Radeon Pro 450 2GB vs 460 4GB

[jackoatmon]

It's going to be "OOOOHHHH IT'S MAGIC!" for quite a bunch of people, but others that express criticism like me actually look at it in the same way a woodcutter looks at his axe, how sharp, weight, handle and things like this, not if there are inscriptions/decorations on the steel or on the handle.

No. You're looking at a fine Japanese chef's knife and saying, "This piece of $#!+ can't even chop a tree down! Throw it in the f@#$ing garbage!!!1"

You're not expressing criticism. You're vomiting ignorance and naïveté in an astonishingly solipsistic manner.

 

[SimeoneSergio]

No. You're looking at a fine Japanese chef's knife and saying, "This piece of $#!+ can't even chop a tree down! Throw it in the f@#$ing garbage!!!1"
You're not expressing criticism. You're vomiting ignorance and naïveté in an astonishingly solipsistic manner.

Your example is pretty and to certain extent, even better than mine, i must admit it. To keep it on same "equation" i'd remove the japanese chef and replace it with a random Daymio, keep the knife and replace my axe with a Katana crafted by Masamune/Muramasa (you don't want Apple to be a low lever swordcrafter, do you?)and the woodcutter with a samurai.

How about now?

P.S. Not going to keep this derailment going on btw

 

[tcoll150]

Is it future proof? Will it last a long time?

I am wondering something similar. Is it worth it to upgrade from the 2.6 to the 2.9? I have already decided to get the 460 GPU but wonder if the CPU will even make a difference and for what?

 

[wheelhot]

I am wondering something similar. Is it worth it to upgrade from the 2.6 to the 2.9? I have already decided to get the 460 GPU but wonder if the CPU will even make a difference and for what?

Hmm, if you don't know the reason why you might need a 2.9, why are you considering to spend even more money??

 

[tcoll150]

Hmm, if you don't know the reason why you might need a 2.9, why are you considering to spend even more money??

Well this is what I am asking. I do final cut editing from time to time and the upgrade in spending is not a lot really.

 

[wheelhot]

Well this is what I am asking. I do final cut editing from time to time and the upgrade in spending is not a lot really.

Aaah, in that case:
1. If you don't mind spending extra go for it
2. If you considering should you, then I don't think the performance gain will be that significant but it'll be faster, how fast? I'm not sure, guess you'll have to dig around the internet to see how much faster you'll gain

 

[shanjiajun]

Hey guys,
I received a defective computer yesterday, so I am going to return it tomorrow, I originally BTO the 460, but I am now thinking to get the 455 instead, since its in stock?
Is it a good idea?

I don't do any video editing, but I do mobile app dev, not 3D, just basic stuffs, via Visual studio, and also website dev, and little photoshop/lightroom.

Will the 455 be enough? I might do some RDP to my windows server, not very often.

Any advices?

Thank you all.

 

[happyhippo1337]

Go with the 450 or 455.

 

[2AVI2]

Bear with me, as I'm not a tech-savvy person so I need your advice! I'm looking to buy the new MacBook Pro w/ Touch Bar 15", which I'll be using primarily for print/web graphic design work (Adobe CC) with a *small* potential for video editing (no gaming). My work will be paying for the computer (yay.) so cost isn't really of concern BUT battery life, fan noise, and heat are important to me -- will upgrading to the Radeon Pro 460 and/or the 2.9 GHz processor affect either battery life, fan noise/use, or how hot the computer gets? If so, will the 455 and/or 2.7 GHz really have a discernible difference in improving battery life, fan noise, and/or heat? I saw in this thread there were some comments on this but it wasn't really clear to me. Any advice is appreciated!

 

[shanjiajun]

Go with the 450 or 455.

so the 450 or 455 is way more than enough?

 

[Scott G.]

Yes, assuming the 460 is just pushing more performance through similar circuitry, the 450 will consume less power. Not to mention the fans kicking in more frequently will draw more power.

More electrons pushed through a similar circuit = more performance = more heat. It's possible the heat differential is compensated in some way. Perhaps the heat sink is larger, or they modify the interior to draw away the heat more aggressively for the 460. But in addition to pushing 1.8x the performance of the stock gpu, the 460 also has twice the RAM, which also generates more heat.

We all have our "issues" with technology. Mine is noise. I don't like noise. And in general with technology, when there's more mechanical motion there's more vibration, more electrical fluctuations, noise, wear and tear on the system, and potential for failure.

I'm willing to bet they offered the 460 for the "I don't care, I just want performance" crowd. But if you want a quiet laptop with strong battery life, you're probably not the "gotta have the 460" user.

Obviously I don't game.

I saw one person who had 2 MBPs, one with the 455 and one with the 460. He said the fans worked harder on the 455 for some reason. They didn't get loud on the one I had tho.

 

[aevan]

I saw one person who had 2 MBPs, one with the 455 and one with the 460. He said the fans worked harder on the 455 for some reason. They didn't get loud on the one I had tho.

I am almost certain that is anecdotal - the GPU architecture is practically the same, with 460 having more shaders and Mhz. And that causes more heat and spends more energy.

The only way a faster GPU of the same architecture could heat less/spend less energy is for it to complete a task faster, before it reaches maximum temperature. For example, if it renders a scene way before it reaches higher temperatures. However, in most GPU tasks, like gaming, the GPU is under constant pressure as new frames need to be constantly rendered, so I don't see how 460 could activate the fans less.

I'm not saying the 460 heats much more - I have no idea - but it's very likely it does heat up more than 450/455.

Still, even though I have a 455, I don't think heat/battery life is a reason not to get 460. The best reason is: if you don't need it, why spend money on it? But if money is not an issue - I'd go for the 460, honestly. I was only able to get stock models and no BTO, so the 460 was never an option, so I have the 455. With that said, the 455 performs really great and don't really see any benefit to 460 other than gaming and a very small number of apps.

BTW - my 455 MBP is the most silent Mac I've ever owned. And is quite cooler than my previous MBP.

TLDR: If you have the money and want the best, get 460 and don't worry. Otherwise, 450/455 is fine. Only my opinion, based on what I read.
[doublepost=1481532349][/doublepost]

so the 450 or 455 is way more than enough?

For Bootcamp gaming, go for 460. For apps - I'd say 450/455 is more than enough, yeah.

Just read your usage: no, you won't see any difference between 450, 455 and 460.

 

[linguist]

I think Aevan advice is quite spot on.

AMD is known to be a bit late in driver optimisation area, for example usually in Windows few months down the road performance get improved, almost always later compared to Nvidia, this generation AMD whether 455 or 460 is cooler or not is a wash IMO depending on the nature of software/workload, definitely cooler than last gen dGPU and hotter than using iGPU.

however if you never use the app that's optimised for OpenCL, or speeding up GUI when using 2 external 4K/5K monitor, all that extra GPU power gonna be a waste mostly.

 

[Blackvibes]

We already had a few replies whether the 460 would require more energy. But what compared to same tasks, settings and scenario? Let's take a game for example. On medium settings and if we capped the FPS at 60fps, and the 450 is getting that easily. Would the 460 require more energy? They have to push the exact same rock in the exact same time. There shouldn't be any performance difference noticeable. But how about power consumption and/or heat?

 

[ninja2000]

I am almost certain that is anecdotal - the GPU architecture is practically the same, with 460 having more shaders and Mhz. And that causes more heat and spends more energy.

The only way a faster GPU of the same architecture could heat less/spend less energy is for it to complete a task faster, before it reaches maximum temperature. For example, if it renders a scene way before it reaches higher temperatures. However, in most GPU tasks, like gaming, the GPU is under constant pressure as new frames need to be constantly rendered, so I don't see how 460 could activate the fans less.

I'm not saying the 460 heats much more - I have no idea - but it's very likely it does heat up more than 450/455.

Still, even though I have a 455, I don't think heat/battery life is a reason not to get 460. The best reason is: if you don't need it, why spend money on it? But if money is not an issue - I'd go for the 460, honestly. I was only able to get stock models and no BTO, so the 460 was never an option, so I have the 455. With that said, the 455 performs really great and don't really see any benefit to 460 other than gaming and a very small number of apps.

BTW - my 455 MBP is the most silent Mac I've ever owned. And is quite cooler than my previous MBP.

TLDR: If you have the money and want the best, get 460 and don't worry. Otherwise, 450/455 is fine. Only my opinion, based on what I read.
[doublepost=1481532349][/doublepost]

For Bootcamp gaming, go for 460. For apps - I'd say 450/455 is more than enough, yeah.

Just read your usage: no, you won't see any difference between 450, 455 and 460.

Hi aevan, Have you by any chance boot camped or benchmarked the 455 at all? I am contemplating the 455 as I can just walk in and pick one up but I would love to see how it compares to the 460. I have found benchmarks for 450 and 460 but none for the 455

 

[aevan]

Hi aevan, Have you by any chance boot camped or benchmarked the 455 at all? I am contemplating the 455 as I can just walk in and pick one up but I would love to see how it compares to the 460. I have found benchmarks for 450 and 460 but none for the 455

No - I was planning to, but I'm still scared to put bootcamp on it because of those speaker issues. I know they have been fixed, but I'm still reluctant. I guess I'll wait a month or so before I gather the courage to use Windows on the MBP.

Ars Techinca has a good review with 455 Benchmarks.

http://arstechnica.co.uk/apple/2016/11/macbook-pro-touch-bar-13-15-inch-touch-bar-review/

Also, Ryan from Anandtech said he'll be doing a review of the new MBP and he has the 455 model - so they are going to do all sorts of benchmarks.... if he gets around to it. Not the first time he announced a Mac review and then skipped it.


There are also a few game videos on YouTube

Overwatch on 455

Mad Max on 455

Doom

3DMark

The games seem perfectly playable, and there are reports that performance is even better with new Radeon drivers.

Still, if you want to game in Bootcamp, I think the 460 is a better choice.

 

[ninja2000]

Ah cheers for that, I hadn't searched youtube. Only problem with the 460 is its BTO only and I will have to wait until after xmas to get it. I can get a 455 from a store. I guess I need to be more patient

 

[aevan]

Ah cheers for that, I hadn't searched youtube. Only problem with the 460 is its BTO only and I will have to wait until after xmas to get it. I can get a 455 from a store. I guess I need to be more patient

455 is great for sure. And not even the 460 is what you'd call a gaming GPU.

 

[ninja2000]

455 is great for sure. And not even the 460 is what you'd call a gaming GPU.

Yeah that is true, but if I am honest my requirements are not that high. BF1 is the hardest game I play and I am happy at 1440x900 medium settings

 

[aevan]

Yeah that is true, but if I am honest my requirements are not that high. BF1 is the hardest game I play and I am happy at 1440x900 medium settings

Then I think 455 will do fine, however if you can wait, 460 will surely be better.

 

[AllTheBytes]

Going with the 2.6GHz base model, because I see no point in investing any money in a 0.1GHz CPU upgrade.

In addition, you are upgrading from a 6MB L3 cache to an 8MB cache, a nice 25% increase in cache. Results can bee seen here: http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-6820HQ-vs-Intel-Core-i7-6700HQ

 

[jerwin]

Yeah that is true, but if I am honest my requirements are not that high. BF1 is the hardest game I play and I am happy at 1440x900 medium settings

Maybe this will be of interest.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Battlefield-1-Notebook-and-Desktop-Benchmarks.181963.0.html

Here are their projections (limited to AMD mobile chipsets). Take them with a grain of salt.

low is 1280x720, medium is 1440x900, high is 1920x1080 (with corresponding detail settings)

The Radeon 450 has a relatively full set of benchmarks

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-Pro-450.181778.0.html

And everything else is a bit of a gamble.
Does that green dog leg at the Radeon 455 actually exist?

 

[GCMD]

Also trying to decide on GPU.

I do light video encoding from home videos (mostly my kids basketball or football games) to re-encoding a downloaded video file in Handbrake, MP4tools, MKVtools or IdealShare VideoGo...just as a hobby, nothing professional.

Which GPU would I need? Do any of those apps tax the GPU enough to need the 460?

I also keep a LOT of tabs open, sometimes with 2 different Browsers at once...will an improved GPU help with that?

And I don't game...not on my laptop.

 

[xmonkey]

Also trying to decide on GPU.

I do light video encoding from home videos (mostly my kids basketball or football games) to re-encoding a downloaded video file in Handbrake, MP4tools, MKVtools or IdealShare VideoGo...just as a hobby, nothing professional.

Which GPU would I need? Do any of those apps tax the GPU enough to need the 460?

I also keep a LOT of tabs open, sometimes with 2 different Browsers at once...will an improved GPU help with that?

And I don't game...not on my laptop.

If you're not doing those video encoding tasks day in and day out, I'd say the base 450 should be fine. Really the CPU is most important when it comes to strictly encoding. For video editing in something like Final Cut or Premiere, the dGPU matters more.

For browsing you're not going to notice a benefit with a different dGPU and it should be using the iGPU as much as possible during browsing for battery life purposes.

 

[Wildkraut]

Hey guys,
I received a defective computer yesterday, so I am going to return it tomorrow, I originally BTO the 460, but I am now thinking to get the 455 instead, since its in stock?
Is it a good idea?

I don't do any video editing, but I do mobile app dev, not 3D, just basic stuffs, via Visual studio, and also website dev, and little photoshop/lightroom.

Will the 455 be enough? I might do some RDP to my windows server, not very often.

Any advices?

Thank you all.

Yep, 450 or 455 should be fine for this.
I do Mobile App Games and took the 460 mainly because I do 3D modeling and gpu rendering.