Not liking what I'm hearing about the 460...Should I cancel my BTO?

[Low country]

Hi all,

So the first reviews are coming in and it is sounding rather unanimous that the maxed out MacBook Pro with the 460dGPU is a lame duck.

I ordered the 15"Pro, 2.9, with the 460 and 1TB.

Should I cancel my BTO and just wait it out for the next refresh in a year or so?

Thanks

 

[jackoatmon]

like how could anyone possibly know without knowing your use case?

What do you plan to do with the machine?

 

[leman]

Lame duck? All benchmarks I've seen put it 960m-965m level performance, which is absolutely amazing.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

like how could anyone possibly know without knowing your use case?

What do you plan to do with the machine?

I second your post. It always amazes me how people can ask questions like this without giving any details. Ridiculous.

 

[vengapat]

yeah cancel your bto

 

[fs454]

Hi all,

So the first reviews are coming in and it is sounding rather unanimous that the maxed out MacBook Pro with the 460dGPU is a lame duck.

I ordered the 15"Pro, 2.9, with the 460 and 1TB.

Should I cancel my BTO and just wait it out for the next refresh in a year or so?

Thanks

You're gonna get midrange options every time - it's not like next year all of a sudden they're dropping GTX 1070s in, anything higher end than this 460 and you end up with a graphics chip with a higher TDP than the entire notebook combined. I was one of the primary complainers about the lack of 32GB RAM and the midrange GPUs when it was announced but I think I'm pretty happy with the performance out of the 460 - it's especially punchy for its low wattage considering it's within 10% performance of the desktop version but under half the TDP.

 

[motime]

Yeah wait for the next refresh, it won't take as long as this one and all the issues with the new release would have been ironed out hopefully. This was not a good launch. The prices should be adjusted a bit lower too. I would just purchase last years refurbished model as they are still beastly machines with all the ports and a nicer keyboard. Not to mention a heck of a lot cheaper.

 

[jackoatmon]

also: it's scoring like 58,000 in OpenCL

For context, the current top-spec iMac GPU scores 86,000.

So it's 70% as powerful as the best GPU in an iMac

in a teeny tiny little quiet light computer

yeah, pretty sure it's not a "lame duck"

 

[fs454]

On the flip side, what do you currently have? I have to admit that I've sunken back into my Late 2013 15" MBP for the past couple hours because I needed to use the SD reader and also disassemble the Touch Bar version of the greater good of the forum - and I don't necessarily miss anything speed or hardware wise. I need more time with both to reach a conclusion, but the GPU oomph is a primary staying factor for me as it blows the 750M out of the water (and doesn't require you to deal with intense graphical corruption in CUDA workflows in order to get the most performance out of it)

 

[Low country]

Lame duck? All benchmarks I've seen put it 960m-965m level performance, which is absolutely amazing.

Well thats not what I'm reading here at MacRumors.....

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-faster-and-support-dual-5k-displays.2014874/

The title states the AMD dGPU's are "Significantly Faster" but after reading every response and test from people that are just getting them in their hands it sounds rather unanimous that the G460 is a "bottom of the barrel", "entry level", "downgrade", ....

I hope I'm wrong but the first responders are NOT liking what they are seeing from the 460

 

[fs454]

Well thats not what I'm reading here at MacRumors.....

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-faster-and-support-dual-5k-displays.2014874/

The title states the AMD dGPU's are "Significantly Faster" but after reading every response and test from people that are just getting them in their hands it sounds rather unanimous that the G460 is a "bottom of the barrel", "entry level", "downgrade", ....

I hope I'm wrong but the first responders are NOT liking what they are seeing from the 460

I'm pretty much the primary first responder here and was first to post comprehensive benchmarks of the 460 at this thread:
Are they any Radeon Pro 460 benchmarks out yet?

Everyone seems happy that we're hitting 965m-level performance and within 10% of the 75W desktop RX460 with a 35w part. The 965m is a 50W part.

 

[Low country]

On the flip side, what do you currently have? I have to admit that I've sunken back into my Late 2013 15" MBP for the past couple hours because I needed to use the SD reader and also disassemble the Touch Bar version of the greater good of the forum - and I don't necessarily miss anything speed or hardware wise. I need more time with both to reach a conclusion, but the GPU oomph is a primary staying factor for me as it blows the 750M out of the water (and doesn't require you to deal with intense graphical corruption in CUDA workflows in order to get the most performance out of it)

Hi fs454,

I gave you a thumbs up for your hard work and help in that thread. Thank you again. Are you saying your new MBP with the 460 is performing great?

 

[fs454]

Hi fs454,

I gave you a thumbs up for your hard work and help in that thread. Thank you again. Are you saying your new MBP with the 460 is performing great?

It's been doing well! I'm more impressed with it than I thought I would be considering the wattage and the entire forum's wishes that it had been a 1050 or 1060 nVidia chip. I'm curious enough to venture into Windows soon and give some games a shot - I'm a pretty obsessed Battlefield 1 player over on my Hackintosh (sig) which nets me 60FPS at 4K on Ultra.

I've got FCPX 10.3 and Premiere Pro CC 2017 to test as well on the OS X side, but my hurdle right now is learning FCP. I encountered a kernel panic while background transcoding in FCPX and doing some basic file transferring over the network earlier today, but not sure what exactly it was related to.

 

[Low country]

It's been doing well! I'm more impressed with it than I thought I would be considering the wattage and the entire forum's wishes that it had been a 1050 or 1060 nVidia chip. I'm curious enough to venture into Windows soon and give some games a shot - I'm a pretty obsessed Battlefield 1 player over on my Hackintosh (sig) which nets me 60FPS at 4K on Ultra.

I've got FCPX 10.3 and Premiere Pro CC 2017 to test as well on the OS X side, but my hurdle right now is learning FCP. I encountered a kernel panic while background transcoding in FCPX and doing some basic file transferring over the network earlier today, but not sure what exactly it was related to.

Thanks a ton, I'll follow your discussions closely. You have exactly the same specs I ordered (2.9 i7/16GB/1TB/460

 

[ixxx69]

Well thats not what I'm reading here at MacRumors.....

With all the "hating" for the sake of hating, it's only going to get worse for the time being. So many people on this forum have doubled-down on hating this laptop and have been so vocal about it for the last couple of weeks, that they have to continue hating on it because they don't want to admit they're wrong for fear of looking stupid (not realizing they already look stupid for going bonkers over a $10 replacement cable/adapter).

There's some dorks here on the forum that have just been blasting out post after post about how all the new GPU's are "bottom of the barrel", etc. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who read those posts and buy into it - after all, they've heard that the Touch Bar sucks and the keyboard sucks and the RAM sucks and the CPUs suck and the battery life sucks and you have to buy all new printers and hard drives or "bags of dongles"... so of course the GPU's suck as well - makes sense... and it's so much "fun" to trash stuff and make "witty" memes... they really are just angry at the world right now and want to see it all burn.

 

[kevinkyoo]

It's expected. If you're doing video editing only, then I've heard that a high-end GPU is not as important, as it's really only pivotal for rendering. But yeah, there's a reason why I ditched my MacBook Pro for gaming - it's just awful, whether it's for Mac or Windows.

To put it into context, the 460 desktop variant was pretty much the "borderline" card for PC builds in 1080p gaming. 60FPS here and there, and running pretty well on not-as-demanding games like LoL, Overwatch, etc. But people forget, NVIDIA is really the first company to step forward in its mobile computer division by making it so that for example, the mobile 1060 is roughly 75-90% of its desktop variant. That's unheard of.

AMD? Well, let's just say they haven't had a good track record. The M370X was a rebranded low-end card from several years before that MacBook Pro's release, I believe. I don't know why people keep forgetting this, as AMD really hasn't done anything to improve its mobile division.

So yes, if you're thinking of doing any gaming, especially with current titles, you're only kidding yourself. Stick with a game like Skyrim on the lowest resolutions and play at 40-60 FPS, with 30FPS dips at intensive scenes.

Or, look into either a Windows laptop with a 1060 for less than $2000, or a desktop that you can build easily for less than $1500.

There are pros and cons for the MacBook Pro, but the GPU is definitely not one of them in terms of raw power.

 

[jackoatmon]

it's all just people not paying attention to what these machines are for

they're not for ****ing video games

you've got people saying they're "not pro" because they can't play the right video games

video games

guess what

pros do not use their work laptops for ****ing video games

and gamers don't use apple computers for ****ing video games

having a super hot, noisy device that runs out of battery constantly is not acceptable

when people take out charger cables in meetings, they look like unprepared morons

lugging around a 6 pound device all day is not acceptable

it's no good for VR?

guess what never happens at work ever?

****ing VR

 

[fs454]

It's expected. If you're doing video editing only, then I've heard that a high-end GPU is not as important, as it's really only pivotal for rendering. But yeah, there's a reason why I ditched my MacBook Pro for gaming - it's just awful, whether it's for Mac or Windows.

To put it into context, the 460 desktop variant was pretty much the "borderline" card for PC builds in 1080p gaming. 60FPS here and there, and running pretty well on not-as-demanding games like LoL, Overwatch, etc. But people forget, NVIDIA is really the first company to step forward in its mobile computer division by making it so that for example, the mobile 1060 is roughly 75-90% of its desktop variant. That's unheard of.

AMD? Well, let's just say they haven't had a good track record. The M370X was a rebranded low-end card from several years before that MacBook Pro's release, I believe. I don't know why people keep forgetting this, as AMD really hasn't done anything to improve its mobile division.

So yes, if you're thinking of doing any gaming, especially with current titles, you're only kidding yourself. Stick with a game like Skyrim on the lowest resolutions and play at 40-60 FPS, with 30FPS dips at intensive scenes.

Or, look into either a Windows laptop with a 1060 for less than $2000, or a desktop that you can build easily for less than $1500.

There are pros and cons for the MacBook Pro, but the GPU is definitely not one of them in terms of raw power.

AMD's trying, but regardless this is the wrong computer for gaming. It's a side-benefit for sure that games will run somewhat decently on it, but considering the 2880x1800 display it doesn't make sense as you need to run at a non-native resolution to get acceptable performance and it just doesn't look amazing. The Razer Blade 17 (I think?) is your choice for gaming while still retaining somewhat of a decent looking form factor.

 

[kevinkyoo]

AMD's trying, but regardless this is the wrong computer for gaming. It's a side-benefit for sure that games will run somewhat decently on it, but considering the 2880x1800 display it doesn't make sense as you need to run at a non-native resolution to get acceptable performance and it just doesn't look amazing. The Razer Blade 17 (I think?) is your choice for gaming while still retaining somewhat of a decent looking form factor.

They're not even trying, if you're asking me. AMD just formed a business relationship with Apple because they can offer chips at a lower wattage usage, and are in financial trouble (Or at least during the formation of the relationship).

And I agree - at this point, the MacBook Pro's are not for high intensive gaming, like Witcher 3 at 1440P. It's just confusing to me why people keep posting about Macbook Pro's and gaming in the first place. It's just a waste of your own money.

 

[Antairez]

It's expected. If you're doing video editing only, then I've heard that a high-end GPU is not as important, as it's really only pivotal for rendering. But yeah, there's a reason why I ditched my MacBook Pro for gaming - it's just awful, whether it's for Mac or Windows.

To put it into context, the 460 desktop variant was pretty much the "borderline" card for PC builds in 1080p gaming. 60FPS here and there, and running pretty well on not-as-demanding games like LoL, Overwatch, etc. But people forget, NVIDIA is really the first company to step forward in its mobile computer division by making it so that for example, the mobile 1060 is roughly 75-90% of its desktop variant. That's unheard of.

AMD? Well, let's just say they haven't had a good track record. The M370X was a rebranded low-end card from several years before that MacBook Pro's release, I believe. I don't know why people keep forgetting this, as AMD really hasn't done anything to improve its mobile division.

So yes, if you're thinking of doing any gaming, especially with current titles, you're only kidding yourself. Stick with a game like Skyrim on the lowest resolutions and play at 40-60 FPS, with 30FPS dips at intensive scenes.

Or, look into either a Windows laptop with a 1060 for less than $2000, or a desktop that you can build easily for less than $1500.

There are pros and cons for the MacBook Pro, but the GPU is definitely not one of them in terms of raw power.

I'm sorry but you might want to check your fact even the Iris 540 is capable of outputting 50~60 FPS at medium settings in Skyrim.

That's just a 15W TDP iGPU.

If 460 is at 965m performance level I'm pretty sure you can play Skyrim at pretty high settings with acceptable framerates.

 

[leman]

The title states the AMD dGPU's are "Significantly Faster" but after reading every response and test from people that are just getting them in their hands it sounds rather unanimous that the G460 is a "bottom of the barrel", "entry level", "downgrade", ....

Again, I have no idea what kind of subjective stuff people write, but based on posted benchmarks that GPU is faster then the majority of currently sold gaming laptops.

 

[inhalexhale1]

I really don't understand what many of you expected. The 460, like every other choice of dGPU, is a fair-good level card. Expect the performance of a fair-good level graphics card.

650m, 750m, 370, 460....they always use a mid level card.

 

[MH01]

Lame duck? All benchmarks I've seen put it 960m-965m level performance, which is absolutely amazing.

960m - 965m is not absolutely amazing in 2016 for a £4K Machine....

It's a good solid offering but nothing amazing. Compare it to a PC £4K laptop with 10xx and it's a lame duck. Though like we have a choice when the obsession and one trick pony is thinness....
[doublepost=1479191348][/doublepost]

I really don't understand what many of you expected. The 460, like every other choice of dGPU, is a fair-good level card. Expect the performance of a fair-good level graphics card.

650m, 750m, 370, 460....they always use a mid level card.

Spot on. We always got mid level cards, and that's what it is
[doublepost=1479191434][/doublepost]

Hi all,

So the first reviews are coming in and it is sounding rather unanimous that the maxed out MacBook Pro with the 460dGPU is a lame duck.

I ordered the 15"Pro, 2.9, with the 460 and 1TB.

Should I cancel my BTO and just wait it out for the next refresh in a year or so?

Thanks

Maybe revise your specs and look into an egpu option via TB3..... That is my approach

 

[brynsmith23]

some of you guys are hard to please... It is a laptop, the GPU review have been ok from were I'm looking.

Its not a Gaming Rig, never has been, never will be.

 

[azntaiji]

Yeah wait for the next refresh, it won't take as long as this one and all the issues with the new release would have been ironed out hopefully. This was not a good launch. The prices should be adjusted a bit lower too. I would just purchase last years refurbished model as they are still beastly machines with all the ports and a nicer keyboard. Not to mention a heck of a lot cheaper.

How does the dGPU compare though?

9
Maybe revise your specs and look into an egpu option via TB3..... That is my approach

Has there been any movement on the eGPU front via TB3?