It's got more oomph at 35w than most 50-75w chips do. The Witcher 3 will probably be pretty demanding for it, but you'll be able to dial it in to great performance. The 2.7 vs 2.9ghz CPU will absolutely show zero difference with gaming workloads.

Aha yea then I'm definitely not going to get the 2.9 going to just stick with the 2.7, and OMG really 70+FPS ?! woah that's amazing especially since I know mac's aren't really made for gaming but pshhhhhh that's the best. Yeah i'm gonna weigh my options between Apple and BH because apple's sales tax is killer.

 

[fs454]

Aha yea then I'm definitely not going to get the 2.9 going to just stick with the 2.7, and OMG really 70+FPS ?! woah that's amazing especially since I know mac's aren't really made for gaming but pshhhhhh that's the best. Yeah i'm gonna weigh my options between Apple and BH because apple's sales tax is killer.

Yeah as long as you're flexible with resolution the games run great. I have BF1 on a mix of medium and high settings (prob about half and half, I'll go and look), but with the highest AA setting. Then I set it to 2880x1800, the native res, but set resolution scale to around 65%. That, coupled with using the drivers from www.bootcampdrivers.com, has net me a really, really nice looking game that runs a solid 60fps. I normally play on the hackintosh setup in my sig at 4K maxed out and the game looks nearly as good here, albeit at lower res on a smaller screen. I don't know, I just expected a more dramatic difference between medium-high-ish to Ultra. I think a good deal of the quality comes from running it native and upscaling rather than selecting a non-native res outright. Overwatch is the same way, although they've got an auto resolution scale setup so it will dynamically scale to keep your framerate above 60.

I'd get it somewhere you can return it, though. As I said I replaced two machines for unrelated issues, but on my second machine that I had for about two weeks, every 15-20 minutes, games would randomly come to a grinding halt and would render at about a frame per 3 seconds for about a ten second period, and then return to normal. Drivers didn't fix it, reinstalling the games didn't fix it, and there was no graphics issues otherwise. My first machine didn't do this, and my third (and final, hopefully) one doesn't do that, so it must have been something weird with that chip.


And one last thing, the battery drain under high load. Overwatch doesn't do it, Spintires doesn't do it, but on BF1 the battery drains about 10% per hour of gameplay while plugged in. If you were to start a game session at 35%, the notebook will shut down unexpectedly on hour 3. There are some on here that claim this is false, but this has happened to me on all three 2016 MBPs I had throughout the replacement process. The power draw of that game stressing all four cores and the GPU at 100% plus the LCD, RAM, and SSD combine to eat up more than 87w of power - so it draws slowly from the battery to supplement. Not a big deal, just make sure you start your gaming sessions at 100% - and if you need more time, it charges up pretty quick without the game running.

 

[stalone_s]

Yeah as long as you're flexible with resolution the games run great. I have BF1 on a mix of medium and high settings (prob about half and half, I'll go and look), but with the highest AA setting. Then I set it to 2880x1800, the native res, but set resolution scale to around 65%. That, coupled with using the drivers from www.bootcampdrivers.com, has net me a really, really nice looking game that runs a solid 60fps. I normally play on the hackintosh setup in my sig at 4K maxed out and the game looks nearly as good here, albeit at lower res on a smaller screen. I don't know, I just expected a more dramatic difference between medium-high-ish to Ultra. I think a good deal of the quality comes from running it native and upscaling rather than selecting a non-native res outright. Overwatch is the same way, although they've got an auto resolution scale setup so it will dynamically scale to keep your framerate above 60.

I'd get it somewhere you can return it, though. As I said I replaced two machines for unrelated issues, but on my second machine that I had for about two weeks, every 15-20 minutes, games would randomly come to a grinding halt and would render at about a frame per 3 seconds for about a ten second period, and then return to normal. Drivers didn't fix it, reinstalling the games didn't fix it, and there was no graphics issues otherwise. My first machine didn't do this, and my third (and final, hopefully) one doesn't do that, so it must have been something weird with that chip.


And one last thing, the battery drain under high load. Overwatch doesn't do it, Spintires doesn't do it, but on BF1 the battery drains about 10% per hour of gameplay while plugged in. If you were to start a game session at 35%, the notebook will shut down unexpectedly on hour 3. There are some on here that claim this is false, but this has happened to me on all three 2016 MBPs I had throughout the replacement process. The power draw of that game stressing all four cores and the GPU at 100% plus the LCD, RAM, and SSD combine to eat up more than 87w of power - so it draws slowly from the battery to supplement. Not a big deal, just make sure you start your gaming sessions at 100% - and if you need more time, it charges up pretty quick without the game running.

Thanks for your help I APPRECIATE IT!, I heard about the bootcampdrivers I'll definitely use it especially since those are some nice FPS's. I will take your word for it then I'll just get it directly from apple, I'm definitely going to check out how that new hitman game run's on it. I also heard about some games take down battery even while being charged. the gaming on the new macbook pro definitely beats the imac I have from 2013. Thanks again for the help really now I know what I'm getting no looking back now.

 

[dpny]

I don't game, but my 2.6/460 crushes Photoshop and friends.

 

[stalone_s]

I don't game, but my 2.6/460 crushes Photoshop and friends.

Aha I believe you, I'm surprised apple decided to make the gap between the two cpu selections since they aren't really much of a difference.

 

[dpny]

Aha I believe you, I'm surprised apple decided to make the gap between the two cpu selections since they aren't really much of a difference.

Why I went for the 2.6. 3OO MHz in CPU speed isn't worth the money, but I will definitely use the 460.