MacBook Pro 750m? Or Iris Pro with thunderbolt Grahpics.

[A MacBook lover]

I do light gaming, some video editing, and some programs won't run on Iris Pro for rendering purposes.

750m is about $400 more than the Iris Pro with similar specs.

So do I jump to 750m which would satisfy my editing needs but only half fulfill my gaming?

Or do I use that $400 to get a thunderbolt 2 dock, and desktop card? From what I've searched, with a decent card it will out class the onboard graphics and surely improve productivity on editing applications.

Thoughts? Anyone ever do this setup? Can you run it on your laptop or does it require an external monitor?

 

[leman]

If I am not mistaken, the external TB GPU will only run in Windows. At any rate, it is not likely to give you any benefit for data processing (such as GPU-assisted rendering), because the limited bandwidth of the TB interface.

 

[A MacBook lover]

If I am not mistaken, the external TB GPU will only run in Windows. At any rate, it is not likely to give you any benefit for data processing (such as GPU-assisted rendering), because the limited bandwidth of the TB interface.

I don't have a problem as I will probably be gaming and editing primary on parallels.

Yes the bandwidth is limited, but still achieves 70-90% of its desktop equivalent power. Which compared to the 750m - is about a 300-500% increase in performance

 

[Cloudsurfer]

I don't have a problem as I will probably be gaming and editing primary on parallels.

Yes the bandwidth is limited, but still achieves 70-90% of its desktop equivalent power. Which compared to the 750m - is about a 300-500% increase in performance

Why bother with a Mac if you're going to edit and game under parallels? Just get a gaming pc and edit on that.

 

[A MacBook lover]

Why bother with a Mac if you're going to edit and game under parallels? Just get a gaming pc and edit on that.

Maybe I want a Mac and a PC?

 

[leman]

I don't have a problem as I will probably be gaming and editing primary on parallels.

I do not believe that a virtualised OS will support an external GPU.

Yes the bandwidth is limited, but still achieves 70-90% of its desktop equivalent power. Which compared to the 750m - is about a 300-500% increase in performance

For gaming, sure. Most games have very modest requirements for the CPU/GPU data transfers. For data processing though?

 

[A MacBook lover]

I do not believe that a virtualised OS will support an external GPU.



For gaming, sure. Most games have very modest requirements for the CPU/GPU data transfers. For data processing though?

I guess I'll stick with the Iris pro.

Is there a way to trick Adobe or other programs that I am running an nvidia card, on a virtualized OS? Will it still render properly? Does Iris Pro performance jump on 16gb ram?

 

[Cloudsurfer]

Maybe I want a Mac and a PC?

that's fine but you obviously prefer editing and gaming under a Windows environment. You're better off running Windows in a native environment, as gaming and editing are demanding tasks. You will not get full performance by doing those under parallels.

My advice would be to keep your gaming and editing on a pc and get a Mac next to that for your other needs. Alternatively, you could dual boot with Boot camp but personally I thank that's too much of a hassle.

 

[A MacBook lover]

that's fine but you obviously prefer editing and gaming under a Windows environment. You're better off running Windows in a native environment, as gaming and editing are demanding tasks. You will not get full performance by doing those under parallels.

My advice would be to keep your gaming and editing on a pc and get a Mac next to that for your other needs. Alternatively, you could dual boot with Boot camp but personally I thank that's too much of a hassle.

I just love being able to make an effect on windows then swipe over to FCP. Gaming isn't that important, I probably might go with the 650m (early 2013) refurb from Apple. (Assuming that it doesn't have the issues that the discrete graphics supposedly had)

 

[yjchua95]

I just love being able to make an effect on windows then swipe over to FCP. Gaming isn't that important, I probably might go with the 650m (early 2013) refurb from Apple.

Plug and play eGPU solutions (i.e. with the Sonnet IIID) will only work with Haswell Macs (late-2013 rMBPs and later), because it needs Windows in UEFI.

I've got a late-2013 15" with 750M, plus a Sonnet IIID with GTX 780 Ti. And it runs really well. About 85-90% of the card's full power.

It also works in OS X, but some systems may require some modded kexts.

Virtual machines will only use an emulated form of graphics, unless it's on a bare-metal hypervisor with PCIe pass-thru support.

 

[steveyo]

Are you a professional video editor?

External GPU solutions are a pain in the a**... Driver issues, lack of support after OS updates, clunky etc. Why not just go to a notebook + desktop solution? This would fulfill your needs well, gaming and video editing on PC and macbook for other.

 

[yjchua95]

Are you a professional video editor?

External GPU solutions are a pain in the a**... Driver issues, lack of support after OS updates, clunky etc. Why not just go to a notebook + desktop solution? This would fulfill your needs well, gaming and video editing on PC and macbook for other.

I'm a professional cinematographer and software developer.

PnP eGPU solutions are really easy (Sonnet IIID, GTX 780 Ti and a UEFI Windows 8.1 installation). All I did was plug in the TB cable to the Sonnet at boot, select the boot drive and that's it. Drivers in Windows are just the regular NVIDIA drivers downloaded from the NVIDIA site.

 

[steveyo]

I'm a professional cinematographer and software developer.

That's awesome! What swayed you to use a macbook for that type of work instead of a business PC laptop or workstation?

 

[yjchua95]

That's awesome! What swayed you to use a macbook for that type of work instead of a business PC laptop or workstation?

I needed OS X, and I like simple and sexy design.

Besides, I've been using Apple for more than a decade already, and they always last really long. My Dell Latitude bit the dust in less than 2 years (company supplied for my full-time day job as a software dev), and this has happened 3 times already on several different Windows systems supplied by my company (HP, Lenovo and Dell). They've since started supplying MacBooks since 2 years ago, and not one of them has bitten the dust yet, aside from a very small percentage of them having screen retention issues.

I've still got an old PowerBook G4 that's still chugging along just fine to this day.

Final Cut Pro X has also proven to be far more useful and intuitive than other offerings for Windows.

Besides, I've had enough of Windows hell. BSODs, constant updates and the lingering suspicion that a virus or two can slip past my antivirus.

 

[Cloudsurfer]

I just love being able to make an effect on windows then swipe over to FCP. Gaming isn't that important, I probably might go with the 650m (early 2013) refurb from Apple. (Assuming that it doesn't have the issues that the discrete graphics supposedly had)

I was under the impression you edited in Windows, light gaming should be fine under parallels. I actually played age of mythology for a long time under parallels which was fine. Don't expect to play demanding games with high frame rates.