Iris Pro running Bioshock and Photoshop smoother than 750M???

[commac]

I loaded up the original Bioshock with the 750M and found it smoothest on 1440x900. Anything higher, especially 2880x1800 and it seems to fall apart which was disappointing. I tried the game with the Iris Pro graphics and I can max out the resolution to 2880x1800 and its still playable... With max detail.

I then booted up photoshop with the Iris Pro and notice that painting is more responsive than with the 750M... The pen tool rendering has a slight advantage to the 750M with the drawing mode set to advanced.

Could I have a defective unit? Is the 750M that bad? Is Iris Pro that good? Driver issue?

Quite disappointed since paying a substantial premium thinking Id be getting better performance...

Can anyone confirm or explain this?

 

[dusk007]

The photoshop issue might be software or buggy power states on the 750M. Maybe it sits at too low a power state for responsive behavior.
Bioshock must be a driver issue. 750M shouldn't be this bad.
Iris Pro does handle high res and textures quite well as I have found. Still the 750M should be a bit better or at least seemingly equal.

I cannot test either of these cases. So I cannot confirm anything. It seems though that the 750M has some driver issues that Apple still hasn't fixed, which is weird as it is essentially an identical card to the 650M.

 

[Sym0]

If it is in Mavericks it could be drivers, I have had **** frame rates since the update, and there are several threads getting around the net on this issue. I'm running a 650m and used to have silky smooth frame rates at 1440x900 but now they are unplayable.

 

[Gav Mack]

Think its a mavericks issue, performance in OSX CS6 has dropped compared to using bootcamp on my MBP and Mac Pro. Cue Adobe taking months to fix it!

 

[ooans]

Also the game Wolf Among Us runs better with Iris Pro than 750m. Disappointing…

 

[saturnotaku]

The drivers for the 750M are not optimized yet. 10.9.1 promises some fixes, so performance should be better in games. Regarding Adobe applications, since they moved to OpenCL from CUDA, the Iris Pro is going to outperform the 750M. No amount of driver/operating system updates is going to fix that.

 

[commac]

The drivers for the 750M are not optimized yet. 10.9.1 promises some fixes, so performance should be better in games. Regarding Adobe applications, since they moved to OpenCL from CUDA, the Iris Pro is going to outperform the 750M. No amount of driver/operating system updates is going to fix that.

The photoshop issue might be software or buggy power states on the 750M. Maybe it sits at too low a power state for responsive behavior.
Bioshock must be a driver issue. 750M shouldn't be this bad.
Iris Pro does handle high res and textures quite well as I have found. Still the 750M should be a bit better or at least seemingly equal.

I cannot test either of these cases. So I cannot confirm anything. It seems though that the 750M has some driver issues that Apple still hasn't fixed, which is weird as it is essentially an identical card to the 650M.

Hard to justify a 750M until/if they fix the driver issues. Maybe apple is dragging their feet to get us raging so that when they finally do drop dgpus from the lineup we won't complain as much

Does anyone here notice real world performance boosts in anything using the 750m over the iris pro?

 

[Jack Sun]

Think its a mavericks issue, performance in OSX CS6 has dropped compared to using bootcamp on my MBP and Mac Pro. Cue Adobe taking months to fix it!

Seems scandalous to me: people paid $500 more for dGPU but the OS can't take advantage of it??? Even more glad I went with Iris Pro only...

 

[undesign]

Seems scandalous to me: people paid $500 more for dGPU but the OS can't take advantage of it??? Even more glad I went with Iris Pro only...

Do the retina MacBook Pros that come with the 750M also come with the Iris Pro or is it JUST the 750M without graphics switching?

 

[Gav Mack]

Seems scandalous to me: people paid $500 more for dGPU but the OS can't take advantage of it??? Even more glad I went with Iris Pro only...

It is but will be fixed soon enough, if it's system wide and not Adobe related possibly with 10.9.1. Thankfully I have bootcamp and also a Mac Pro with a GTX680 which absolutely monsters Photoshop CS6.

 

[commac]

Do the retina MacBook Pros that come with the 750M also come with the Iris Pro or is it JUST the 750M without graphics switching?

750M comes with the Iris Pro. By default the 750M only kicks in when using external monitors or when a program asks for it. From what I understand the 750M performs much better in Windows but you lose battery performance as you can't turn it off.

 

[undesign]

750M comes with the Iris Pro. By default the 750M only kicks in when using external monitors or when a program asks for it. From what I understand the 750M performs much better in Windows but you lose battery performance as you can't turn it off.

Thanks!

 

[commac]

Seems scandalous to me: people paid $500 more for dGPU but the OS can't take advantage of it??? Even more glad I went with Iris Pro only...

What make you choose the Iris Pro only model? I am still within return period and your model does seem appealing. A 400$ savings and better performance potentially less headaches.

I thought the 750M would be good for Adobe products, video editing gaming and multi hi res monitors but the current reviews are showing the Iris Pro on par or beating the 750M in the rMBP at pretty much everything besides rare cuda apps, some After Effects and hi res 3D modelling.. Hoping they fix the issue with updates is a hard pill to swallow on a non upgradable 3K machine.

 

[yjchua95]

It's driver issues. The 750M is flawless in Windows (after downloading drivers direct from Nvidia). Games (Windows games) run just fine in boot camp with Nvidia drivers (I know that you can't use iris in Windows if you have an RMBP with a dGPU).

Meanwhile, Bioshock Infinite sucks big time in the Mac side on 750M.

It's a driver issue all right. Let's hope Apple will fix that in 10.9.1

----------

The drivers for the 750M are not optimized yet. 10.9.1 promises some fixes, so performance should be better in games. Regarding Adobe applications, since they moved to OpenCL from CUDA, the Iris Pro is going to outperform the 750M. No amount of driver/operating system updates is going to fix that.

Sad but true. Anyway I'm still glad I've got a 750M in my RMBP to play games in Boot Camp.

 

[Nik]

Photoshop Lightroom is very slow when scolling in a picture (18MB Camera Raw file) no matter if I use Iris Pro or 750m, but it may be a little different engine behind it than photoshop.

I consider sending it back, my MacBook Air is faster in this regard because it does not have to render Retina Graphics.

 

[iMacFarlane]

Do the retina MacBook Pros that come with the 750M also come with the Iris Pro or is it JUST the 750M without graphics switching?

I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the Iris Pro is cast on the die with the Haswell CPU. In other words, every Haswell microprocessor contains an Iris Pro GPU. No?

 

[blooperz]

The mac OS drivers for the 750m leave much to be desired...I installed a bootcamp partition with windows 7 for games and the driver version that was installed was about 10 versions behind so after updating it everything ran flawlessly...running borderlands 2 at 2880x 1800 with everything maxed and it plays buttery smooth. When I try to play it in Mavericks OS i have to turn the resolution waaay down to get the same gameplay, so its not a 750m vs iris pro problem...just a driver issue imo...not even sure if you can manually update Nvidia drivers in mac OS like you can in windows, AFAIK apple has to release updates.

 

[Jack Sun]

What make you choose the Iris Pro only model? I am still within return period and your model does seem appealing. A 400$ savings and better performance potentially less headaches.

I thought the 750M would be good for Adobe products, video editing gaming and multi hi res monitors but the current reviews are showing the Iris Pro on par or beating the 750M in the rMBP at pretty much everything besides rare cuda apps, some After Effects and hi res 3D modelling.. Hoping they fix the issue with updates is a hard pill to swallow on a non upgradable 3K machine.

Three main reasons:

1. I read Anandtech's Iris Pro review.
2. I don't play video games.
3. I decided the large cost benefit & noticeable power efficiency gains vs. only SLIGHTLY better graphics performance in peak situations that I would likely never use.....was a no brainer.

So the base 2.0 with Iris Pro only, upgraded to 16 GB ram, with education discount = cheapestpossible greatdeal superefficient batterysipping bigscreengorgeous ultrafast virtualmachineripping futureproof NO BRAINER!

 

[js09]

Photoshop Lightroom is very slow when scolling in a picture (18MB Camera Raw file) no matter if I use Iris Pro or 750m, but it may be a little different engine behind it than photoshop.

I consider sending it back, my MacBook Air is faster in this regard because it does not have to render Retina Graphics.

bumping this because i have the same issue, and it's beyond disappointing. my 5 year old PC performs better in PS and LR than my 3k macbook pro.

 

[richard371]

I don't play video games at all but I feel the iris pro and 750M are ok but just ok. Seems like in most reviews and benchmarks they are neck and neck. I turned off the 750M on my pro but felt the iris pro ran hotter since the iris pro is on the same chip as the i7 quad. I decided to let the apps and mac choose the GPU and it runs cooler since the GPU is on the other side from the CPU/Iris pro not to mention both my legs are at the same temp

I need 16GB Ram and 512 SSD for my VMS so the gpu was a freebie.

 

[commac]

I don't play video games at all but I feel the iris pro and 750M are ok but just ok. Seems like in most reviews and benchmarks they are neck and neck. I turned off the 750M on my pro but felt the iris pro ran hotter since the iris pro is on the same chip as the i7 quad. I decided to let the apps and mac choose the GPU and it runs cooler since the GPU is on the other side from the CPU/Iris pro not to mention both my legs are at the same temp

I need 16GB Ram and 512 SSD for my VMS so the gpu was a freebie.

May i ask what kind of work you do with your vms? If a cooler machine is true with the 750M thats definitely a pro for the dgpu model.

 

[richard371]

i run a 2008 R2 domain controller, another 2008 R2 server running Exchange 2010, and 2 clients running windows 7 with office 2010 and win 8.

As soon as a lunch a windows VM the GPU switches to the 750m.

May i ask what kind of work you do with your vms? If a cooler machine is true with the 750M thats definitely a pro for the dgpu model.

 

[Freyqq]

I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the Iris Pro is cast on the die with the Haswell CPU. In other words, every Haswell microprocessor contains an Iris Pro GPU. No?

Just a certain line of Haswell Processors. They also sell a line with the 4600 graphics, which is a small speed increase from the old 4000.

 

[ooans]

bumping this because i have the same issue, and it's beyond disappointing. my 5 year old PC performs better in PS and LR than my 3k macbook pro.

Your old PC doesnt run it in HiDPI-mode. As of now, it seems that more demanding retina apps don't run very smoothly on even the most powerful macs.

 

[akdj]

The drivers for the 750M are not optimized yet. 10.9.1 promises some fixes, so performance should be better in games. Regarding Adobe applications, since they moved to OpenCL from CUDA, the Iris Pro is going to outperform the 750M. No amount of driver/operating system updates is going to fix that.

Adobe is in flux right now. In everything. Acrobat runs like a dog right now. It's Adobe...and I'm sure some optimization by Apple with Mavs will definitely help. Don't count on nVidia spending a whole lotta time on Apple drivers for a last gen card. Apple will optimize though. I'm running a high end original. 2.7/16/786. Adobe CC has been a blast over the last year. In Design, PS, AE, Premier and Acrobat...ALL running flawlessly and most with HiDPI updates. Something happened with 10.9 that didn't agree. Adobe isn't not hasn't moved entirely to OpenCL as far as I know. Where'd you hear that? (Good news for nMP owners)

Your old PC doesnt run it in HiDPI-mode. As of now, it seems that more demanding retina apps don't run very smoothly on even the most powerful macs.

Not true at all. I run a LOT of extremely demeaning 'retina' (updated) apps. They run great. There are some anomalies. Adobe and 10.9 right now are playing well together. It'll be fixed soon. It was extremely quick as a 2012 rMBP owner for many dozens of apps over the first six months. My rMBP smokes my 2009 Mac Pro in several tasks. These are powerhouses. But it's a new machine. New OS. And a Massive, system wide (OS'es including Windows) race to perfecting HiDPI scaling and responsiveness with the GPU. As well as third party manufacturers relying on the OS builder for the tools. XCode has had some excellent updates to make iOS an easy transition to 64bit. Tools are a coming.

J