GTX 765m / no dedicated GPU?

[Quash]

Well nvidia won't be on the 750m by next year. A true next gen nvidia chip with die shrink to 20nm is planned for next year's model.

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-roadmap-confirms-20nm-maxwell-gpus-2014-kepler-refresh-arrives-1h-2013/

Yes but for apple to replace it i only has to be faster then last years model. So let's say they put in a 750m in now. And the next gen iris pro is faster than that, apple can just say it ...% faster then last years model. Sure a hypothetical 850m might be faster, but if the integrated gpu is faster than last years dedicated GPU no doubt in my mind apple will remove it. As graphics card switching is a very ugly solution! Also it's very space inefficient to have 2 chips if you could have one. That space could be used by more memory or battery.

I agree with Anand(tech) that apple is just gonna move to iris pro and be done with it this year. Sure they will take some heat, remember the whole 320m to hd3000 debacle. But you will be able to get a retina mbp 15 inch for like 1699$

 

[thunng8]

I agree with Anand(tech) that apple is just gonna move to iris pro and be done with it this year. Sure they will take some heat, remember the whole 320m to hd3000 debacle. But you will be able to get a retina mbp 15 inch for like 1699$

How many times do I need to mention this?

A Haswell i7 with HD4600+ Nvidia 750M combo is cheaper than the Haswell i7 with HD5200.

Not sure how you can get a cheaper MBPr 15" by going integrated only.

 

[SpitUK]

Not quite sure I'm following you on this.

Iris Pro will be only available in 2 47W mobile CPUs
i7-4850HQ - 2.3Ghz Quad with Iris Pro - $478
i7-4950HQ - 2.4Ghz Quad with Iris Pro - $658

There are 3 other 47W HD4600 Mobile quad cores available:
i7-4700MQ - 2.4Ghz Quad - Not disclosed, but likely around $280
i7-4800MQ - 2.7Ghz Quad - $378
i7-4900MQ - 2.8Ghz Quad - $568

Just check out the prices. It would be cheaper to buy a i7-4700MQ or i7-4800MQ+ Nvidia 750M than the i7-4950HQ. Even then you'll be getting lower CPU performance (marginal) and much lower GPU performance in the Iris Pro variants vs Haswell HD4600+Nivida 750M combinations.

But Apple are not making a gaming computer. They want professionals to be able to use their rMBP for the whole working day on battery. Haswell/Iris 5200 Pro will give them this opportunity.

Its what I want, I cannot stand it when the 650m kicks in when I am using a certain application and I can just watch the battery life start ebbing away!

If we can get a Haswell CPU and near 650m peroformance ALL of the time in one chip with awesome battery life I will take that every time, just like Anand said.

 

[thunng8]

Its what I want, I cannot stand it when the 650m kicks in when I am using a certain application and I can just watch the battery life start ebbing away!

You can use programs like gfxcardstatus to force it not to use the dGPU

If we can get a Haswell CPU and near 650m peroformance ALL of the time in one chip with awesome battery life I will take that every time, just like Anand said.

When do you need near 650m performance all the time? Certainly not when browsing the web or more mundane tasks.

Contrary to popular opinion, the ocassional stutter you get at retina resolution is not because of the GPU. The scaling is mostly done on the CPU. So having a fast graphics processor on all the time will not help this. Apple is trying to solve these issues with software updates.

 

[SpitUK]

You can use programs like gfxcardstatus to force it not to use the dGPU



When do you need near 650m performance all the time? Certainly not when browsing the web or more mundane tasks.

Contrary to popular opinion, the ocassional stutter you get at retina resolution is not because of the GPU. The scaling is mostly done on the CPU. So having a fast graphics processor on all the time will not help this. Apple is trying to solve these issues with software updates.

Why would you not want near 650m performance all the time for no penalty? I do not play games on my rMBP so have no need for the discrete chip. Anyone who is a big game player then get a gaming laptop.

If I enable the 650m on my rMBP the stuttering virtually disappears. Try it using www.polygon.com

 

[thunng8]

Why would you not want near 650m performance all the time for no penalty? I do not play games on my rMBP so have no need for the discrete chip. Anyone who is a big game player then get a gaming laptop.

Well there is a penalty .. the Iris Pro graphics does use more power than a HD4600 and the CPUs with Iris Pro graphics are also clocked lower because of this.

 

[SpitUK]

Well there is a penalty .. the Iris Pro graphics does use more power than a HD4600 and the CPUs with Iris Pro graphics are also clocked lower because of this.

Personally even if there is a penalty (could be outweighed by Haswells idle power requirements) then I would rather have that than the dual chip situation we have now.

 

[dusk007]

You can use programs like gfxcardstatus to force it not to use the dGPU

You cannot when you run an external display. Just adding an external pushes the notebook even on mild load to push the fans above 2000 rpm. While you need quite a lot more load to push the fans into a noisy region when running IGP only.

Also you can force the IGP with gfxCardStatus but you need to restart every app when you want to swtich back. You may launch one app that you want to have something more than a HD 4600 and you can switch on the dGPU, but you cannot switch back. If you force the IGP without closing all dependent apps like something primitive like iphoto or Chrome you need to restart all those apps or they behave really badly. OSX uses a really bad gpu switching which breaks down unless you stay on one GPU for the whole time and they are apparently unwilling to fix the issues.
Looks to me like they are just holding out until something like an HD 5200.

I.e I often have many apps open and on the desk I want to use my external screen - so I have to switch on the dGPU. If I move away from the desk and want to rely on the IGP only because I don't use any app that needs anything better anyway, I have to restart tons of apps which is just annoying especially with Chrome. Chrome reloading all the open tabs takes seemingly forever and looses quite some state info in the process.

Forcing the IGP is an inconvenient emergency measure that shouldn't be needed at all.
Also those that need Windows for some more serious office work might appreciate not having to use a VM or the dGPU in bootcamp.
Not that Apple couldn't fix all these issues by just enabling Optimus in Windows and offering something similar in OSX (rather than their crappy annoying broken mux version) BUT they don't fix it. Especially for Windows it would be easy and probably a 20 min job for the right technician in the bootcamp department.

Now they have this mux version because they say it saves some power when the dGPU is active compared to an Optimus solution which cannot completely shut down the IGP. But in reality the dGPU is so often unnecessarily turn on that it wastes way more power and annoys with heat(fan noise) than it ever saves. Especially on multi monitor setups it is stupid when all you do is web browsing and the Intel GPU is entirely capable of pushing lots of pixels.

Personally the only games I play is Starcraft 2 and on the occasional LAN CSS, L4D and some really old games that anything can handle. Good enough is all I need and that is what an HD 5200 definitely is. It is good at everything and not annoying. Better is possible but really just a waste. If one wants to game often and new titles there is better faster stuff out there for much less money.

 

[SpitUK]

You cannot when you run an external display. Just adding an external pushes the notebook even on mild load to push the fans above 2000 rpm. While you need quite a lot more load to push the fans into a noisy region when running IGP only.

Also you can force the IGP with gfxCardStatus but you need to restart every app when you want to swtich back. You may launch one app that you want to have something more than a HD 4600 and you can switch on the dGPU, but you cannot switch back. If you force the IGP without closing all dependent apps like something primitive like iphoto or Chrome you need to restart all those apps or they behave really badly. OSX uses a really bad gpu switching which breaks down unless you stay on one GPU for the whole time and they are apparently unwilling to fix the issues.
Looks to me like they are just holding out until something like an HD 5200.

I.e I often have many apps open and on the desk I want to use my external screen - so I have to switch on the dGPU. If I move away from the desk and want to rely on the IGP only because I don't use any app that needs anything better anyway, I have to restart tons of apps which is just annoying especially with Chrome. Chrome reloading all the open tabs takes seemingly forever and looses quite some state info in the process.

Forcing the IGP is an inconvenient emergency measure that shouldn't be needed at all.
Also those that need Windows for some more serious office work might appreciate not having to use a VM or the dGPU in bootcamp.
Not that Apple couldn't fix all these issues by just enabling Optimus in Windows and offering something similar in OSX (rather than their crappy annoying broken mux version) BUT they don't fix it. Especially for Windows it would be easy and probably a 20 min job for the right technician in the bootcamp department.

Now they have this mux version because they say it saves some power when the dGPU is active compared to an Optimus solution which cannot completely shut down the IGP. But in reality the dGPU is so often unnecessarily turn on that it wastes way more power and annoys with heat(fan noise) than it ever saves. Especially on multi monitor setups it is stupid when all you do is web browsing and the Intel GPU is entirely capable of pushing lots of pixels.

Personally the only games I play is Starcraft 2 and on the occasional LAN CSS, L4D and some really old games that anything can handle. Good enough is all I need and that is what an HD 5200 definitely is. It is good at everything and not annoying. Better is possible but really just a waste. If one wants to game often and new titles there is better faster stuff out there for much less money.

Great post. There really is not an argument for a discrete GPU anymore. If you want games performance then buy a gaming machine.

Like you, I want clean, simple and efficient.

 

[tyua]

But Apple are not making a gaming computer. They want professionals to be able to use their rMBP for the whole working day on battery...

What about professionals in need of 3D power ?
You don't have much choice when you need to work on Apple laptops.
I am on my own struggled with that mbp design choice.
As I don't enjoy retina screen, neither the end of 17' mbp.
I think now to move on hackintosh even.

 

[B...]

What about professionals in need of 3D power ?
You don't have much choice when you need to work on Apple laptops.
I am on my own struggled with that mbp design choice.
As I don't enjoy retina screen, neither the end of 17' mbp.
I think now to move on hackintosh even.

I also hated Apple's 17 foot MBPs.

 

[erigas]

What about professionals in need of 3D power ?
You don't have much choice when you need to work on Apple laptops.
I am on my own struggled with that mbp design choice.
As I don't enjoy retina screen, neither the end of 17' mbp.
I think now to move on hackintosh even.

Well said. I'm one of them..and if Apple continues to ignore me, in favor of the Photoshop "pros" who don't need that much power, have sensitive laps, and are in dire need of a fashion statement instead of a powerful graphical machine to accomplish tasks .....then my 2011 MBP will be my last Apple laptop!!

 

[fatlardo]

Well said. I'm one of them..and if Apple continues to ignore me, in favor of the Photoshop "pros" who don't need that much power, have sensitive laps, and are in dire need of a fashion statement instead of a powerful graphical machine to accomplish tasks .....then my 2011 MBP will be my last Apple laptop!!

I think with the 4k resolution, it should come back this year if not next.

 

[B...]

Well said. I'm one of them..and if Apple continues to ignore me, in favor of the Photoshop "pros" who don't need that much power, have sensitive laps, and are in dire need of a fashion statement instead of a powerful graphical machine to accomplish tasks .....then my 2011 MBP will be my last Apple laptop!!

Are you calling the 15" rMBP a "weak" machine? If you can work with a 2011 computer, it's not like you need an Alienware m18x to "accomplish tasks".

 

[erigas]

Are you calling the 15" rMBP a "weak" machine? If you can work with a 2011 computer, it's not like you need an Alienware m18x to "accomplish tasks".

I need to be handling millions of polygons on screen to retopologise my scanned data in a 3d application like Modo and other cad software like Geomagic studio,Rhino,MOI etc. So far I've hit the limit with about 6 mil polys after which the display slows down considerably (think below 10fps) and makes it increasingly difficult to work with.....so YES I need all the power I can get since some of my scans are in excess of 12mil polys.

I have tested the 2012 rMBP and it wasn't that much better....definitely not worth the upgrade, and with reports of the gt750m practically having very similar specs, I'm not very optimistic either!

 

[B...]

I need to be handling millions of polygons on screen to retopologise my scanned data in a 3d application like Modo and other cad software like Geomagic studio,Rhino,MOI etc. So far I've hit the limit with about 6 mil polys after which the display slows down considerably (think below 10fps) and makes it increasingly difficult to work with.....so YES I need all the power I can get since some of my scans are in excess of 12mil polys.

I have tested the 2012 rMBP and it wasn't that much better....definitely not worth the upgrade, and with reports of the gt750m practically having very similar specs, I'm not very optimistic either!

Have you considered...a desktop? That's what you need.

 

[erigas]

Have you considered...a desktop? That's what you need.

Much of my work requires me to pack all of my stuff so I can be on site to scan the required object. The 3d scanner needs to be hooked up to a computer to operate.

But even for all other 3d pros who need mobility, the usually substandard video card from Apple is a slap in the face. I DONT want to get an Asus or another laptop but I'm afraid that I might NEED to.....crossing fingers

 

[w00t951]

Not quite sure I'm following you on this.

Iris Pro will be only available in 2 47W mobile CPUs
i7-4850HQ - 2.3Ghz Quad with Iris Pro - $478
i7-4950HQ - 2.4Ghz Quad with Iris Pro - $658

There are 3 other 47W HD4600 Mobile quad cores available:
i7-4700MQ - 2.4Ghz Quad - Not disclosed, but likely around $280
i7-4800MQ - 2.7Ghz Quad - $378
i7-4900MQ - 2.8Ghz Quad - $568

Just check out the prices. It would be cheaper to buy a i7-4700MQ or i7-4800MQ+ Nvidia 750M than the i7-4950HQ. Even then you'll be getting lower CPU performance (marginal) and much lower GPU performance in the Iris Pro variants vs Haswell HD4600+Nivida 750M combinations.

I'm sure Apple has preferred OEM pricing from Intel, so those consumer prices are grossly inflated. Even if the Iris Pro is more expensive, Apple likes to have the performance slide about how much better their graphics are than the last generation's. With the GT750M, power consumption will be high, and performance over integrated/last generation graphics will be minimal. With the Iris Pro, at least Apple can say that power consumption will be minimal while delivering GT650M/GT750M-like performance.

 

[devilcm3]

I'm sure Apple has preferred OEM pricing from Intel, so those consumer prices are grossly inflated. Even if the Iris Pro is more expensive, Apple likes to have the performance slide about how much better their graphics are than the last generation's. With the GT750M, power consumption will be high, and performance over integrated/last generation graphics will be minimal. With the Iris Pro, at least Apple can say that power consumption will be minimal while delivering GT650M/GT750M-like performance.

A benchmark from just a single website is inconclusive.
Given how intel grossly exaggerating their performance increase on papers i wouldnt be surprised if it turns out to be much weaker than a GT650.

Personally i still felt disgust over intel IGPs since 2011, it would probably took them a year or so to reach the level on par with nvidia.
While i would gladly have a GT750 with the buggy software that hopefully will be fixed rather than dropping my cash just to get a measly intel graphics.

Just my opinion

 

[dusk007]

I need to be handling millions of polygons on screen to retopologise my scanned data in a 3d application like Modo and other cad software like Geomagic studio,Rhino,MOI etc. So far I've hit the limit with about 6 mil polys after which the display slows down considerably (think below 10fps) and makes it increasingly difficult to work with.....so YES I need all the power I can get since some of my scans are in excess of 12mil polys.

I have tested the 2012 rMBP and it wasn't that much better....definitely not worth the upgrade, and with reports of the gt750m practically having very similar specs, I'm not very optimistic either!

The consumer Kepler isn't terribly good at most pro applications. If you really cared about performance why not a workstation with a Quadro K2000M or up.
The Hd 5200 does fairly well all round and doesn't have that artificial distinction into Consumer and Professional hardware. I doubt you'd be any worse off as Apple would only go for another cheap consumer card again.

Get a workstation like the Elitebook w series if you need performance.

 

[thunng8]

A benchmark from just a single website is inconclusive.
Given how intel grossly exaggerating their performance increase on papers i wouldnt be surprised if it turns out to be much weaker than a GT650.

You are right. Anandtech did do some tests and on average the 650M was 42% faster than Iris Pro when gaming at 1600x900 res.

----------

I'm sure Apple has preferred OEM pricing from Intel, so those consumer prices are grossly inflated. Even if the Iris Pro is more expensive, Apple likes to have the performance slide about how much better their graphics are than the last generation's. With the GT750M, power consumption will be high, and performance over integrated/last generation graphics will be minimal. With the Iris Pro, at least Apple can say that power consumption will be minimal while delivering GT650M/GT750M-like performance.

Apple might get all these chips for lower price - but the relative difference in price between them will be the same.

Its no wonder no-one has an Iris Pro laptop to test at the moment. So far, it has been very unpopular with all the major vendors i.e. every single Iris Pro CPU tested has been on an Intel supplied desktop testbed.

Also, a performance slide saying 10% faster is better than one saying previous gen was 40% faster.

 

[Jrwoods86]

Lets be honest with each other, macbooks are not going to be in the 1600 dollar range unless your buying a used bottom tier mbp. Why would they sell them for 1600 dollars when they can sell them for 2000-2600. I would be shocked as hell If they didn't put a nvidia card in there new rmbp. Every single macbook pro in the past has had a nvidia card except in 06 with the ati x1600. I wouldn't be suprised If they offered differen't gpu's to appel to different crowds buisness/student-gamers.

Remember when no one wanted an apple because games didn't support there OS. Look for the 750/760 in the next rmbp.