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MacBook Pro 15" Late 2013 Iris Pro Only

MarcusCarpenter

MarcusCarpenter

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 18, 2013
766
102
London
I am so impressed with the Iris Pro only machine, no longer do i have to piss around with gfxCardStatus to disable the dGPU and i no longer face the possibility of the dGPU dying like i did with the 2008 8600GT, the 2011 AMD GPU and the 2012 rMBP 650m :)

Who else loves the fact apple now sell the bigger machines without the dGPU's ?
 
Unless you are just THAT in to gaming, I don't really see why the Iris Pro wouldn't be enough. Coming from a GT 650M equipped cMBP, the Iris Pro isn't much slower and I don't miss the 650M at all. Pretty much anything other than the highest end games like Battlefield 4 and Crysis 3 will run great even at high resolutions.

You really shouldn't nock the Iris Pro until you actually try it. There be a ton of benchmarks, but who knows, the Iris Pro may be perfectly fine the games and programs you use.

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MarcusCarpenter said:
I am so impressed with the Iris Pro only machine, no longer do i have to piss around with gfxCardStatus to disable the dGPU and i no longer face the possibility of the dGPU dying like i did with the 2008 8600GT, the 2011 AMD GPU and the 2012 rMBP 650m :)

Who else loves the fact apple now sell the bigger machines without the dGPU's ?
Click to expand...

I'm with you there, coming from a 2012 cMBP. The Iris Pro has turned out to be a powerhouse. It's nice to not have to worry about gfxCardStatus and deal with weird issues caused by all the graphics switching. I can seamlessly go into playing games or doing AutoCAD while still having great battery life and cool temperatures. This also makes bootcamp a breeze, since it is no longer stuck on the dGPU so I can keep the temperatures and battery life even while under windows.

Intel has convinced me.
 
TechZeke said:
Unless you are just THAT in to gaming, I don't really see why the Iris Pro wouldn't be enough. Coming from a GT 650M equipped cMBP, the Iris Pro isn't much slower and I don't miss the 650M at all. Pretty much anything other than the highest end games like Battlefield 4 and Crysis 3 will run great even at high resolutions.

You really shouldn't nock the Iris Pro until you actually try it. There be a ton of benchmarks, but who knows, the Iris Pro may be perfectly fine the games and programs you use.

----------



I'm with you there, coming from a 2012 cMBP. The Iris Pro has turned out to be a powerhouse. It's nice to not have to worry about gfxCardStatus and deal with weird issues caused by all the graphics switching. I can seamlessly go into playing games or doing AutoCAD while still having great battery life and cool temperatures. This also makes bootcamp a breeze, since it is no longer stuck on the dGPU so I can keep the temperatures and battery life even while under windows.

Intel has convinced me.
Click to expand...

The Iris Pro is perfect, even under OS X, i just finished Tomb Raider 2013 running beautifully. I don't miss the dGPU at all, i have consoles and a Gaming machine for games.

The Iris Pro is defiantly a big step in Intels integrated graphics, being the first iteration also who knows what Intel will bring us in the future..
 
I don't agree.

Although the Iris pro is more than enough for me, here is my way of thinking that will probably make me buy the high end laptop:

Starting with the low-end retina mbp. I want 16Gbytes of Memory. I am doing some heavy lifting in my line of work, that could use the extra memory. The fact I won't be able to upgrade the memory after the purchase makes me even more sure that I want the memory. For the same reasons I could also benefit from more hard disk space. I want at least 512GBytes, especially if I want to use boot camp.

By upgrading the RAM and the Hard Disk, you have already reached the price of the rMBP, which comes at the same exact (at least here in my country), but also has a dedicated graphics card. So, why not buy that?

However, I totally agree that if you are not a gamer, and you believe that you can live with 8Gbytes and 256Gbytes of disk, there is absolutely no reason to purchase the high-end retina macbook pro.
 
Both are great machines. I got the discrete card because it made sense with my wanting to upgrade the HD capacity and ram.
 
I love my base 15'' model with 8 GB RAM. As you've said, it's a beast.

I've got a Xbox for gaming and the rMBP for my work, which consists of Photoshop and InDesign (I'm in the newspapers business), so the Iris Pro fulfills all my needs. The battery life is amazing and the SSD PCIe is ultra fast.

My previous machine was a 13'' cMBP early 2011, with a SSD, I've sold it and bought this beauty a few weeks ago. I love the bigger screen and the retina display, it's a game changer.

Also rendering home videos with iMovie or encoding with handbrake are easy tasks for the quad core.

I think this machine will last, at least, for 3 or 4 years.

Unless you're a pro video editor or a heavy gamer, I don't see any point in buying the high end model.
 
Soulstorm said:
I don't agree.

Although the Iris pro is more than enough for me, here is my way of thinking that will probably make me buy the high end laptop:

Starting with the low-end retina mbp. I want 16Gbytes of Memory. I am doing some heavy lifting in my line of work, that could use the extra memory. The fact I won't be able to upgrade the memory after the purchase makes me even more sure that I want the memory. For the same reasons I could also benefit from more hard disk space. I want at least 512GBytes, especially if I want to use boot camp.

By upgrading the RAM and the Hard Disk, you have already reached the price of the rMBP, which comes at the same exact (at least here in my country), but also has a dedicated graphics card. So, why not buy that?

However, I totally agree that if you are not a gamer, and you believe that you can live with 8Gbytes and 256Gbytes of disk, there is absolutely no reason to purchase the high-end retina macbook pro.
Click to expand...

Wishbrah said:
Both are great machines. I got the discrete card because it made sense with my wanting to upgrade the HD capacity and ram.
Click to expand...


Both models can be configured with 16GB ram and the higher HDD capacity as can the 13inch model...
 
Both the Iris-only and Iris+750M models cost exactly the same when configured to at least 2.3/16/512.

So the 750M is essentially a freebie.

I went for the model with the 750M because I do some gaming on it, as well as using CUDA-accelerated software.
 
TechZeke said:
Unless you are just THAT in to gaming, I don't really see why the Iris Pro wouldn't be enough. Coming from a GT 650M equipped cMBP, the Iris Pro isn't much slower and I don't miss the 650M at all. Pretty much anything other than the highest end games like Battlefield 4 and Crysis 3 will run great even at high resolutions.

You really shouldn't nock the Iris Pro until you actually try it. There be a ton of benchmarks, but who knows, the Iris Pro may be perfectly fine the games and programs you use.

----------



I'm with you there, coming from a 2012 cMBP. The Iris Pro has turned out to be a powerhouse. It's nice to not have to worry about gfxCardStatus and deal with weird issues caused by all the graphics switching. I can seamlessly go into playing games or doing AutoCAD while still having great battery life and cool temperatures. This also makes bootcamp a breeze, since it is no longer stuck on the dGPU so I can keep the temperatures and battery life even while under windows.

Intel has convinced me.
Click to expand...


What kind of battery power do you get with minimal to max use?

With my 750m I get about 20% per hour.

I know it depends, but would like to get your personal input since the kind of stuff you do sounds similar to mine.
 
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