Switching to a Vega based MacBook Pro from a 2017 MBP-Will I see a big difference?

[halw]

I currently have a 2017 15inch MacBook Pro 2.9, 16, 2TB with the Radeon Pro 560. I'm running Bootcamp on it to play the occasional FPS games such as Ghost Recon Wildlands, Far Cry 5, Titanfall, Borderlands 2. Most games when I drop the resolution and detail settings run pretty well however I'm finding some issues with Ghost Recon Wildlands stuttering a lot.

I'm wondering if I'll see a big difference in performance if I were to sell this machine and go for a 2018 or 2019 MBP with 32 Gigs of ram and a Vega 16 or Vega 20.

I've read a few things on how the memory setup on the Vega cards actually behaves like it's double what it physically is ie: 4gb ram performs like it's 8gb's.

I do not want to go for a Windows based gaming laptop due to space limitations in my apartment. This is also the same reason I've not gone iMac.

Is it worth the investment? Will the Vega 16 or 20 get me through the next 2-3 years of PC gaming? I'm not running games at max resolutions and in fact run most games at 1024 x768 or 1280 x 1024 with small or medium textures.

Any tips on getting better performance out of Ghost Recon Widlands?

Thanks in advance for thoughts and suggestions.

 

[skirmisser]

I currently have a 2017 15inch MacBook Pro 2.9, 16, 2TB with the Radeon Pro 560. I'm running Bootcamp on it to play the occasional FPS games such as Ghost Recon Wildlands, Far Cry 5, Titanfall, Borderlands 2. Most games when I drop the resolution and detail settings run pretty well however I'm finding some issues with Ghost Recon Wildlands stuttering a lot.

I'm wondering if I'll see a big difference in performance if I were to sell this machine and go for a 2018 or 2019 MBP with 32 Gigs of ram and a Vega 16 or Vega 20.

I've read a few things on how the memory setup on the Vega cards actually behaves like it's double what it physically is ie: 4gb ram performs like it's 8gb's.

I do not want to go for a Windows based gaming laptop due to space limitations in my apartment. This is also the same reason I've not gone iMac.

Is it worth the investment? Will the Vega 16 or 20 get me through the next 2-3 years of PC gaming? I'm not running games at max resolutions and in fact run most games at 1024 x768 or 1280 x 1024 with small or medium textures.

Any tips on getting better performance out of Ghost Recon Widlands?

Thanks in advance for thoughts and suggestions.

I have a Vega 20 MBP and can attest that it's a cool running laptop. I am not sure how much faster Ghost Recon would be though. In synthetic benchmarks there's a significant different, perhaps 60%. Game performance though differs. Though the answer to your question on the next 2-3 years would probably be a yes. Is this though worth the extra money to get a new laptop...not sure about that.

 

[halw]

I have a Vega 20 MBP and can attest that it's a cool running laptop. I am not sure how much faster Ghost Recon would be though. In synthetic benchmarks there's a significant different, perhaps 60%. Game performance though differs. Though the answer to your question on the next 2-3 years would probably be a yes. Is this though worth the extra money to get a new laptop...not sure about that.

Thanks. I'm going to think about it for a few weeks. I might try and hold out until Fall and hope that Apple drops updated machines (more updated than what they recently released) or 2019 machines show up on the refurb site. I think I can probably get $2500-$3100 for my machine if I sell.

Appreciate the feedback.

 

[lJoSquaredl]

I have a Vega 20 MBP and can attest that it's a cool running laptop. I am not sure how much faster Ghost Recon would be though. In synthetic benchmarks there's a significant different, perhaps 60%. Game performance though differs. Though the answer to your question on the next 2-3 years would probably be a yes. Is this though worth the extra money to get a new laptop...not sure about that.

Curious how loud it is tho. I’ve heard the fans are louder with Vega by default, cooler running is nice but if it’s just cuz the fans run louder then I could just turn the fans up with a controller on my 560x model. I wonder if these new models using only 2.3ghz i9s actually are cooler and quieter while using Vega tho.