Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Iris Pro vs. Intel Iris 6100

DavidBlack

DavidBlack

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 27, 2013
606
239
Somewhere In Apple's HQ ;)
Hello everyone, I've just received my 13 inch Macbook Pro with Retina Display (Early, 2015). Before buying the computer I watched a lot of YouTube videos that gave an overview of the Macbook Pro and it's features, as well, as its performance. I was wondering how the Intel Iris Graphics 6100 compares against the Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5100 in the 15 inch Macbook Pro. Since, I do not own this model myself I had to rely on secondary synthetic benchmarks. One in particular is a YouTube video that was done by Jonathan, link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4rgL9dW7mw

And these are benchmarks that he provided for the Macbook Pro with Iris Pro:

Unigine Valley (Basic Preset): 16.9 FPS
Cinebench R15 (OpenGL): 27.3 FPS.

How these are the results for my Macbook Pro with Intel Iris 6100:

Unigine Valley (Basic Preset): 15.4 FPS
Cinebench R15 (OpenGL): 28.56 FPS.

As you can see these scores are pretty comparable to the Intel Iris Pro. However, I know benchmarks only paints a small picture when it comes to real world performance. What I would like you guys to do is post of benchmarks of either of the two models so that we can compare. Real world games is also a plus.

Thanks :)
 
DavidBlack said:
Hello everyone, I've just received my 13 inch Macbook Pro with Retina Display (Early, 2015). Before buying the computer I watched a lot of YouTube videos that gave an overview of the Macbook Pro and it's features, as well, as its performance. I was wondering how the Intel Iris Graphics 6100 compares against the Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5100 in the 15 inch Macbook Pro. Since, I do not own this model myself I had to rely on secondary synthetic benchmarks. One in particular is a YouTube video that was done by Jonathan, link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4rgL9dW7mw

And these are benchmarks that he provided for the Macbook Pro with Iris Pro:

Unigine Valley (Basic Preset): 16.9 FPS
Cinebench R15 (OpenGL): 27.3 FPS.

How these are the results for my Macbook Pro with Intel Iris 6100:

Unigine Valley (Basic Preset): 15.4 FPS
Cinebench R15 (OpenGL): 28.56 FPS.

As you can see these scores are pretty comparable to the Intel Iris Pro. However, I know benchmarks only paints a small picture when it comes to real world performance. What I would like you guys to do is post of benchmarks of either of the two models so that we can compare. Real world games is also a plus.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Wait till that Graphics memory starts kicking in.
 
DavidBlack said:
Hello everyone, I've just received my 13 inch Macbook Pro with Retina Display (Early, 2015). Before buying the computer I watched a lot of YouTube videos that gave an overview of the Macbook Pro and it's features, as well, as its performance. I was wondering how the Intel Iris Graphics 6100 compares against the Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5100 in the 15 inch Macbook Pro. Since, I do not own this model myself I had to rely on secondary synthetic benchmarks. One in particular is a YouTube video that was done by Jonathan, link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4rgL9dW7mw

And these are benchmarks that he provided for the Macbook Pro with Iris Pro:

Unigine Valley (Basic Preset): 16.9 FPS
Cinebench R15 (OpenGL): 27.3 FPS.

How these are the results for my Macbook Pro with Intel Iris 6100:

Unigine Valley (Basic Preset): 15.4 FPS
Cinebench R15 (OpenGL): 28.56 FPS.

As you can see these scores are pretty comparable to the Intel Iris Pro. However, I know benchmarks only paints a small picture when it comes to real world performance. What I would like you guys to do is post of benchmarks of either of the two models so that we can compare. Real world games is also a plus.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-Retina-13-Early-2015-Notebook-Review.139621.0.html

The performance of the 5200 is 20-90% better depending on the games played. Look for the iris pro 5200 under gaming benchmarks :cool:
 
The thing is the 6100 even beat the 5100 by 44% in one benchmark but in actual games with CPU load and all the difference is barely noticeable with single digit gains.
Benchmarks really mean very little with that GPU.
 
The weak stop of the 6100 is still memory access. Not only it has to share the memory controller with the CPU, but the memory bandwidth is quote low compared to most dedicated GPUs.

So if the application in question spends most of its time copying memory (e.g. uses large number of big textures), you will not see much speedup with 6100 compared to 5100. However, if you have a game that is more shader-intensive (with little texture accesses), then 6100 might be a big improvement. An ideal application for Broadwell GPUs would be games that do procedural texture/geometry generation, here they even might be able to beat dedicated GPUs :)
 
I agree with others that a)benchmarks are all but useless and b)the Iris Pro is still stronger. HOWEVER -

It blows me away what the 6100 IS capable of. This is coming from a guy that had a 2010 Macbook Air with a 320m that couldn't even run F.E.A.R. 1 without choking on a slide show.

At the moment, I'm playing Borderlands 2 (Bootcamp) at a solid 30 fps on 1280x800 at high settings. It looks just as good as the console version if not better. From doing research, looking at videos on YouTube and game benchmarks, out of about 100 Steam games in my backlog only 3 won't be smooth (30fps+) on the 6100 - Witcher 2, Alan Wake, and Thief. Luckily I have a gaming PC that can run those. I couldn't justify the price premium to myself to get a 15" with Iris Pro or 750m just for that small handful of titles.
 
Lateraleye said:
I agree with others that a)benchmarks are all but useless and b)the Iris Pro is still stronger. HOWEVER -

It blows me away what the 6100 IS capable of. This is coming from a guy that had a 2010 Macbook Air with a 320m that couldn't even run F.E.A.R. 1 without choking on a slide show.

At the moment, I'm playing Borderlands 2 (Bootcamp) at a solid 30 fps on 1280x800 at high settings. It looks just as good as the console version if not better. From doing research, looking at videos on YouTube and game benchmarks, out of about 100 Steam games in my backlog only 3 won't be smooth (30fps+) on the 6100 - Witcher 2, Alan Wake, and Thief. Luckily I have a gaming PC that can run those. I couldn't justify the price premium to myself to get a 15" with Iris Pro or 750m just for that small handful of titles.
Click to expand...

That's really good news :)
 
Lateraleye said:
I agree with others that a)benchmarks are all but useless and b)the Iris Pro is still stronger. HOWEVER -

It blows me away what the 6100 IS capable of. This is coming from a guy that had a 2010 Macbook Air with a 320m that couldn't even run F.E.A.R. 1 without choking on a slide show.

At the moment, I'm playing Borderlands 2 (Bootcamp) at a solid 30 fps on 1280x800 at high settings. It looks just as good as the console version if not better. From doing research, looking at videos on YouTube and game benchmarks, out of about 100 Steam games in my backlog only 3 won't be smooth (30fps+) on the 6100 - Witcher 2, Alan Wake, and Thief. Luckily I have a gaming PC that can run those. I couldn't justify the price premium to myself to get a 15" with Iris Pro or 750m just for that small handful of titles.
Click to expand...

This is so nuts!!

When F.E.A.R. initially came out, I remember downloading the demo and being so disappointed my custom built PC couldn't play it, and having to buy a new graphics card.

Now that these laptops are playing it with integrated graphics is just so crazy.
 
DavidBlack said:
Games I play:
  • Total War Rome 2
  • Tomb Raider (2013)
  • Skyrim Elders Scrolls V
Click to expand...

if you're not planning to get anything newer than those, then you're fine with your current notebook. tho if you use a lot of mods for Skyrim, you might appreciate the better performance and visuals by going with a notebook with the Nvidia 900m series. i have a MBP with the 5100, and now i just got a Razer Blade with a 970m.. huge difference, and now i can play Skyrim on ultra settings with a lot of mods without the notebook breaking a sweat. it was just a mediocre experience playing on bootcamp with the MBP before, and i had to use mods that decreased visuals just to get better fps. now i can run it with graphics intensive mods and not worry about it.
 
David58117 said:
Now that these laptops are playing it with integrated graphics is just so crazy.
Click to expand...

It's a whole new world, my friend. It still pains me to see the overwhelming bad advice still out there (on this forum and elsewhere) that "integrated graphics can't run games" or "don't buy a Mac for gaming". It all depends on which Intel chip you have, just like with standard GPUs. 3000, you're gonna have a bad time. 4400+, it's likely you can do so comfortably after adjusting some settings. Individual games vary.

radiohead14 said:
if you're not planning to get anything newer than those, then you're fine with your current notebook.
Click to expand...

This is a good point too. Don't expect to max out settings without blinking an eye. Or running in full HD. But these are great machines for playing a ton of things released in the last few years comfortably. I wouldn't call it futureproof (nothing really is) but you'll be able to play a lot more games than you can't. Especially indies.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back