Iris Pro or 750M?

[Codevine]

Hi guys!

I want to buy a MacBook pro before "Back to school" stops and I'm not completely sure which one, yet. However, I already know I definitely want a 15 inch MacBook Pro Retina which sounds about perfect to me. I'll be using it for University as well as work (software development, including running Windows in a VM for some of the tasks).

However, I'm arguing with myself about wheter to get the version with the dedicated GPU or not. For everything that is not gaming I 100% know that I will not need the 750M, meaning the 750M will not impact battery life and as far as I know there is the possibility to disable the 750M completely for some time, right?

This means the 750M will mainly be used to play one of the following games:

• Hearthstone
• Diablo 3
• World of Warcraft
• Elder Scrolls Online
• Divinity: Original Sin

Now they are no the most graphically intense games which still look kind of good on lower settings due to their more artistic nature. That being said, I do need ~60 FPS for smooth gaming and hate playing games at 30 FPS.

However, what I seriously care about is Heat and Fan Noise and I didn't really find a comparison of Iris Pro vs 750M in those areas, so my questions would be:

- Is the MacBook with a 750M any louder than the normal one? I'd guess probably not, because they have the same cooling and the fans probably run at the same maximum speed - which is probably reached on both of them after some time of gaming.
- Does the MacBook with a 750M get noticeably hotter? I'd guess yes, as they have the same cooling, but it will have to dissipate more heat due to the 750M.

So yeah, what is your take on it?

Price difference is 1760€ vs 2200€ using Apple on Campus. I do get double the SSD storage (256GB vs 512) as well as upgraded CPU, but I wouldn't really need those.

 

[Freyqq]

None of those games are very graphically intensive. Intel Iris Pro will handle them just fine, though at lower settings. Stick with 1440x900 or 1650x1050...don't try native resolution. The 750M could handle 1920x1200 at a bit higher settings.

 

[TechGod]

Hi guys!

I want to buy a MacBook pro before "Back to school" stops and I'm not completely sure which one, yet. However, I already know I definitely want a 15 inch MacBook Pro Retina which sounds about perfect to me. I'll be using it for University as well as work (software development, including running Windows in a VM for some of the tasks).

However, I'm arguing with myself about wheter to get the version with the dedicated GPU or not. For everything that is not gaming I 100% know that I will not need the 750M, meaning the 750M will not impact battery life and as far as I know there is the possibility to disable the 750M completely for some time, right?

This means the 750M will mainly be used to play one of the following games:

• Hearthstone
• Diablo 3
• World of Warcraft
• Elder Scrolls Online
• Divinity: Original Sin

Now they are no the most graphically intense games which still look kind of good on lower settings due to their more artistic nature. That being said, I do need ~60 FPS for smooth gaming and hate playing games at 30 FPS.

However, what I seriously care about is Heat and Fan Noise and I didn't really find a comparison of Iris Pro vs 750M in those areas, so my questions would be:

- Is the MacBook with a 750M any louder than the normal one? I'd guess probably not, because they have the same cooling and the fans probably run at the same maximum speed - which is probably reached on both of them after some time of gaming.
- Does the MacBook with a 750M get noticeably hotter? I'd guess yes, as they have the same cooling, but it will have to dissipate more heat due to the 750M.

So yeah, what is your take on it?

Price difference is 1760€ vs 2200€ using Apple on Campus. I do get double the SSD storage (256GB vs 512) as well as upgraded CPU, but I wouldn't really need those.

Ok if you want to play games the 750 seems like a no brainer to be inset, glad you have that down.

However there seems to be some people saying that it runs hotter but not any loader than the iris pro.

 

[yjchua95]

Ok if you want to play games the 750 seems like a no brainer to be inset, glad you have that down.

However there seems to be some people saying that it runs hotter but not any loader than the iris pro.

The 750M model actually runs cooler in graphics-intensive tasks compared to the Iris Pro, because tasks are spread over two chips instead of one chip (the Iris Pro GPU is in the processor), allowing for better heat dissipation.

In Macoh stress tests, results showed that when tests were run in the 750M model, it did not throttle at all. When the same tests were performed in the Iris Pro model, it started throttling pretty fast.

 

[Balckoutgr]

is there any problem at 2160p 60hz with iris pro only mbpr ?

 

[blooperz]

You will have a lot of heat and fan noise while gaming on either model...it's time to find a new laptop if those are the 2 things you seriously care about =p...there's really no way around it with how thin the design is...I had the base iris pro model before I switched it for the 750 I can assure you they both run relatively hot and loud under stress. You might find people saying that the 750m runs cooler because the heat is spread out....but "cooler" is a relative term here since it still gets uncomfortably warm if its on your lap...ofc while not gaming or doing any other intensive tasks they will both be cool/quiet.

 

[mr.bee]

I have bought a rmbp, and i only play warcraft. It runs ok, but not on the highest settings. But I don't mind that. I'm just a casual player.

I do regret I didn't take an imac with a good GPU and a cheap macbook air, instead of the rmbp.

If you really like gaming, don't look at the rmbp. don't get me wrong, the rmbp is a very good computer, but as I said, there's better out there for gaming, and if you need something for on the go, there are easier laptops to carry

 

[yjchua95]

I have bought a rmbp, and i only play warcraft. It runs ok, but not on the highest settings. But I don't mind that. I'm just a casual player.

I do regret I didn't take an imac with a good GPU and a cheap macbook air, instead of the rmbp.

If you really like gaming, don't look at the rmbp. don't get me wrong, the rmbp is a very good computer, but as I said, there's better out there for gaming, and if you need something for on the go, there are easier laptops to carry

I disagree, my rMBP (2.6/16/1TB/750M) plays games quite well.

BF4 at 1680x1050, mix of high and ultra, FXAA and 16xAF plays at around 47-50 fps on average, with the lowest being 35 fps and easily shooting past 60 fps in quite a lot of situations.

 

[Codevine]

Thanks for all the replies!

I do have to say that I have a powerful PC at home where I'll be doing most of the gaming. This means that the rMBP will only be used for gaming on the go and perhaps if I'm lazy and want to stay in bed playing Hearthstone.

If the noise and heat is pretty much the same (by heat I mean the heat I can feel as a user, not the temperature of the CPU/GPU at that point) then I'd probably opt for the 750M, because it would get me better framerates/quality.

Of course, if the heat/noise would annoy me it might lead to just stop gaming which would "waste" the money for the 750M.

It's a bit hard to judge for me, as I probably would have to buy one in order to test it - and then I would probably Keep it anyway because I don't want to go through the hassle of exchanging.

 

[mikeo007]

If heat/noise while gaming is going to bother you, then you're probably not going to game on a RMBP very often. Since that's the case, there's no point in getting the 750m for your usage.

Heat and noise aside, everyone's opinion on play-ability and graphics quality will differ. I don't think the 750m is worth it at this point, since it's going to be roughly equivalent to a 3-4 year old mid-range desktop GPU.

WoW is the only one of the games on your list that I've played on a RMBP and I can say that it runs fine on the 750m at high settings for the most part, but does start to crawl in raids, so theres that to consider as well.

 

[SuprUsrStan]

I've got a rMBP with a 650M and I absolutely hate the dedicated graphics chip. It runs hot and and drains so much power. Every time it switches to the dedicated graphics the computer stutters.

My next macbook pro will definitely be the "low" end version but upgraded to match the higher end one. That way, I can stay with just the iGPU. The program gfxstatus isn't able to force the iGPU on all the time so buying a dedicated gpu basically means you have to put up with the switching.

The Iris Pro is good enough for all current Blizzard games up to 900p or 1050p depending on your resolution. The 750M isn't able to handle the native resolution either. Sure the dedicated graphics is better but the iGPU is like 60% to 80% as effective as the dedicated so that's actually pretty good.

 

[Codevine]

Yeah, that makes sense. In the end, it probably makes more sense going for the base model with the Iris Pro, it sounds like it is the version with less problems. Especially considering that there were also a lot of problems with dedicated GPUs in the past (I heard "radeongate").

I've got a rMBP with a 650M and I absolutely hate the dedicated graphics chip. It runs hot and and drains so much power. Every time it switches to the dedicated graphics the computer stutters.

Uh, that doesn't sound very good. Exactly for this kind of behaviour I had the fallback plan of disabling the dedicated GPU - but as you just pointed out this isn't always possible.

 

[cirus]

As far as drivers go, nvidia leads the pack. Intel is decent but I would not be surprised if 3+ years down the road you start getting glitches in games and intel doesn't release updates. (Much like intel has placed HD 3000 graphics on the back burner).

 

[Freyqq]

As far as drivers go, nvidia leads the pack. Intel is decent but I would not be surprised if 3+ years down the road you start getting glitches in games and intel doesn't release updates. (Much like intel has placed HD 3000 graphics on the back burner).

This is true. Apparently, in Windows (dualbooting), 750M has pulled ahead even more than at launch versus the Iris Pro due to better driver support.

In OSX, I rarely see dGPU switching (750M). Some web sites enable it for a split second for some reason. Netflix enables it, but not for long - 10.10 goes to html5 for netflix. Gaming also enables it. That's all i've noticed so far.