Waiting for Haswell MBP Mega Thread

[john123]

I am still undecided between MBA 13", MBPr 13" or MBPr15" but i think i am not the only one in this case.

About the debate "dGPU or not dGPU", I prefer having an homogeneous machine without a dGPU and losing a bit in the game side, because it optimize battery life, heat dissipation and noise. Moreover it facilitate the support of the machine, without needing some tweeks like Mavericks to improve battery life by switching between the dGpu and iGpu. That's my 2 cents thought.
Hope the new MBPr will be out soon.

You stated that a dGPU wouldn't optimize battery life. This isn't true. Battery life only goes down when the dGPU kicks in on-the-fly, and that only happens when the system decides that the dGPU is the better choice. There are also third-party utilities (e.g., gfxCardStatus) that let you override the system and force it to use the dGPU or iGPU exclusively, if you so wish. So having a dGPU simply gives you more choices, which is especially great when you're using your laptop plugged in. It does not necessarily mean your battery life will suffer.

Heat dissipation on the Retina 15" is excellent--as in the best I've ever owned on any 15" Apple laptop since they started making the cases out of metal (going back to the original AlBooks and TiBooks). The fans are also the quietest, even when running at 6k.

 

[Rocksue]

Based on that last part, it seems to me you need to ask yourself the following questions in this order:

1. Does the retina screen make a huge difference to you? (if you said no, then the 13" MBA should be just fine especially since it prioritizes battery life)
2. If yes to the above, then which size rMBP? 13" or 15"?

The best way to answer these questions would be to spend some time in an Apple store (if possible) and use each machine to decide which form factor you like best.

I already saw every machines in an Apple Store. MBA is quite good but the screen quality is average. I would like to take the 15 to have more place to work on and some power to play with, but the 13 is easier to transport and i work on a campus.
I survived with a MBP SR 2,2 15" for 7 years at school while it weights a lot, thought.

 

[ohbrilliance]

I survived with a MBP SR 2,2 15" for 7 years at school whereas it weights a lot, thought.

I'm also holding a MBP SR 2,2 15" and waiting for the retina refresh. I was all set on a 15" rMBP till last week when I made the mistake(?) of bringing a MBA home from work last week. The MBA is so much easier to carry around and feels much lighter on my lap. As my one and only machine though, I think I'd find it hard giving up the 15" screen. Dilemas!

 

[devilcm3]

-

 

[jafingi]

The plot thickens. This 15-inch retina I ordered at work on July 10th is also delayed. Just got this email...


Dear Apple Education Customer,

Thank you for your recent order.

Purchase Order#: *****
Sales Order#: **********
Ship-to Zip Code: **********

Due to an unexpected delay, we are unable to ship the following item(s)
by the date that you were originally quoted:


ME664LL/A, MBP 15.4/2.4/8GB/256GB FLASH-USA
will now ship on or before
Jul 25, 2013

MD506LL/A, 85W MAGSAFE 2 POWER ADAPTER-USA
will now ship on or before
Jul 25, 2013

MD463ZM/A, THUNDERBOLT GIGABIT ETHERNET ADAPTER-ZML
will now ship on or before
Jul 25, 2013

MD504ZM/A, MAGSAFE TO MAGSAFE 2 CONVERTER-ZML
will now ship on or before
Jul 25, 2013

Please note that product availability can change rapidly, and it is
possible that your order may ship much sooner than we anticipate. You
may even receive a shipment confirmation between the time we send this
email and the time that you read it.

You will receive an email notification once your order has been shipped.
We encourage you to visit: <http://www.apple.com/orderstatus>.

We appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience this
delay may have caused you.

The Apple Store For Education

Interesting none-the-less. Configure-to-order Mac minis I ordered on the 11th will arrive this Friday from China, according to the tracking info I received.

Interesting. With the conference call next week, I think it could be an indication of a refresh.

 

[Pentad]

Interesting. With the conference call next week, I think it could be an indication of a refresh.

I sincerely hope you are right. However, leaked SKU numbers would make me feel better...

-P

 

[Aluminum213]

Why do people keep thinking "random online sale = soon to launch new retina hardware"


If that were the case we'd already be on 4-5th gen retina hardware

 

[john123]

Why do people keep thinking "random online sale = soon to launch new retina hardware"


If that were the case we'd already be on 4-5th gen retina hardware

When emotion takes over, people abandon rationality and foolishly attach hope to everyday events.

 

[ChildishGambino]

Is the tingling in my left leg the sign of something coming next week?

Sounds like something is coming for you alright.

 

[devilcm3]

my hair is tingling as well

 

[john123]

I don't think Mac gamers are hardcore gamers... A hardcore gamer just buy a gaming rig or a xbox/ps...

The exact point I started off with. We still get great OpenCL and OpenGL performance, and if gaming is your priority, why are you buying a mac?

This is just beyond wrong and silly. Why do we buy Macs? Because we don't want multiple set-ups. It's expensive, it's inconvenient, and for those of us who travel extensively for work, it's completely impractical. For many, the Mac is the platform of chose for work. That isn't somehow mutually exclusive with gaming being an important use case for our laptops.

It's pretty annoying when someone who doesn't understand the practical considerations or the use cases comes along and arrogantly tells other people what they should or shouldn't do, and how they should allocate their money.

 

[zOlid]

The exact point I started off with. We still get great OpenCL and OpenGL performance, and if gaming is your priority, why are you buying a mac?

A lot of people buy Mac cos they like the OS better but still want to game.
And the more likely side is that a lot of people like the look, feel and quality that the rMBP have. And they cant (arguably) find it some where else.
I know a lot of gamers who have bought the IB rMBP just to install windows and use it as their desktop replacement and game on it.

So just because you dont like to game or think they could just have 2 riggs. Dont make that the norm for everyone else.

 

[BASTI51]

Meanwhile this is what the order status of my other order looks like online...

Maybe they are just skeptic and delayed further orders to check your account because buying 5 macs within one month is way over average for an educational customer

No I think after Kuos prediction that the rMBP refresh will happen between the MBA and iMac/Mac mini refresh and all these new online store signs, a silent july refresh comes more and more likely. So silent MBP/Mac mini refresh after earnings call -> September iOS release event with iPhones/iPads/iPod nano refresh -> Oktober OS X release event with MacPro/iMacs. Makes imo less sense but I hope it will come so.

 

[ValSalva]

Maybe they are just skeptic and delayed further orders to check your account because buying 5 macs within one month is way over average for an educational customer

No I think after Kuos prediction that the rMBP refresh will happen between the MBA and iMac/Mac mini refresh and all these new online store signs, a silent july refresh comes more and more likely. So silent MBP/Mac mini refresh after earnings call -> September iOS release event with iPhones/iPads/iPod nano refresh -> Oktober OS X release event with MacPro/iMacs. Makes imo less sense but I hope it will come so.

I hope you are right. The plot sure thickens. We'll pretty much know on 7/24 or 7/25

 

[jz-]

Maybe they are just skeptic and delayed further orders to check your account because buying 5 macs within one month is way over average for an educational customer

No I think after Kuos prediction that the rMBP refresh will happen between the MBA and iMac/Mac mini refresh and all these new online store signs, a silent july refresh comes more and more likely. So silent MBP/Mac mini refresh after earnings call -> September iOS release event with iPhones/iPads/iPod nano refresh -> Oktober OS X release event with MacPro/iMacs. Makes imo less sense but I hope it will come so.

I hope that comes true as well, but Kuo later said the rMBPs would be delayed by a few months due to screen yields… I think July made sense at the start of the year when the prediction was made, as Mavericks might have been planned for late-July, but that obviously isn't the case any more.

JB Hi-Fi in Australia is having a sale for 10% of all Macs, but the early 2013 13" rMBP appears to be missing. Does anyone else from Australia (seemed to be quite a lot of other Melburnians earlier) know if JB usually runs out of stock for reasons other than a refresh? Usually their stock levels seem to be fairly reliable.

 

[fskywalker]

I'm also holding a MBP SR 2,2 15" and waiting for the retina refresh. I was all set on a 15" rMBP till last week when I made the mistake(?) of bringing a MBA home from work last week. The MBA is so much easier to carry around and feels much lighter on my lap. As my one and only machine though, I think I'd find it hard giving up the 15" screen. Dilemas!

For weight reduction maybe the 13 inch rMBP may be your solution, but you would still give away 2 inches of screen real estate!

 

[devilcm3]

I hope that comes true as well, but Kuo later said the rMBPs would be delayed by a few months due to screen yields… I think July made sense at the start of the year when the prediction was made, as Mavericks might have been planned for late-July, but that obviously isn't the case any more.

JB Hi-Fi in Australia is having a sale for 10% of all Macs, but the early 2013 13" rMBP appears to be missing. Does anyone else from Australia (seemed to be quite a lot of other Melburnians earlier) know if JB usually runs out of stock for reasons other than a refresh? Usually their stock levels seem to be fairly reliable.

dicksmith has it.

 

[jdevenberg]

A lot of people buy Mac cos they like the OS better but still want to game.
And the more likely side is that a lot of people like the look, feel and quality that the rMBP have. And they cant (arguably) find it some where else.
I know a lot of gamers who have bought the IB rMBP just to install windows and use it as their desktop replacement and game on it.

So just because you dont like to game or think they could just have 2 riggs. Dont make that the norm for everyone else.

And my point is that the Iris Pro 5200 will still game. It isn't that far behind the GT 650m currently in the 15" and the 750m (which is likely what the dGPU would have been) isn't that big of an upgrade from the 650m. There are very few games that will play signifigantly better on the 650m and 750m than they will play on the Iris Pro 5200, and the compute performance will be superior on the Iris Pro than on the nvidia chips. So, similar gaming experience, better battery life, and better compute performance. That is why I don't understand the huge freak out about ditching the dGPU. If the MBP had been coming with higher end cards like the GTX 660m or 670m, it would be much more understandable, but that isn't what is going on.

 

[neteng101]

A lot of people buy Mac cos they like the OS better but still want to game.

What you're describing are what I call poseurs. They want to be seen with the latest and coolest things, and while they might complain a bit about the lack of a dGPU, they'll go out and buy the next iteration of the rMBP just cuz it will still be the cool thing to have.

Discerning gamers know that you cannot replace purpose built gaming desktops with any laptop today, the technology simply isn't there yet. You also get stuff like the super high resolution of the retina display that just cannot be handled well by most GPUs, even desktop ones, and if you're gonna game at a lower resolution than the native resolution of the display, enjoy playing through a soft effect lens. You're already making such a huge compromise, that a couple of frames lost isn't going to be telling enough for these non-discerning so called gamers.

So just because you dont like to game or think they could just have 2 riggs. Dont make that the norm for everyone else.

These people you describe are a joke - they might talk about stuff on paper but cannot tell the real difference and will just buy the latest thing out there even if it isn't the best. Poseurs don't know any better... their only consternation will be their friends that might point them to benchmarks and such that say otherwise, and they are more upset over the loss of bragging rights than actual performance.

If you look at the MBA forums, you'd realize quickly that people that want to game on a Mac, will do so anyways and set a really low performance bar. The rMBP will already be faster than the MBA, so I doubt Apple will have any trouble at all selling them.

 

[ohbrilliance]

What you're describing are what I call poseurs.

With all due respect, your post is the most self-righteous pile of clap-trap I've had the pleasure to read all day. People buy macs for all sorts of reasons, and it's wrong to presume and pigeon-hole their motives. Not everybody is as serious, dedicated or amazing a gamer as you suppose you might be. Get over yourself.

 

[john123]

And my point is that the Iris Pro 5200 will still game. It isn't that far behind the GT 650m currently in the 15" and the 750m (which is likely what the dGPU would have been) isn't that big of an upgrade from the 650m. There are very few games that will play signifigantly better on the 650m and 750m than they will play on the Iris Pro 5200, and the compute performance will be superior on the Iris Pro than on the nvidia chips. So, similar gaming experience, better battery life, and better compute performance. That is why I don't understand the huge freak out about ditching the dGPU. If the MBP had been coming with higher end cards like the GTX 660m or 670m, it would be much more understandable, but that isn't what is going on.

I don't know what you've looking at, but it's incorrect. The gap for gaming between the 650M and the Iris 5200 is substantial. There have been many reviews and benchmarks on this fact. That is why there is the "huge freak out" as you call it.

From the conclusion of Anand's review, first paragraph:

For the past few years Intel has been threatening to make discrete GPUs obsolete with its march towards higher performing integrated GPUs. Given what we know about Iris Pro today, I'd say NVIDIA is fairly safe. The highest performing implementation of NVIDIA's GeForce GT 650M remains appreciably quicker than Iris Pro 5200 on average.

 

[neteng101]

With all due respect, your post is the most self-righteous pile of clap-trap I've had the pleasure to read all day.

Its actually the truth, even if it hurts some to admit it.

Seriously - the performance gap/difference isn't such a huge chasm that it will be impossible to play games, though the Haswell generation might represent a slight regression on gaming performance for MBPs. Its not the end of the world that people are making it out to be, and I guarantee you, people will be snapping up Haswells even without the dGPU, and you'll get gaming related topics on the forum discussing the Haswell MBP gaming performance as well.

All this crying people are making now - really as I said, are only those who are concerned about "vanity" and paper stats. Everyone else knows that gaming on a Mac will always be a compromise of sorts, its just a matter of asking yourself if its one you can accept or not. Sure we all want more but that's not always realistic, and there are other factors to be considered in a package that wasn't designed specifically with a single purpose such as gaming.

That's the bottom line. If the compromise is too much, then you have to go another route - and if you still want a Mac, an iMac gets you much better gaming performance than any MBP will.

 

[jdevenberg]

I don't know what you've looking at, but it's incorrect. The gap for gaming between the 650M and the Iris 5200 is substantial. There have been many reviews and benchmarks on this fact. That is why there is the "huge freak out" as you call it.

From the conclusion of Anand's review, first paragraph:

Links? I provided links to where I am getting my information already and was told it wasn't accurate, and when I asked for links that showed otherwise, no one showed up with any. As I said in that post, if someone can provide links showing this huge performance delta, I will join the outrage. Everything I can find shows a minimum performance delta, hence my opinion that this isn't worth the fuss its causing.

Appreciably and significantly are two different things. Appreciably means yes there is a measurable difference that is beyond the margin of error for the testing. That does not mean it is a significant performance difference that will leave games unplayable. I went through the entire Anand review. The difference in frame rates is there, but most games deliver playable frame rates (about 30 fps) at the same detail level on both.

 

[Aluminum213]

Are we seriously discussing gaming on apple computers? If you are anything more then even the most casual of a pc gamer you are wasting your time buying a Mac

 

[john123]

Links? I provided links to where I am getting my information already and was told it wasn't accurate, and when I asked for links that showed otherwise, no one showed up with any. As I said in that post, if someone can provide links showing this huge performance delta, I will join the outrage. Everything I can find shows a minimum performance delta, hence my opinion that this isn't worth the fuss its causing.

A simple Google search of the quote I provided would have turned up the review as the very first hit.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6993/intel-iris-pro-5200-graphics-review-core-i74950hq-tested/20

Scroll to any of the pages. The FPS differences are tremendous.