Life expectancy of RMBP and GPU question

[alandor]

Hi!
My first post here. I got my Retina Mac Book Pro with 2.3 GHz and Nvidia 750M about a week ago. Up until now I've been working on an iMac but now I needed some more mobility so I decided to buy a RMBP instead. I have two questions for you all.

1) Should I add the apple care? I haven't yet since I thought it too expensive, but I think I can still add it if I want to. I think it comes down to whether heavy use means there's a fairly big risk the computer will be worn out within the three years? I plan to do 3D rendering in the background while I do my regular work and sometimes when I'm AFK. I've read some places that a high end RMBP can be expected to last 6 years, but does that apply even if I make the computer work hard?

2) The 3D software I use allows for both CPU and GPU rendering. I had expected the GPU rendering to be much faster but so far I've been disappointed, with render times that sometimes were more than twice as slow with GPU (CUDA installed) than CPU. Is this to be expected or have I missed something? I'm quite impressed with the CPU performance though when I compare it with my iMac (which has 3,06 GHz Intel Core Duo) so I'm not altogether disappointed, but I'm wondering whether the 750M was wasted money?

Looking forward to your answers.

 

[rdawg23]

Regarding AppleCare, anytime I've personally worked on GPU issues in an MBP it's been well after three year AppleCare would have expired. That being said, there's a lot of users where it's happened 1-2 year into ownership. Keep in mind, the GPU issues were caused by a bad batch of chips, so one would hope that nVidia would have learned by now and not repeated the same mistake....

I have the same spec machine as you and purchased AppleCare simply because one logic board repair would be several times that of the extended warranty. Being over $2500, the $244 I spent on AC via B&H's web site feels like it's well worth it.

 

[DavidMonteiro]

1 - AppleCare can be bought separately anytime during the Limited Warranty, which is 1 year from purchase. So no rush. And for a very expensive investment, I would recommend AppleCare GREATLY.

2 - It's hard to really know why the 750M is slower until we know the specs of the previous Mac you had. I don't work in 3D software, so...

 

[alandor]

Thanks for both responses. I will consider apple care more seriously now.

About the GPU issue I may have been unclear. I'm surprised that GPU rendering is slower than CPU rendering on my RMBP (not compared with my older iMac). I was under the impression that GPU rendering with CUDA was considerably faster than CPU rendering but if it isn't then maybe the 750M may be of no use to me.

Does rendering with the GPU free the CPU to do other tasks more efficiently? If it does and I can work without the computer slowing down while I'm rendering in the background then it will have been a good investment anyway. It sounds logical but perhaps it doesn't work like this. I guess I'll experiment a bit too see which setting works best for me.

EDIT: Nope, using Nvidia GPU when rendering makes everything else go so slow it's virtually impossible to use the computer while rendering. I don't suppose I can use the iris card and the Nvidia at the same time?

 

[alandor]

Should I return it?

I'm seriously thinking of returning my high-end mac book bro for the cheaper 15" model. If I add 16 GB RAM and 2,6 GHz CPU I would sacrifice the discrete GPU and a larger hard drive for a faster CPU for roughly the same price.

Question is – will I miss the discrete GPU? It wasn't fast enough to give me any improvement with the 3D rendering, which is why I bought it in the first place. Right now it seems like 2,6 GHz will be of more use to me than this GT 750M.

Before I bought this laptop I had no knowledge about GPUs. I just assumed Apple would put a pretty good card in their most expensive RMBP. But now that I've googled the topic a bit it seems like the GT 750M is quite mediocre at best.

 

[devilcm3]

Applecare is pretty good,

My friend got his 2011 replaced with a 2013 model after his mac motherboard failed three times.

 

[leman]

1. Apple care is a good investment IMO if you are in one of those countries where Apple only offers 1 year warranty. If there is genuinely a manufacturing defect with your machine, it will show itself in the first two years. Everything beyond it is mostly luck. Whether you push the computer hard or not does not matter that much. Clean electricity and adequate environment (not too humid, not too warm) are - in my opinion - more important factors.

2. The Nvidia Kepler architecture (on which the 750M is based) is known for its bad GPGPU performance. You can gooogle 'kepler compute' for more details. The Intel iGPU is usually faster for such things.