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

New MacBook Pro's Dedicated AMD Graphics Chips Are 'Significantly' Faster and Support Dual 5K Displays

Imagine this. A crappy video card is much much faster than a previous crappy video card when only compared to the crappy video cards Apple chooses. These cards are 100x less crappy than the crappy choices of last gen, Yay!

Nevermind its still high end GPU computing performance of 2008 just in a smaller package. Thanks Apple!
 
  • Like
Reactions: DavidDoyle, pmau, kettle and 25 others
pgiguere1 said:
Crazy how the Radeon Pro 455 is barely faster than the Iris integrated graphics.

Wouldn't Iris Pro graphics be just as fast, if not faster than a Radeon Pro 450 then? Makes me wonder why they'd waste money/battery life on discrete graphics if they don't really provide anything on the base model.
Click to expand...

It was because the quad core CPUs with Iris Pro were being delayed by Intel until Apple ordered the CPUs with the HD graphics.
 
  • Like
Reactions: manu chao
jamesrp said:
That graph seems to show the 2015 AMD Radeon R9 M370X is faster than the 2016 cards. So which is it a significant boost or not?
Click to expand...

I still remember when May 2015 iMac came out and MacWorld's review said the entry level was almost as fast as the 2014 model. They tried to make it sound like an amazing feat not losing too much performance in the new model.

I guess that's par for Timmy's course. A bit slower than the old one is a significant boost compared to a lot slower than the old one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Count Blah
My iPhone3G said:
Such a significant boost that it was slower than what the article said was faster! It's like they didn't even read their own graph.
Click to expand...

Ironically, they posted the one and only benchmark suite from the Arstechnica article in which the older 2015 MBP actually outperformed the new MBP, giving a false impression. If you go to the original article you'll see that in most tests the Polaris GPU really was faster, though even in the most extreme examples it was less than 2x faster.

The reason the 2016 MBP is slower in this case is that this is the "on screen" benchmark, and supposedly, the new 2015 MBP has higher physical screen resolution, hence more pixels to push, so even with a more powerful GPU, the end result is slower graphics.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pufichek and cppguy
tebruno99 said:
Imagine this. A crappy video card is much much faster than a previous crappy video card when only compared to the crappy video cards Apple chooses. These cards are 100x less crappy than the crappy choices of last gen, Yay!
Click to expand...
Pretty much this. The offerings from last year were terrible. Now we just have a faster, yet still terrible card compared to last year.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pier and polbit
I used to have a GeForce 9800GT (purchased back in 2009). The integrated graphics in my i7-4790k is faster, so I guess by Apple logic, all you need is integrated graphics.
 
DisplayPort 1.3 isn't good enough for Apple's needs and they will probably skip it completely.

DisplayPort 1.3 supports 5k@60hz only at 8 bit per channel. This is not good enough for wide color gamut. With 1.2 you can use 10 bits per channel. MAYBE 1.4 will support that as well but it's still in the very long future.

At any case, sticking with 1.2 multi stream was a good choice. They gained a lot of experience in this with the iMac 5k line.
 
  • Like
Reactions: raybo, MacsRuleOthersDrool and itdk92
How is two external 5Ks news to anyone when Apple had that exact setup running at the event?

lg-ultrafine-27-inch-5k-display-1-1280x720.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: friedmud, Pufichek and ThaRuler
keysofanxiety said:
How is that perspective? It's a desktop GPU. Unless you're talking about the 1080M, in which case you're looking at a laptop that's only portable on wheels.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't realize that for you a 17" 0.88" thick 4k computer weighing 7.8 pounds was only portable on wheels for you. I thought it was a pretty light and sleek machine for a 17" when I saw it.

http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro

There is probably a lighter 15" machine with the 1080 if you feel like googling, but then what would be the point of that much power on such a tiny screen?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: elvislives
They are precipitating a collapse in Mac sales so that they can justify killing off the business.

Says the accountant-cum-CEO to the investors: "We get great margins on the Mac but people seem to be moving away from it. We see that as a natural progression as computing evolves. We will be focusing our R&D on the future of iOS, not on propping up MacOS."

Says the press: "What about the 400 million people who have already adopted Windows 10, and the likelihood that it will surpass 1 billion active installs?"

Replies the accountant: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: DevNull0 and willgreene99
This image shows the R9 370x to be faster than the AMD Pro 455. I guess the reviewer is cherry picking results to make the claim that the AMD Pro 455 is faster.

ars-2016-macbook-pro-benchmark.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: pier
Is there HDMI 2.0 support for 4K TV's? Preferably 2.0a so that wide colour gamut is supported on the external screens as well as internal.
 
iChrist said:
Apple pumped up the price by $500 USD. You are only paying for the new form factor, not really a practical improvement in performance. If the form factor is worth that much to you then fine.
Click to expand...
That is comparing the 2015 15" MBP without a discrete GPU with the 2016 15" MBP with a discrete GPU. The 15" MBP price largely goes up because Apple is no longer offering an entry-level version without a discrete GPU (if such a version were offered by Apple and would only support one 5K external display, people would cry murder here as well). In fact, as others have said, the cheapest 15" MBP with a discrete GPU in 2016 is $100 cheaper than the one from 2015.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: raybo and aeshaettr_
What quality can it reasonably play Heroes of the Storm or League of Legends?
 
DevNull0 said:
Sorry, I didn't realize that for you a 17" 0.88" thick 4k computer weighing 7.8 pounds was only portable on wheels for you. I thought it was a pretty light and sleek machine for a 17" when I saw it.

http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro
Click to expand...

Yeah, that already weighs more than the 2011 17" MBP (6.6 pounds). Let alone thinness and battery life. Great argument.

Let me be blunt, since a lot of people really don't understand this: historically, Apple portables have prioritised thinness, battery life, design, performance, and specs. In that order. Nothing is new. Nothing has changed. What you have quoted is the complete antithesis of what an Apple portable is.

Windows laptops have always had better specs. Better CPUs, better GPUs, more RAM, bigger screens — this isn't anything new. For what the new rMBP is, which is the best spec/weight/thinness compromise, it again is unmatched in the industry.

Part of the trouble with the naysayers is that they completely ignore history. It doesn't much help them if they want to sound like they know what they're talking about.
 
  • Like
Reactions: raybo, moonjelly, Shirasaki and 12 others
The big takeaway as I saw it was that this laptop is "unsuitable for hardcore gamers" (roughly paraphrased). But are hardcore gamers seem to me like they'd be hardly driven by portability and battery life, which is what this machine offers. Seems like the hardcore gamers would be more interested in the refreshed mac Pro, whenever that happens.
 
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