Retina MacBook Pro June refresh GPU

Not very likely.
August-Sept. is a better timeframe for Haswell and a decent GPU in a MBP.

 

The GPU is always updated in a MacBook Pro refresh. No one's talking about it because it is a given.

 

The GPU will almost certainly be updated, but don't expect a different class of GPU. They will pick the latest GPU that has the same thermal requirements as the 650m.

 

The GT650M has a TDP of 45W:

http://community.futuremark.com/hardware/gpu/NVIDIA+GeForce+GT+650M/review

Apparently NVidia is supposed to release an updated set of the Kepler mobile GPUs in April, so we might see something like a GT 750M or 760M.

That Samsung 7 Series Chronos is 5.18 pounds and 0.82" thick, compared to the rMBP which is 4.46 pounds and 0.71" thick, so that same GPU might be pushing the cooling limits.

 

1. The GPU is not the problem. It is a software problem.
2. 10 % increase is the increase you will see in single thread integer calculations (not likely in optimized applications). SSE & AVX (vectorized) code is up to 50 percent faster, compared to Ivy Bridge.
3. The Haswell Integrated Graphics Processor (IGP) is ≈ 50 percent faster, compared to the Ivy Bridge IGP.

 

Yes and it should be an increase of about 25-30%.

 

Apple has definitely not publicly scheduled a refresh. They never do that and never will. When they upgrade to Haswell is anyone's guess.

If Apple sticks to the usual pattern, it will be at least ~1 month after Intel's release, so early July perhaps. It's also possible the refresh won't come until August or September, so be prepared to possibly wait quite a while.

June is the earliest possible date, September-October the latest.

 

You're wrong. They do noy update the GPU every time.. Look at the latest refresh of mbpr

 

The latest was a price drop and a token processor bump - likely because the new processors were ones Intel simply had more of. Making RAM cheaper and +0.1 GHz (with a 25% reduction in cache, mind you) does not qualify as a "refresh" of the line.

They are, however, considering it a new revision, and you should take that literally. They used this as an opportunity to clear up most (though definitely not all) of the launch bugs.

 

The 650M is a performant graphic card..is in midle range high end. So for 1080p it is perfect. But for native retina macbooks yea i think they must have something like 675mx Geforce. But who needs that? Only for gaming yes..but even for that only kids wants to play higher than 1080p

 

Just a few remarks: the Chronos laptop in question is a 17" model weighting 2.8kg which I wouldn't call an ultrabook by any stretch of imagination - and the TDP of 8870M is significantly higher than that of 650M. I don't see any chance of card like that getting into the rMBP, which already operates on the limits of its thermal specification under load. A GPU with 45/50W is the absolute maximum of what rMBP can take.

 

hawell is not planned to launch on 28 may, not on notebooks at least

Maxwell is only going to be in 2014, all gpus that have been announced from nvidia for the mobile refresh are: 0

There are no talks about any, only the 780m, which could well be a rehash of the 680mx (which for now only comes in the imac 27)

in all probability they are going to rebadge everything like they usually do

I hope they dont use nvidia again, their kepler is just abysmal for people that are professionally using any image and video editing software.

8870m is just a rehash of the 7870m, which guess what is their TDP? 45w

They actually do, every year they do a change in gpu and cpu. The minor spec bump from the midlife shelf of that version of the mb are to reflect the gains of production and quality from intel in their making new cpus, This year has been different with some internal changes being made

the TDP of the 8870m is 45w.

you guys mistake power consumption and Thermal Design Power (TDP), one can or cannot have the same number of the order, but they dont are the same thing. Also 100w is the power of the entire notebook. And there is a 15'' chronos with the 8870m

As usual samsung in all their models they have a problem with the machine, and in this one they are suffering from throttling issues, some of it points out to the BIOS (the temps of the throttling for the gpu are indeed low 70c) and others to power consumption VS power provided, 90w psus for those kind of pcs is absurd, they should pack 120w ones.

 

I think apple should create a gammer edition mac. you know, like with dual video card in sli or crossfire configuration and all. I bet that will sell like hot cakes.

 

It's a difficult balance to keep here. I want to buy a rMBP because it's light and thin. I also like gaming, so an update on it's graphics card would be very nice, but only if it doesn't increases it's weight and power consumption.

Also, is there any of these ultrabooks, with good graphics card that run well a Hackintosh? I moved away from hackintosh a couple of years ago when I bought my first macs, but sometimes I feel limited by Apple hardware in terms of specs.

 

there is a large probability that nvidia might rebrand the whole thing, they at least do partial rebrands every year

For example the 300m series was rebranded into 400m, 500m and 600m (they ranged from 455m to the 635m), in the 600m series like the 500m they rebranded their high end gpus, like the 485m, 580m, 675m, they are the same gpu

AMD rebranded the 7870m into the 8870m, it has the power of the 670m, at 45w, apple shouldve started 2012 with that

 

You are right! Sorry, I looked at older press releases. It is indeed impressive that Samsung was able to pack all that hardware into 15" body!

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Could you provide a link on that? I was not able to find any official data on the TDP on this card.

 

It's likely, but there are a few problems that prevent the 8870M or even a re-branded 600M series to make it into a Haswell rMBP:

1) Haswell increases TDP over Ivy Bridge, because the faster integrated GPU needs to consume more power, which leads to more heat. In essence, Haswell increases CPU (and integrated GPU) performance, but at the cost of more heat. Apple will have to play the balance game even more delicately.

2) 600M series is already causing throttling issues with the current rMBP, so chances are that the current super thin design isn't even enough to contain a 45W GPU. Add more heat from the CPU on top of that and you have quite a formula for disaster

3) There is no mention of 8000 series drivers in OSX so far, but there are mentions of 7000 series. so chances are... we'll see 7870M or 7850M instead.

With all of that said, I think the 7850M or 8850M are more likely candidates for the next GPU. Apple has never aggressively pushed graphics performance of their laptops, and it would be silly for them to add so many space heating components into the next rMBP... considering the chassis can't take that much heat to begin with.

The 7850M is not bad, per se. It's about on par with the 660M, which means it is more or less on par with the current 650M in the rMBP (it's overclocked).

And it's not the GPU that's holding the rMBP back from reaching higher resolutions. It's actually VRAM that's the limiting factor. 1GB is barely enough for 1920 x 1080 for some games.

Skyrim is especially bad when you plug high-res textures in.