New retina MacBook Pro GPU

[koyoot]

The Max TDP of the i7-4950QM with Iris Pro is 47W or 55W. The current generation rMBP is rated at 90W draw with the i7 and GT650M. Iris Pro will extend battery life because it consumes less power compared to a single GT 650M part. It is rated higher in Performance per Watt efficiency. The combination of i7-4950QM and Iris Pro consume less power than having i7-3615QM and GT650M.

As far as your other point goes, what is the point in putting a 4700MQ, 4800MQ or 4900MQ which cost nearly the same as higher end 4750HQ, 4850HQ and 4950HQ with Iris Pro 5200 Graphics? With the 4700/4800/4900MQ you also have to put in GT750M graphics which add a lot to the cost. Might as well just go with the HQ series with Iris Pro and save money while extending battery life and compute performance.

Maybe the TDP is 47-55W, but according to tests, the POWER DRAW is just 2-7W Lesser than combination of GT750M and i7 4700M. And, Iris Pro consumes 18W solo. 20W's in idle consumes COMBINED GT750M and i7 4700M. Which means if Apple will use their technology of changing GPU's - i7 4700 solo will consume less power than Iris Pro. It will however not affect battery life that much cause of ultra low power states and power management sustem on Processors, but in fact, if Apple would go CPU+dGPu they would get better effects than in solo CPU with Iris Pro.

Here are tests http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2013/intel-iris-pro-5200-grafik-im-test/6/

Secondly, No in fact the combination of i7 plus dGPU like GT750M would add 50-60$ to the cost of solo processor which would be 10-30$ less than the one CPU with Iris Pro. So its not a game of costs. Its for the future. Like i said before, Skylake will give a tromendous power boost for GPU.

But today, it will be crappy GPU.

If you want extra Battery life - go Haswell. If everything else is more important for you - go current gen.

P.S. Im pretty sure that we will see an CPU + dGPU option as built to order. That will make Apple get even bigger profit margin...

Haswell Processor with Iris Pro 580 Dollars, CPU + dGPU - 550 Dollars. Apple Price? 750 Dollars for CPU + dGPU . That makes a lot sense .

 

[sarthak]

Final Cut Pro X is the only app you listed that will benefit from Iris Pro... because it's using OpenCL.

Adobe suite (especially After Effects and Photoshop), and Autodesk applications, and Maya, and pretty much anything else that makes heavy use of OpenGL will have far lower performance especially at Retina resolution!

There is no excuse for Iris Pro here. It's only for battery life.



That's false.

4750HQ is roughly $60 more than 4700MQ based on Intel's OEM pricing.
4850HQ is roughly $90 more than 4800MQ based on Intel's OEM pricing.
4950HQ is roughly $90 more than 4900MQ based on Intel's OEM pricing.

OEM pricing for dGPU is about $50 - $60, so factually, CPU + Iris Pro costs about the same or even more than CPU + dGPU.

There is no money saved here.

Consider high volume pricing and I doubt the 750/60M will cost $50-60.

Considering the GeekBench leak showcasing a 4950HQ, I place my bets on Iris Pro.

And as they roll out the new Mac Pro, apps will take advantage of OpenCL rather than CUDA.

 

[bill-p]

Consider high volume pricing and I doubt the 750/60M will cost $50-60.

Uh... OEM pricing is just OEM pricing. If Apple can strike a deal with Intel, then they can get the same discount with nVidia.

And yeah, OEM pricing for dGPU is $50 - $60 per unit. If you have worked with BOMs, you'd know that the list price of a dGPU isn't really comparable to retail. And a desktop graphics card that's equivalent to the 750M in performance is priced at just $80-100. Factor in profit margins and labor... and I dare say $50 - 60 is actually a generous estimate.

And as they roll out the new Mac Pro, apps will take advantage of OpenCL rather than CUDA.

What does the new Mac Pro have to do with OpenCL?

OpenCL has been available on Mac OS for a long time, and Apple has pushed the feature as early as Lion. If app developers wanted to take advantage of it, they could have done so ages ago.

And almost nothing (but Adobe After Effects) actually makes use of CUDA.

GPGPU is still in its infancy, and will most likely stay that way for a while.

But even disregarding that, OpenGL performance is clearly down from last generation. There is nothing that can save Apple from that.

And OpenGL is used in a lot of applications. Photoshop uses (and requires) it for some features (more than OpenCL), AutoCAD and Maya definitely make extensive use of it. And so do pretty much any other 3D CAD application.

But if anything, Apple may well still choose the inferior CPU tech just for the slight battery saving benefits. It's a foolish but not impossible move.

 

[Serban]

Mac since mid 2012 are build for casual gaming, thats the thinking now of the board. Sadly the games are a growing and other loosing territory and apple knows that. So instead apple let you buy a mac and for gaming another pc/laptop(razer pro) they build for you a mac good for everything. So please after the announcement of the macbook pro 15" with a dGPU the people who insisted that there is no dGPU, leave this forum.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

There's also AMD/ATI folks.

AMD Hawaii( part of the Volcanic Isle series. is due for release in/ and around September. There's also a chance Apple could switch back to them for a while as well.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...h-gpu-codenamed-hawaii-in-hawaii-sept-25.aspx

http://wccftech.com/codenames-amd-v...slands-crystal-series-detailed/#ixzz2bIpMQfjN

AMD which have very good OpenCL performance, if that's what you need.
AMD, and Nvidia are still going to be ahead of Intel for the foreseeable future.


Also Apple even markets the Retina for gaming as well, and Aspyr are having issues with the iris model in the latest Air's when it comes to games.

I'm sure the dGPU will still be featured for a good time to come.

http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/performance-retina/

 

[ElderBrE]

Mac since mid 2012 are build for casual gaming, thats the thinking now of the board. Sadly the games are a growing and other loosing territory and apple knows that. So instead apple let you buy a mac and for gaming another pc/laptop(razer pro) they build for you a mac good for everything. So please after the announcement of the macbook pro 15" with a dGPU the people who insisted that there is no dGPU, leave this forum.

Should anyone expect your departure should no dGPU be announced?

What sentimentalism, and here I thought fora were to debate.

----------

There's also AMD/ATI folks.

AMD Hawaii( part of the Volcanic Isle series. is due for release in/ and around September. There's also a chance Apple could switch back to them for a while as well.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/new...h-gpu-codenamed-hawaii-in-hawaii-sept-25.aspx

http://wccftech.com/codenames-amd-v...slands-crystal-series-detailed/#ixzz2bIpMQfjN

AMD which have very good OpenCL performance, if that's what you need.
AMD, and Nvidia are still going to be ahead of Intel for the foreseeable future.


Also Apple even markets the Retina for gaming as well, and Aspyr are having issues with the iris model in the latest Air's when it comes to games.

I'm sure the dGPU will still be featured for a good time to come.

Personally, I'll join the band of the only iGPU this time. I hope to be wrong, as I will be buying a new MBP whatever comes out, but I would prefer a dGPU.

However, considering Apple's push for the iGPU, past years models and specifications, and the leaked Geekbench, it's pretty clear to me we will be seeing no dGPU this time around and the beefed up Iris Pro rumour starts to make sense.

They are hungry to get rid oft he dGPU, and now they have the chance to, even if it's a side-grade. Consider also their constant talk of OpenCL, at which AMD performs better, but so does Intel.

As for the marketing gimmick, I think they could still play it as long as they can reach acceptable performance for some big name games, at least with the same power the 650M does. This is why I think the beefed up Iris Pro may be true.

 

[sarthak]

Uh... OEM pricing is just OEM pricing. If Apple can strike a deal with Intel, then they can get the same discount with nVidia.
And yeah, OEM pricing for dGPU is $50 - $60 per unit. If you have worked with BOMs, you'd know that the list price of a dGPU isn't really comparable to retail. And a desktop graphics card that's equivalent to the 750M in performance is priced at just $80-100. Factor in profit margins and labor... and I dare say $50 - 60 is actually a generous estimate.
What does the new Mac Pro have to do with OpenCL?
OpenCL has been available on Mac OS for a long time, and Apple has pushed the feature as early as Lion. If app developers wanted to take advantage of it, they could have done so ages ago.
And almost nothing (but Adobe After Effects) actually makes use of CUDA.
GPGPU is still in its infancy, and will most likely stay that way for a while.
But even disregarding that, OpenGL performance is clearly down from last generation. There is nothing that can save Apple from that.
And OpenGL is used in a lot of applications. Photoshop uses (and requires) it for some features (more than OpenCL), AutoCAD and Maya definitely make extensive use of it. And so do pretty much any other 3D CAD application.
But if anything, Apple may well still choose the inferior CPU tech just for the slight battery saving benefits. It's a foolish but not impossible move.

Apple doesn't release these figures and unless you've worked at Apple, you can only estimate the costs. Besides, you just restated what I said about high volume pricing.

The Mac Pro has everything to do with OpenCL. They didn't put NVIDIA cards in for a reason, perhaps you should've paid attention to the different labs demonstrating the capabilities of the hardware when the software can leverage it using OpenCL.

You said nothing but AE takes advantage of CUDA which is just false. Capture One takes advantage of OpenCL, Adobe Photoshop, Premiere and even DaVinci resolve is reliant on OpenCL for certain tasks. AutoDesk has demonstrated many applications including Maya running with OpenCL acceleration.

GPGPU is not in it's infancy. Perhaps on OS X it has not been taken advantage of to the same degree as on Windows but consider how long Quadro and FirePro cards have been around.

I agree OpenGL is also used quite heavily but as I said, Apple isn't going to advertise the weak points of Iris Pro but the benefits and the most important being to consumers, PPW. It may seem like a foolish move at the moment but if Apple doesn't put in an iGPU now, by the next-next generation rMBP, the market will be flooded with Windows notebooks with battery life exceeding 9-12 hours.

 

[koyoot]

I agree OpenGL is also used quite heavily but as I said, Apple isn't going to advertise the weak points of Iris Pro but the benefits and the most important being to consumers, PPW. It may seem like a foolish move at the moment but if Apple doesn't put in an iGPU now, by the next generation rMBP, the market will be flooded with Windows notebooks with battery life exceeding 9-12 hours.

What will change iGPU? NOTHING. The same POWER DRAW as with dGPU. So how on earth it can make better battery life if its the SAME power draw as last year and Apple will not expand battery capacity cause of design iterations?

MBA has 12 Hours of battery life mostly because of low power states from CPU, not by GPU.

One more thing. Why Windows Laptops would get better battery life, with crappy Windows 8 in this state, and with OSX being way better at power managing?

I dont get it guys. How can ditching the dGPU extend battery life on MBP's if the Iris Pro has roughly the same power draw as GT750M? I just dont get that arguments.

 

[john123]

Mac since mid 2012 are build for casual gaming, thats the thinking now of the board. Sadly the games are a growing and other loosing territory and apple knows that. So instead apple let you buy a mac and for gaming another pc/laptop(razer pro) they build for you a mac good for everything. So please after the announcement of the macbook pro 15" with a dGPU the people who insisted that there is no dGPU, leave this forum.

Who are you to tell us to "leave this forum"? You're the one who, despite all the logical arguments, continues to insist there will be a dGPU because you (not Apple) prioritize gaming.

You're not living in the real world, bud.

----------

I dont get it guys. How can ditching the dGPU extend battery life on MBP's if the Iris Pro has roughly the same power draw as GT750M? I just dont get that arguments.

People keep saying this. It's 47W for the whole thing with the Iris Pro 5200.

----------

However, considering Apple's push for the iGPU, past years models and specifications, and the leaked Geekbench, it's pretty clear to me we will be seeing no dGPU this time around and the beefed up Iris Pro rumour starts to make sense.

They are hungry to get rid oft he dGPU, and now they have the chance to, even if it's a side-grade. Consider also their constant talk of OpenCL, at which AMD performs better, but so does Intel.

As for the marketing gimmick, I think they could still play it as long as they can reach acceptable performance for some big name games, at least with the same power the 650M does. This is why I think the beefed up Iris Pro may be true.

Yes, yes, and yes.

I don't think many of us here "want" just the iGPU at this point. But to believe that a dGPU will stay is just whimsical silliness.

----------

Also Apple even markets the Retina for gaming as well, and Aspyr are having issues with the iris model in the latest Air's when it comes to games.

I'm sure the dGPU will still be featured for a good time to come.

http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/performance-retina/

Will you please read the text you linked on that page? It doesn't say a single thing about performance or FPS. It's all about how pretty it is with so many pixels. The graphics card isn't even named in anything other than a footnote.

The Iris Pro 5200 can play games. It's just a step back in performance. They could have the exact same damn text on the web page with the Iris Pro 5200, change the name in the footnote, and it would still be A-OK for marketing collateral.

 

[koyoot]

People keep saying this. It's 47W for the whole thing with the Iris Pro 5200.

Its TDP, not Power Draw. Power Draw is 18W idle for CPU with Iris Pro and 79W in stress for this. i7 4700M + GT750M is 20W Idle and 81W for stress.

Now THATS power draw.

 

[john123]

Its TDP, not Power Draw. Power Draw is 18W idle for CPU with Iris Pro and 79W in stress for this. i7 4700M + GT750M is 20W Idle and 81W for stress.

Now THATS power draw.

Sure, under stress, it's not really going to be much better. That's to be expected. But you're still getting low power consumption when not under stress, while not having to flip back and forth. It's an overall improvement of something like ~8% IIRC, but it's still a better option (in terms of combined performance+power) to be running in those low power draw situations than the HD 4600.

 

[bill-p]

Apple doesn't release these figures and unless you've worked at Apple, you can only estimate the costs. Besides, you just restated what I said about high volume pricing.

Apple doesn't release those figures but other OEMs do.

Here's Intel:
http://ark.intel.com

And you still don't see the big picture. Basically: CPU w/ Iris Pro costs the same as CPU w/ dGPU. That's it. Iris Pro doesn't make things cheaper for Apple. In fact, it may make things worse because Apple has to spend more R&D to change the internals of the next rMBP accordingly with the removal of a dGPU. That's just more work for them.

The Mac Pro has everything to do with OpenCL. They didn't put NVIDIA cards in for a reason, perhaps you should've paid attention to the different labs demonstrating the capabilities of the hardware when the software can leverage it using OpenCL.

And what does not having nVidia hardware in there has anything to do with OpenCL? nVidia hardware does OpenCL as well, mind you.

And in some cases, nVidia does OpenCL even better than AMD even though there are more cases of AMD beating out nVidia in performance. Here's Photoshop CS6:

Apple could have gone with Quadro just fine, and they would have been able to emphasize OpenGL performance over FirePro, since no matter how you put it, nVidia still has better OpenGL performance than AMD.

And going nVidia also enables them to offer support to all major GPGPU technology. Namely CUDA and OpenCL. Going AMD foregoes CUDA completely, so applications that take advantage of CUDA won't run well, or at all.

You said nothing but AE takes advantage of CUDA which is just false. Capture One takes advantage of OpenCL, Adobe Photoshop, Premiere and even DaVinci resolve is reliant on OpenCL for certain tasks. AutoDesk has demonstrated many applications including Maya running with OpenCL acceleration.

It's true that only AE takes advantage of CUDA (I wasn't talking about GPGPU). Or please feel free to find another popular professional application in OSX that makes use of CUDA. And on a side note, OpenCL is not CUDA, even though they are both GPGPU frameworks.

GPGPU is not in it's infancy. Perhaps on OS X it has not been taken advantage of to the same degree as on Windows but consider how long Quadro and FirePro cards have been around.

Quadro and FirePro cards are more for OpenGL compatibility and driver stability than they are for GPGPU computing performance. It's not like those cards were made for GPGPU. OpenCL specifically has only been available since 2008 or so, but Quadro and FirePro cards have been around far longer than that.

GPGPU is in its infancy. Saying otherwise is just deluding yourself into marketing mojo.

the market will be flooded with Windows notebooks with battery life exceeding 9-12 hours.

Please find a single Windows notebook in this generation that actually lasts 9-12 hours on battery... and has comparable specs to a rMBP before you make that statement.

 

[koyoot]

Sure, under stress, it's not really going to be much better. That's to be expected. But you're still getting low power consumption when not under stress, while not having to flip back and forth. It's an overall improvement of something like ~8% IIRC, but it's still a better option (in terms of combined performance+power) to be running in those low power draw situations than the HD 4600.

No its not. HD4600 draws less power than Iris Pro. Thats first. Second, whats the difference between fact that both, the iGPU and dGPU will consume about the same power?

Iris Pro will give a tromendous OpenCl performance. Thats a fact. But overall in terms of battery life it wont give any improvement, because the same results we can get if we will add HD4600 dynamically changed with GT750M/Radeon HD 8870M. And the Radeon will be far faster in OpenCL than Iris Pro!

IMO, Apple again goes other way than typical, because it knows what will be "in future". According to Intel, Broadwell will give 40% increase in performance of iGPU. And Skylake will give 2.5 times power of Broadwell's. Which means, just by counting only benchmark numbers - it will give roughly performance of GTX680MX. In 35W TDP range I dont believe there will be any card that will match that type of performance.

But till that day, it still will be crappy GPU.

 

[john123]

And you still don't see the big picture. Basically: CPU w/ Iris Pro costs the same as CPU w/ dGPU. That's it. Iris Pro doesn't make things cheaper for Apple. In fact, it may make things worse because Apple has to spend more R&D to change the internals of the next rMBP accordingly with the removal of a dGPU. That's just more work for them.

We're still not quite certain on the OEM GPU costs Apple's getting from NVIDIA here, but I grant you that there likely isn't a big cost difference.

I disagree with your last part, however. That R&D to remove the dGPU isn't bad. You'll recall a MBP introduces a couple years ago that only had the basic GPU, while its brethren had two. But more to the point, this is the future and is clearly where Apple is heading. Intel's spent an awful lot of R&D money of their own to get to this day.

----------

No its not. HD4600 draws less power than Iris Pro. Thats first. Second, whats the difference between fact that both, the iGPU and dGPU will consume about the same power?

I didn't say the HD4600 wouldn't be less. I said the power+performance combo makes reasonable sense. Think about relatively low stress situations where performance is still a bit sluggish right now on the HD4000, such as UI animations. You might counter that we can expect those few anomalies to go away with the HD4600 given its substantially improved performance, and you may be right.

But till that day, it still will be crappy GPU.

"Crappy" is a bit extreme. We're talking about a 20%, average, regression across the board, or somewhere in that range. Can we agree on that?

Look, I'm not saying it's not a step backwards in some ways. It is. My contention is that it's both temporary and not altogether that meaningful. I'm not defending the move, and if I were building my ideal rMBP, I would go with the 760M all the way. Part of why I stopped gaming on my rMBP was how annoyed I was at FPS rates on the 650M. But it is what it is, and I guess all I'm saying is that it isn't too big of a deal.

 

[GSPice]

I'm surprised that Apple had so many hardcore gamers.

 

[Narcaz]

Apple giveth apple taketh away. Last year perfomance was a pleasant surprise. No one wants a step backwards. Iris 5200pro is just ok for now, but with the release of nVidia's Maxwell and the AMD Crystal series in early 2014, it would fall behind. Even with a Haswell refresh it would soon be outdated. The redesign with IGPU comes to soon. Apple should wait for Broadwell.

 

[GSPice]

Man with all the downtrodden posts here you'd think Apple's gonna release this:

Have some faith people! lol

 

[koyoot]

Look, I'm not saying it's not a step backwards in some ways. It is. My contention is that it's both temporary and not altogether that meaningful. I'm not defending the move, and if I were building my ideal rMBP, I would go with the 760M all the way. Part of why I stopped gaming on my rMBP was how annoyed I was at FPS rates on the 650M. But it is what it is, and I guess all I'm saying is that it isn't too big of a deal.

If GT650M was crappy for Retina, then Iris Pro will be better with lagging behind in case of performance?


Honestly. Mavericks can take the situation of two generations of MBPs, to the point, in which last years will be faster than this years generation! Only in terms of battery life there might be improvement. So whats the point in offering only iGPU for MBP, if it will lag behind of last years generation?

Only Fastest processor with Iris Pro will be a little bit faster than last year, those who have 2.7 GHz versions wont get any improvement over the this year.

Especially when Mavericks will come out, there will be no difference. So there will be two options. Or a real "bargain" price for rMBP with Iris Pro, or a second option with QC CPU with HD4600 and dGPU like GT750M/8870M.

 

[GSPice]

But it is what it is, and I guess all I'm saying is that it isn't too big of a deal.

Precisely! It's like people find out on macrumors that Apple's dropping the dGPU:

And then when they actually buy it and test it with their apps and games:

 

[john123]

If GT650M was crappy for Retina, then Iris Pro will be better with lagging behind in case of performance?

Nope, obviously if I wasn't gaming with the 650M anymore, I certainly won't be with the Iris Pro 5200.

Honestly. Mavericks can take the situation of two generations of MBPs, to the point, in which last years will be faster than this years generation! Only in terms of battery life there might be improvement. So whats the point in offering only iGPU for MBP, if it will lag behind of last years generation?

Answer: GIT 'ER DONE! Glib, but I'm serious. If I were guessing, I'd imagine there's some pretty sweet pricing Apple's getting from Intel. We've been talking about standard OEM costs, but the costs to Apple are invariably going to be less.

Only Fastest processor with Iris Pro will be a little bit faster than last year, those who have 2.7 GHz versions wont get any improvement over the this year.

Yeah, that seems accurate given the average Geekbench numbers versus the one leaked result.

Especially when Mavericks will come out, there will be no difference. So there will be two options. Or a real "bargain" price for rMBP with Iris Pro, or a second option with QC CPU with HD4600 and dGPU like GT750M/8870M.

For all the reasons I've stated in this thread and others, I'm pretty convinced you'll see the former. And I think a $100-$200 price drop is a distinct possibility, absent some other change (e.g. IGZO displays, although that's going to be 2014).

 

[sarthak]

Apple doesn't release those figures but other OEMs do.
And you still don't see the big picture. Basically: CPU w/ Iris Pro costs the same as CPU w/ dGPU. That's it. Iris Pro doesn't make things cheaper for Apple. In fact, it may make things worse because Apple has to spend more R&D to change the internals of the next rMBP accordingly with the removal of a dGPU. That's just more work for them.
And what does not having nVidia hardware in there has anything to do with OpenCL? nVidia hardware does OpenCL as well, mind you.
And in some cases, nVidia does OpenCL even better than AMD even though there are more cases of AMD beating out nVidia in performance. Here's Photoshop CS6:
Apple could have gone with Quadro just fine, and they would have been able to emphasize OpenGL performance over FirePro, since no matter how you put it, nVidia still has better OpenGL performance than AMD.
And going nVidia also enables them to offer support to all major GPGPU technology. Namely CUDA and OpenCL. Going AMD foregoes CUDA completely, so applications that take advantage of CUDA won't run well, or at all.
It's true that only AE takes advantage of CUDA (I wasn't talking about GPGPU). Or please feel free to find another popular professional application in OSX that makes use of CUDA. And on a side note, OpenCL is not CUDA, even though they are both GPGPU frameworks.
Quadro and FirePro cards are more for OpenGL compatibility and driver stability than they are for GPGPU computing performance. It's not like those cards were made for GPGPU. OpenCL specifically has only been available since 2008 or so, but Quadro and FirePro cards have been around far longer than that.
GPGPU is in its infancy. Saying otherwise is just deluding yourself into marketing mojo.
Please find a single Windows notebook in this generation that actually lasts 9-12 hours on battery... and has comparable specs to a rMBP before you make that statement.

I know what Intel's figures are. I was talking about NVIDIA chip pricing for high volume purchases.

As for NVIDIA hardware, Apple put in AMD FirePro cards in the Mac Pro because in the long run applications can benefit from OpenCL especially on machines like the rMBP. Otherwise, there would be no urge to optimize applications from CUDA accelerated to OpenCL. You'd be stuck with NVIDIA cards all across the board.

Once again, you said that AE is the application that takes advantage of CUDA. That is not true, DaVinci Resolve is reliant on CUDA. I had been using Resolve on my Mac Pro 2009 with a GTX670 and GT120 cards before I moved over to having a rMBP only. So is Photoshop and many other apps that utilize CUDA on OS X.

Quadro cards are also optimized for CUDA. There are many professional applications that use CUDA, that use OpenCL and of course, OpenGL. AE is not the only application that takes advantage of CUDA.

As for you telling me to find a Windows notebook that has 9-12 hours of battery life, there are plenty from Lenovo that have greater than 12 hours of battery life. There are plenty others that also have 9 - 12 hours of battery life. You need to read what I said, Apple will fall behind because by 2014 not this upcoming generation. By then, there will be plenty of notebooks with battery life 9 - 12 hours.

Does not matter what the claims are, I place my bets on Apple dropping the dGPU. If you have a problem with them doing that then email someone at Apple.

 

[GSPice]

Has anyone seen this benchmark site? Pretty interesting: Notebook Check: NVIDIA 650M

 

[Vanilla35]

Has anyone seen this benchmark site? Pretty interesting: Notebook Check: NVIDIA 650M

What's "interesting" about it?

 

[bill-p]

I know what Intel's figures are. I was talking about NVIDIA chip pricing for high volume purchases.

And industrial sources have repeated that Intel's Iris Pro solution is not competitive price-wise going against the competition.

In fact, nVidia already came out and said the same thing.
http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2013/05/30/qa-why-gamers-still-need-a-discrete-gpu-with-haswell/

Third and perhaps more fundamentally, the GT3e product exists in the top tier of their CPU family. Similar CPUs, such as the i7-4880QM, have an average notebook price of nearly $3,000 according to the market research firm GFK. Notebook buyers can get much better performance at a significantly lower cost by selecting a GeForce notebook. OEMs don’t seem all that impressed with GT3e, as it’s power hungry and expensive. We expect only a tiny number of notebooks will come with GT3e.

That's straight from the horse's mouth.

They don't release numbers, but almost everyone knows Intel's Iris Pro pricing (and the fact that they only offer Iris Pro on the most expensive chips) is just not very competitive.

As for NVIDIA hardware, Apple put in AMD FirePro cards in the Mac Pro because in the long run applications can benefit from OpenCL especially on machines like the rMBP. Otherwise, there would be no urge to optimize applications from CUDA accelerated to OpenCL. You'd be stuck with NVIDIA cards all across the board.

Apple has been alternating between nVidia and AMD in their macs for a while now.

Plus nVidia cards run OpenCL as well as CUDA. It's just that AMD cards are better optimized for that. But the catch is that you lose compatibility with CUDA by going AMD.

Once again, you said that AE is the application that takes advantage of CUDA. That is not true, DaVinci Resolve is reliant on CUDA. I had been using Resolve on my Mac Pro 2009 with a GTX670 and GT120 cards before I moved over to having a rMBP only. So is Photoshop and many other apps that utilize CUDA on OS X.

Photoshop does not use CUDA whatsoever.

And I meant that AE is the only application that "requires" CUDA for a feature.

DaVinci Resolve will happily default back to OpenCL (lower performance) or even native processing (CPU mode) without any lack of features.

But if you don't have CUDA, you can't use the ray-tracing features of AE at all.

Saying an application is "reliant" on CUDA when it works just fine without that feature is misleading.

As for you telling me to find a Windows notebook that has 9-12 hours of battery life, there are plenty from Lenovo that have greater than 12 hours of battery life. There are plenty others that also have 9 - 12 hours of battery life. You need to read what I said, Apple will fall behind because by 2014 not this upcoming generation. By then, there will be plenty of notebooks with battery life 9 - 12 hours.

Do you mind showing any laptop that matches the performance of a rMBP 15" that has 9-12 hours of battery life from Lenovo?

That's my question.

By 2014? Well, we're at end of 2013 already. I have yet to actually see any workstation class notebook, not even those with Iris Pro, that can breach 10 hours of battery life under actual use.

Does not matter what the claims are, I place my bets on Apple dropping the dGPU. If you have a problem with them doing that then email someone at Apple.

I'd place my bets on Apple dropping the dGPU as well, because they have made their intentions clear.

I DO have a problem with it, though. In fact, I came up to Apple's HQ (I live in Silicon Valley, in case you're wondering) and complained about it. In person.

They noted the complaint, but I know it's already too late.

It's not just Apple. Intel is also behind this push to remove the dGPU.

 

[kaellar]

The current retina MacBook Pro works a lot better then the iris pro but the iris pro would be better for application that use CUDA (or in other words, application like PS).

How the hell GPU with no CUDA cores could be better than one with them in CUDA computing??