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johnparjr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 10, 2005
682
230
Earth
So is there a big difference between the 2 the non touch bar has the 540 and the touchbar has the 550
 

ninja2000

macrumors 6502
Dec 16, 2010
338
75
Although on paper it seems like there is not much difference, the 15w 540 will never reach maximum clocks as they throttle like crazy. On my surface pro 4 i7 within a minute of cpu and gpu the core clocks drop to about 1.3ghz and gpu drops to about 600-700mhz
For the first minute the performance is amazing when the clocks are at max. The iris 550 with 25w thermal budget will retain is stated clocks so the performance will be much better
 

Sully

macrumors 6502
Oct 27, 2007
264
230
Although on paper it seems like there is not much difference, the 15w 540 will never reach maximum clocks as they throttle like crazy. On my surface pro 4 i7 within a minute of cpu and gpu the core clocks drop to about 1.3ghz and gpu drops to about 600-700mhz
For the first minute the performance is amazing when the clocks are at max. The iris 550 with 25w thermal budget will retain is stated clocks so the performance will be much better


What do you use to measure these speeds?
 

PaulWog

Suspended
Jun 28, 2011
700
103
So is there a big difference between the 2 the non touch bar has the 540 and the touchbar has the 550

As stated above, paper (theory) vs. practice (realistic benchmarks).

This is why the new Macbook Pro is in a sad state. The 2016 Macbook Pro non-touch bar should have come in at $1300 (if they put a 1080p camera on it and kept magsafe, then $1400 might make sense, but still not $1500). The 2015 model should be $100-$150 less than the 2016 model. The touchbar model then would come in at $1600 or $1700.

While I wish prices were $200 less, even $100 less would've been within reason (except that 8GB of RAM thing is almost as bad as the 128GB of storage was previously).
 

ninja2000

macrumors 6502
Dec 16, 2010
338
75
I use intel XTU to monitor temps/clocks/throttling.
I also undervolted the i7 15w to see if I can improve the clocks which does help but still nowhere near a 25w chip
 
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Mcdevidr

macrumors 6502a
Nov 27, 2013
793
368
That throttling is on the Surface pro. I don't think the non touch bar throttles that bad. When I was playing a game for several hours the gpu portion alone was maxed out and pulling 15 watts by itself. I don't really ever max out the CPU even gaming under for more than a couple seconds here or there.
 
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ninja2000

macrumors 6502
Dec 16, 2010
338
75
Yes, the throttling is on the SP4 i7 but that doesn't make a big difference as it is the wattage not the device. The iris can pull over 15w as you have noticed. If you have very little CPU load then that is ok, but what I would notice is for the first minute I would get great performance as the CPU will allow over 20w for approximately a minute and then all of a sudden it is throttled back to 15 watts and that is when it drops the clocks down.

What game were you playing? and were you monitoring clocks?
 

Mcdevidr

macrumors 6502a
Nov 27, 2013
793
368
I played CIV VI for several hours at 1440x900 while swiping out of the game to do other things browse message in between turns. Wattage stayed at 22-23 the whole time. Temps were around 80 Celsius. I wasn't monitoring clocks on the CPU only wattage. The gpu was using roughly 13 watts that whole time the rest was the CPU it looked to Be using about 50-60% of CPU.
 
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Antairez

macrumors regular
Mar 17, 2015
159
99
I played CIV VI for several hours at 1440x900 while swiping out of the game to do other things browse message in between turns. Wattage stayed at 22-23 the whole time. Temps were around 80 Celsius. I wasn't monitoring clocks on the CPU only wattage. The gpu was using roughly 13 watts that whole time the rest was the CPU it looked to Be using about 50-60% of CPU.

macOS or Bootcamp? Average FPS? Game settings?
 

Mcdevidr

macrumors 6502a
Nov 27, 2013
793
368
Mac OS. Game settings on minimum 1440x900. Don't know fps close to 30 I think. I mean it's not the best but it works. I can't stand the fan so I kept my Skylake i3 gtx 950 cheap system to stream from when at home. On the go the fan would be acceptable.

I looked into an egpu but it's cheaper to keep my system.
 

LGIR627

macrumors member
Sep 9, 2016
84
25
so, do we know for sure that the TB 550 is/will be significantly faster in real life than the non-TB 540? I have no interest in the actual touchbar but this issue is important to me
 

djinn

macrumors 68000
Oct 4, 2003
1,837
354
so, do we know for sure that the TB 550 is/will be significantly faster in real life than the non-TB 540? I have no interest in the actual touchbar but this issue is important to me
LGIR627, did you decide on which model to get? I am in the same boat right now.
 
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