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Using Cinebench’s OpenGL benchmark to further test the graphics, the 13-inch MacBook Pro achieved 36.8 frames per second, which is 27.5 percent faster than 2015’s entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, and 9.4 percent faster than this year’s 13-inch MacBook Pro with function keys. The 15-inch MacBook Pro scored a whopping 70.4 frames per second, which is 13.7 percent faster than the last generation.
 

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I think being able to Display an Image at 5k is being used as a smokescreen to what a crap budget GPU's these "PRO" laptops have. Its a step sideways IMHO. I have used and tested Final Cut Pro X, Resolve, Adobe CC with the FASTEST OpenCL cards out there. OpenCL is not keeping up and Adobe CC and Resolve are un-usable with OpenCL. We all switched to CUDA/NVIDIA for Profession video and graphics. And we RUN circles around anything AMD offers.

Its a total smoke screen to have people say the laptop does 5k, and my laptop renders Final Cut Pro X, really fast..
well can it do anything else? Any other apps? Any other workflows? no, not quickly or efficiently.

Also we where testing all the fastest GPU's AMD had to offer. R9 and now the RX 480... OpenCL was just crap. I have done programming, OpenCL on paper is amazing, but it is not being utilized by the professional software makers and its not fast enough.

Their are other possible benefits of AMD GPU's, but my industry, TV, FILM, EDITING, VFX, COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION and MOTION GRAPHICS, Nvidia's are just dominating..

The RX480 is a $100 GPU in a $3600 laptop, its total BS.
 
Oh, don't worry, in no time at all there will be people making this out to be a bad news story. Oh wait, already happening.

Upgrading the graphics in any shipping laptop has always seemed a no-brainer to me. Now that I have had the chance to research the cost of PCEe 3 SSDs I am glad I maxed out that as well. I am sure they will go down in price but the SSD may not be replaceable in the 2016 MBP and Apple is charging a lot less than the competition, even cheaper than Amazon.

Thanks, that helped me get some perspective while convincing myself I still want to order a maxed out 15" — the price on the 2TB option was still getting to me. :) You're right, that class of storage (regardless of OEM) is NOT cheap!

Can't wait to upgrade from my 2011.
 
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Can't wait to upgrade from my 2011.
I am replacing an early 2011 MacBook Pro that I waited for because I was pretty sure the next Mac Apple released at the time would have Thunderbolt and I knew Thunderbolt would be important to what I do in video editing (it is and remains so). I have been holding out waiting for Thunderbolt 3 because I knew it would allow external graphics through a break out box and data rates that would take me far into the future. Though I am frustrated by Intel's slow progress with processors and holding onto legacy video standards (Display Port 1.2 in TB3) it is time to replace this MacBook Pro. Part of me wanted to wait but I have the opportunity to do some work in the field on a Red Project that could pretty much pay for the new computer so now the only thing I am waiting for is for mine to ship....
 
I finally read the whole thing. I always appreciate Ars articles. They're the first thing I look forward to after and OS update.

Nice to see there were indeed technical reasons for some of the odder decisions (like why the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the right of the 13" model were weaker) and other related things. I don't think I'm going to be sad when mine arrives, that's for sure. Plus, it's gonna be nice returning to the land of 13" laptops (and these are barely wider than the 11" Air!).
 
There was neither a May 2015 iMac nor a 2014 iMac. Fall 2013 and fall 2015. Are you thinking of MacBook pros?

It was definitely iMacs and not MBPs. It's the dates I'm not 100% sure on, but I got those from the MR buyer's guide May 2015 and Oct 2014.
 
It's a Type-C port.
It can function as an TB3 port. But TB3 supports DP v1.2 only.
Or, it could work as DisplayPort Alt Mode that supports version 1.4. No need for TB3 for display purposes.
But you then couldn't have TB devices and the display connected via a single cable. And if you were to drive a 5K monitor over USB-C DP alternate mode, you'd need all four main lanes of USB-C which leaves only USB 2 speeds available via the secondary lines in USB-C.

Compare this with driving a 5K display over a TB3 connection. Since "USB alternate modes do not encapsulate other protocols (ala Thunderbolt) but instead allocate lanes to those other signals as necessary", once the lanes are allocated to DP, no other data can flow over these lanes. With TB (incl. TB3) all data are encapsulated in the same bus and TB3 chain with a 5K display only needs to dedicate bandwidth and not lanes to the video signal. Even at 10-bit per colour channel, 5K at 60 Hz 'only' needs 14.75 MP * 30 bit/pixel * 60 Hz = 26.6 Gbit/s, meaning there is still more than 10 Gbit/s (from the 40 Gbit/s total bandwidth of TB3) available for other uses in that TB3 chain. That is much more than USB 2 speeds and can be used more flexibly for any kind of protocol (Firewire, Ethernet, etc.).
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In Geekbench 4.0.1, in the single-core 64-bit CPU test [...], the 15-inch MacBook Pro scored 4216, which is just 1.5 percent better than 2015’s 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2.5GHz quad-core Core i7 with 16GB of RAM and a discrete AMD Radeon R9 M370X.
In the multicore CPU test, [...], the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar was was actually edged out by last year’s version in this test.
But I guess selling the 15" MBP with a Haswell processor until October 2016 was such a big crime. Imaging what performance boost we would have gotten if Apple hadn't sold a completely outdated processor for two years. If they had put in a Broadwell processor last year we probably would have gotten something like half of that 1.5% CPU performance gain already a year earlier. What a travesty.
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I think being able to Display an Image at 5k is being used as a smokescreen to what a crap budget GPU's these "PRO" laptops have. Its a step sideways IMHO. I have used and tested Final Cut Pro X, Resolve, Adobe CC with the FASTEST OpenCL cards out there. OpenCL is not keeping up and Adobe CC and Resolve are un-usable with OpenCL. We all switched to CUDA/NVIDIA for Profession video and graphics. And we RUN circles around anything AMD offers.

Its a total smoke screen to have people say the laptop does 5k, and my laptop renders Final Cut Pro X, really fast..
well can it do anything else? Any other apps? Any other workflows? no, not quickly or efficiently.
Except that everybody can profit from a 5K screen, but only a small minority of MBP users would have profited from a faster graphic card. Ever since the iMac 5K came out two years ago, people have been clamouring for the ability to drive a 5K monitor with a MBP (without completely using up both of the TB ports in a dual DP cable solution).
 
"Hardcore Gaming," let alone gaming at all, on a Mac, and playing a game on a mac, are not the same thing.


Yep....the x commandments of mac gaming (list will grow, have the basics below for now)

Thou shall not run full screen
Thou shall not run max resolution, or even top 3 highest res'
Thou shall not have high quality turned on for any anything in any game made after 2012 (2011 more like it actually).
Thou shall not have advanced features turned on in game, AA is dead to you, so are many modern shading engine options and the 10's of options you will see in any modern graphics options tab....just uncheck them.

You cannot unsee what has been seen. Violate these commandments and you will see that game sooooo pretty when you stand still. Then you move. and framerate takes a lead weight, slams you in stomach (lower if a guy, keep the post pg lol) and says oh no my friend, consider your dreams of having smooth gameplay and nice graphics rekt.

See the good stuff, go omg its beautifull....then hate life as you turn it all off to go to potato mode to play it decent framerate.

30 fps? More like 3 unless you do this.

All this (inb4 macs aren't game rigs anyway) has the implication of Apple has missed ground floor of VR. It uses all the above. Devs are on windows systems. they can't/won't switch over. dear mac user, we'd love to come over to mac os. However.....if we even thought about running even cryengine for a stunning VR demo/app on it...the MBP would die in a fire. Longer it holds out, more this stays windows. its missing following passes potentially.

A new super MP would not be a savior here....that already has a price break that has people run windows workstations as well. Put another way no one will make VR for the small MP crowd. well they will....if the MP is boot camped to windows lol.
 
Yep....the x commandments of mac gaming (list will grow, have the basics below for now)

Thou shall not run full screen
Thou shall not run max resolution, or even top 3 highest res'
Thou shall not have high quality turned on for any anything in any game made after 2012 (2011 more like it actually).
Thou shall not have advanced features turned on in game, AA is dead to you, so are many modern shading engine options and the 10's of options you will see in any modern graphics options tab....just uncheck them.

You cannot unsee what has been seen. Violate these commandments and you will see that game sooooo pretty when you stand still. Then you move. and framerate takes a lead weight, slams you in stomach (lower if a guy, keep the post pg lol) and says oh no my friend, consider your dreams of having smooth gameplay and nice graphics rekt.

See the good stuff, go omg its beautifull....then hate life as you turn it all off to go to potato mode to play it decent framerate.

30 fps? More like 3 unless you do this.

All this (inb4 macs aren't game rigs anyway) has the implication of Apple has missed ground floor of VR. It uses all the above. Devs are on windows systems. they can't/won't switch over. dear mac user, we'd love to come over to mac os. However.....if we even thought about running even cryengine for a stunning VR demo/app on it...the MBP would die in a fire. Longer it holds out, more this stays windows. its missing following passes potentially.

A new super MP would not be a savior here....that already has a price break that has people run windows workstations as well. Put another way no one will make VR for the small MP crowd. well they will....if the MP is boot camped to windows lol.

Well, I get why Apple skipped VR specced hardware here ... and this is going to segue somewhat into another MR article that was posted on this site today ... For a company like Apple, there's more money in augmented reality than there is in VR. More money because as a mobile device (augmented reality type), the target market is much larger. It's going to be easier (and safer to some degree), to be mobile with an augmented reality device than it will be to walk around with a VR headset on. Plus, they will use the market penetration of their iPhone towards the proliferation of their solution to that, much like they've done with their Watch.

If I were Apple, and I could put a device into the hands of more people, and thereby make more money, then I'd jump on it, and I will start the PR wheels spinning full force sooner rather than later in that regard (nod towards recent comments about augmented reality made by Tim Cook, in which he commented that it's the future. It's "the future" because there's greater opportunity for revenue growth for them there than in VR.)
 
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Gotta wonder Apple shifts all the time.... on one side, Intel Iris get the performance, then on the other side, "lets switch to using AMD because even through we chose Intel in the past for our GPU's (some). AMD has made a leap ahead recently" which by the way Apple decided on a bandwidth limitation..

It all comes back expanding battery life.. doesn't matter how u look at anything else. I wish Apple would shift more into a "neutral" position and look at both sides, rather than "battery life all the way." and just favoring one side only..

You'd think there could be a better compromise.
 
I have to say I am very impressed by their engineering.

They somehow release a model that is actually slower than previous model with a much better GPU !?

They are either force throttling or something is off with that motherboard.
Both CPU and GPU somehow runs much slower than previous generation.
 
I have to say I am very impressed by their engineering.

They somehow release a model that is actually slower than previous model with a much better GPU !?

They are either force throttling or something is off with that motherboard.
Both CPU and GPU somehow runs much slower than previous generation.

Intel lets OEMs drop the Skylake CPU TDP down to 35W.

I'm still trying to find a review that states if Apple decided to do this or not. 35W CPU + 35W GPU leaves 17W of overhead with the included 87W USB-C power adapter. Only 2W overhead if they left the CPU at the default 45W, which is not much left for the RAM, SSD, display, Touch Bar, trackpad, keyboard, and Bluetooth/WiFi controller.

I haven't looked that hard yet though, but from what I have seen, it's comparisons of this current gen against past Apple ones. Nothing that compares the CPU in these to same CPU in a non-Apple system.
 
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But I guess selling the 15" MBP with a Haswell processor until October 2016 was such a big crime. Imaging what performance boost we would have gotten if Apple hadn't sold a completely outdated processor for two years. If they had put in a Broadwell processor last year we probably would have gotten something like half of that 1.5% CPU performance gain already a year earlier. What a travesty.

Well there was that 40%+ performance gain in the iGPU...

Look, its not exactly that its "just 1.5% performance gain", its that you're paying top dollar for a new machine with old tech. 1.5% is something after all and in 2015/early 2016, you'd have thought if you were gonna spend $2000+ on a laptop you'd get the option to get every last 1.5% performance gain that is commonly available, no?
 



Apple dropped Intel's integrated Iris Pro graphics in favor of dedicated AMD graphics across its entire new 15-inch MacBook Pro lineup, resulting in performance improvements over previous models. Perhaps more interestingly, the switch to AMD provides expanded external display support that desktop users have patiently waited for.

LG-UltraFine-5K-MacBook-Pro.jpg

As Andrew Cunningham at Ars Technica explains, AMD's Polaris-based Radeon Pro 450, Radeon Pro 455, and built-to-order Radeon Pro 460 GPUs in the new 15-inch MacBook Pro support up to six displays, whereas Intel's integrated GPUs affixed to the logic board can drive a total of three displays.

The expanded support enables the new MacBook Pro to drive two of Apple and LG's new UltraFine 5K displays at 60Hz simultaneously. Intel's GPUs can't because, due to bandwidth limitations of the DisplayPort 1.2 spec, the two 5K displays technically function as four displays. This method is known as Multi-Stream Transport (MST).Apple could have used Nvidia's faster Pascal-based GPUs, which support DisplayPort 1.3, but Thunderbolt 3 and most monitors do not support the higher-bandwidth spec yet. In the meantime, Nvidia's GPUs can only drive up to three displays beyond the main MacBook Pro screen -- not enough for dual 5K displays over MST.In terms of performance improvements, Cunningham benchmarked the mid-range 2.7GHz 15-inch MacBook Pro with the Radeon Pro 455 graphics chip to determine just how much faster the notebook truly is compared to the 2016 12-inch MacBook and older MacBook Pros released over the past few years.

ars-2016-macbook-pro-benchmark.jpg

He found the Radeon Pro 455 to be a "significant boost" over the built-to-order dedicated GPUs available in the 2012-2015 MacBook Pro models, namely the Nvidia GeForce GTX 650M, Nvidia GeForce GTX 750M, and AMD Radeon R9 M370X respectively, but said the new MacBook Pro remains unsuitable for high-end gaming and VR.Apple officially says the 15-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 130% faster graphics performance, and up to 2.5x more computing power per watt, compared to the previous-generation 15-inch MacBook Pro, but those stats are based on the built-to-order Radeon Pro 460 chip that costs between $100 and $200 extra.

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


Who cares about the chump-like 455? How did the 460 do?
 
I don't get this "offscreen" vs. "onscreen" thing. WTF is "offscreen"?
Because as it sounds, I don't think I need to give a crap about it, as what I see and experience is the "onscreen". Where the "new" 455 is slower than the old 370X.

Am I missing something?
 
I have to say I am very impressed by their engineering.

They somehow release a model that is actually slower than previous model with a much better GPU !?

They are either force throttling or something is off with that motherboard.
Both CPU and GPU somehow runs much slower than previous generation.
I remarked about this earlier when it was discovered that Apple 'cheaped out' and used the same non-Iris Skylake quad core CPU's that Windows laptops have used for over a year. Many here thought that Apple was delaying the rMBP 2016 as they were waiting on Iris Pro equipped quad skylakes. They were wrong...
What this do with performance you ask? The Iris Pro equipped quads not only have have iGPU's that come close to dGPU performance (that's why the 2 prior rMBP 15's had a lower end iGPU model for <$2000 that is now gone), but also an edram cache that doubles as a L4 cache that speeds up many processes. The cheaper skylake quad lacks this feature.
The 35 watt instead of 45 watt power limit to satisfy Ive's thinness fetish also kills the performance. Skylake performs much better on DDR4, but the smaller chassis + 20% less battery forced Apple to use LPDDR3 which also locked the max memory to 16gb instead of 32gb. So in other words we're paying extra for inferior performance and expandability.
Welcome to 2016 MacWorld where you pay 'Pro' prices for 'Air' performance.
 
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