Waiting for Skylake MBP thread

[frosse]

how many hours until Intel event?

It starts 6.30 PM PT so it's little less that 12 hours...

 

[tharwan]

Just to be clear for new (and old) readers wondering about CES. We don't expect Apple to release anything during this event.

Instead focus lies on Intel to release or provide information regarding appropriate chips for the 15" Macbook Pro.

Although Apple likes to steal the headlines of these kind of events sometimes by releasing something shortly after or before. But since we are still without any major leaks except a possible March event I highly doubt there will be anything.

 

[koyoot]

It looks like AMD GPU Polaris is coming out in march first for mobile, and few days later, for desktop.

It is likely that this is the first Polaris GPU being brought up (after only 2 months I’m told) and could represent the best improvement in efficiency that we will see. I’ll be curious to see how flagship GPUs from AMD compare under the same conditions.

 

[Patrick-Photo]

It looks like AMD GPU Polaris is coming out in march first for mobile, and few days later, for desktop.

I'm quite curious to see what performance they will be to push using a lower TDP like the ones found in the 15" rMBP or other similar sized laptops...

 

[koyoot]

At 1080p in Star Wars Battlefront GTX 950 capped at 60FPS uses around 90W. In the same scenario Polaris GPU uses 25-30W. In my opinion overall it is something between Radeon R9 270X and Fire Pro D500 in core count.

http://media.gamersnexus.net/images...h/battlefront/battlefront-gpu-1080-medium.png

It looks like in this environment GTX 950 would draw around 120W of power(GPU alone).

Capped at 60 FPS it goes down, and yet - the test computer still used 150W of power, according to data from Anandtech.

In the same scenario, the new GPU from AMD was capped at 60FPS, and the system it was installed was using 88W of power, which translates to 25-30W for the GPU.

The Polaris looks to be small, GDDR5 GPU with 75W total TDP.

 

[hfletcher]

Hmm. If Polaris mobile gpus are coming sooner than thought (i.e. March), it could be possible we might see one in the rMBP. I guess it really depends how badly apple wants to kill dGPU's. And also its relative performance to iris 580.

So much new tech coming out, looking forward to 2016!

 

[cmChimera]

It looks like AMD GPU Polaris is coming out in march first for mobile, and few days later, for desktop.

What's your source for March? Everything I've seen is "mid-2016", which doesn't seem like March.

 

[koyoot]

What's your source for March? Everything I've seen is "mid-2016", which doesn't seem like March.

http://wccftech.com/amd-polaris/

PCPer journalist was told that it will be in 2 months - he has been told by AMD.

 

[cmChimera]

http://wccftech.com/amd-polaris/

PCPer journalist was told that it will be in 2 months - he has been told by AMD.

Nice, hope continues for March update.

 

[domsodidavid]

What's your source for March? Everything I've seen is "mid-2016", which doesn't seem like March.

"Polaris GPUs are planned for release in Q2 this year, meaning that the earliest we'll see them is April. We expect to see Nvidia's rival tech - codenamed Pascal - to arrive in the same time window."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-amd-reveals-polaris-next-gen-graphics-hardware

 

[koyoot]

Big chips are due for Q2. Which means from April to June. But they start with small Polaris in March, according to info from PCPer.
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...hnologies-Group-Previews-Polaris-Architecture

It is likely that this is the first Polaris GPU being brought up (after only 2 months I’m told) and could represent the best improvement in efficiency that we will see. I’ll be curious to see how flagship GPUs from AMD compare under the same conditions.

 

[HighRes15]

For what it's worth, Intel silently released 6 new processors - Skylake and Broadwell, last week:
http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-broadwell-processors-for-desktop-mobility/

None of these are MBP material since they lack advanced iGPU graphics, but it suggests Intel may not bother publicizing new SKU releases, unless it's something important like the first set of Iris Pro 580 Skylake chips.

 

[jsnuff1]

Hmm. If Polaris mobile gpus are coming sooner than thought (i.e. March), it could be possible we might see one in the rMBP. I guess it really depends how badly apple wants to kill dGPU's. And also its relative performance to iris 580.

So much new tech coming out, looking forward to 2016!

Any mobile variant of Polaris will blow the 580 out of the water. Probably somewhere around twice the processing power of the M370x, and I doubt the 580 will be even able to keep up with the 370, since it does not have dedicated GDDR5 memory.

 

[HighRes15]

I'm not really interested in the raw performance figures of any new dGPU as much as its TDP and throttled performance. Just look at the past five years of MBPs. Practically every one of them has dGPU-induced logic board failure issues. My 2010 does. The 2011-12 model does . Even the 2015 model has recent reports of AMD R370X failures, and other threads talking about heavy throttling. And that's for a card that's already not the best performer around.

With a half a decade long record of failures and even Apple-mandated repairs in some cases, the situation is fairly clear - the dGPU works within a very tight thermal envelope within the MBP chassis. It's a substantial contributor to the significant record of logic board failures. I'm not a gamer, so I might just plug for the iGPU only 15" with Iris Pro 580 graphics when that's available. I tend to keep my MBPs for a few years and don't want to deal with a logic board failure.

 

[Thebeat07]

Just wait and see, Intel will reveal the chips suitable for mbps today at CES. Then the release of mbp revisions will be in March. There is no way a release in June is happening. That is way too long and will be hurt by competitors if that is truly what happens.

 

[koyoot]

I'm not really interested in the raw performance figures of any new dGPU as much as its TDP and throttled performance. Just look at the past five years of MBPs. Practically every one of them has dGPU-induced logic board failure issues. My 2010 does. The 2011-12 model does . Even the 2015 model has recent reports of AMD R370X failures, and other threads talking about heavy throttling. And that's for a card that's already not the best performer around.

With a half a decade long record of failures and even Apple-mandated repairs in some cases, the situation is fairly clear - the dGPU works within a very tight thermal envelope within the MBP chassis. It's a substantial contributor to the significant record of logic board failures. I'm not a gamer, so I might just plug for the iGPU only 15" with Iris Pro 580 graphics when that's available. I tend to keep my MBPs for a few years and don't want to deal with a logic board failure.

GPUs would fail if they would work on too high voltage, not too low TDP, and thermal envelope.

For reliability - truth be told, the lesser voltage and power envelope - the better.

 

[OSX7]

I know this a unpopular opinion here, but here it go nonetheless. Personally, I think there will not be any dGPU variant on the next release. Im not saying that this is inevitably the case. But it's getting more and more difficult for Apple to justify including a discreet GPU. They have been removing them across the line up little by little nonchalantly. They removed it from the plastic white macbook, all the 13" MBPs, the 13"rMBP didn't even have one. Then continued with entry level 15" rMBP, even though the 750m was just a rebranded 650m, so it definitely wasn't cutting costs. Then the Mac Mini and the 4k iMac (This one was pretty unfair, you need the extra power to drive that massive display). The logicboard failures that HighRes15 mentioned just adds fuel to the fire, even more when you consider they are going to get thinner.
[doublepost=1452026791,1452026399][/doublepost]

Just wait and see, Intel will reveal the chips suitable for mbps today at CES. Then the release of mbp revisions will be in March. There is no way a release in June is happening. That is way too long and will be hurt by competitors if that is truly what happens.

In last year's CES they only introduced boring s**t like drones, fashion items no one will ever buy, and 3d printed clothing?
Or whatever the hell that was. Ohh and realsense. So im not expecting an announcement concerning Iris Pro. Hope I'm wrong though. I figure that they will just silently release them in mid January.

 

[shareef777]

You know Apple's marketing department is doing an outstanding job when people take the names and denominations within their product lineup seriously/literally. There is nothing a photographer/architect can do on a XPS 15 Laptop, that a US$300 POS Dell notebook can't. They both run Windows, and thus run Photoshop/CAD/Production software, what varies is the speed in which the tasks are accomplished. I bolded that last fragment because their lineup is pretty much the same. The Macbook can run the same software as an rMBP. Both run Final Cut, Lightroom etc. But the Macbook will take a longer time to accomplished the same tasks. The "Pro" doesn't mean that the laptop is suitable for professionals, it just means that it is relatively better and faster than the one below it. The user makes the most of the laptop, not the other way around. You make the laptop as Pro or amateurish as you want to, the purchase doesn't define the user when it comes to notebooks. The plethora of rMBP i have seen in the wild are from people (teens mostly) sitting in Starbucks browsing the web/writing a word document. If we go by the typical definition and stigma the "Pro" name has, none of them should have bought it because a US$300 POS notebook can achieve the same thing that their luxury US$1299-1999 notebook can. My brother (16) made my parents buy him a 15" rMBP 2015. The reason?....just because it looked nice according to him.

Oh and remember that they killed the dGPU in the entry 15" Macbook "Pro". They decided back then that Iris Pro reached acceptable levels of performance, they didn't drop the name.

Macbook<Macbook Pro. Functionally the same, just faster. That's it. No over-complications. There is no international standard that regulates how many ports, cpu speed, or ssd capacity a "pro" machine should have to be called a "pro" notebook.

Sorry for the long post. The first part about marketing and such wasn't directed entirely to you, it was to the forum in general.

That's like saying a Honda Civic is a sports car, just one of the slower ones!

 

[zooby]

I'm not really interested in the raw performance figures of any new dGPU as much as its TDP and throttled performance. Just look at the past five years of MBPs. Practically every one of them has dGPU-induced logic board failure issues. My 2010 does. The 2011-12 model does . Even the 2015 model has recent reports of AMD R370X failures, and other threads talking about heavy throttling. And that's for a card that's already not the best performer around.

With a half a decade long record of failures and even Apple-mandated repairs in some cases, the situation is fairly clear - the dGPU works within a very tight thermal envelope within the MBP chassis. It's a substantial contributor to the significant record of logic board failures. I'm not a gamer, so I might just plug for the iGPU only 15" with Iris Pro 580 graphics when that's available. I tend to keep my MBPs for a few years and don't want to deal with a logic board failure.

GPUs would fail if they would work on too high voltage, not too low TDP, and thermal envelope.

For reliability - truth be told, the lesser voltage and power envelope - the better.

My late 2008 c2d died on me last week so I might have to bite the bullet and get another MBP. Looking at the rMBP 15 but is it better if I don't go for the dGPU option ? My old one had it and I used it every once in a while for gaming and editing pictures but it sounds like you'll get more longetivity going with a model without it?

 

[OSX7]

That's like saying a Honda Civic is a sports car, just one of the slower ones!

Both are cars and can be used to go from point A to point B. The sports car will just reach B faster, while looking nice. Plus we are talking about notebooks not cars, lol.

 

[cmChimera]

I know this a unpopular opinion here, but here it go nonetheless. Personally, I think there will not be any dGPU variant on the next release. Im not saying that this is inevitably the case. But it's getting more and more difficult for Apple to justify including a discreet GPU. They have been removing them across the line up little by little nonchalantly. They removed it from the plastic white macbook, all the 13" MBPs, the 13"rMBP didn't even have one. Then continued with entry level 15" rMBP, even though the 750m was just a rebranded 650m, so it definitely wasn't cutting costs. Then the Mac Mini and the 4k iMac (This one was pretty unfair, you need the extra power to drive that massive display). The logicboard failures that HighRes15 mentioned just adds fuel to the fire, even more when you consider they are going to get thinner.
[doublepost=1452026791,1452026399][/doublepost]
In last year's CES they only introduced boring s**t like drones, fashion items no one will ever buy, and 3d printed clothing?
Or whatever the hell that was. Ohh and realsense. So im not expecting an announcement concerning Iris Pro. Hope I'm wrong though. I figure that they will just silently release them in mid January.

13" Macbook, and 13" Macbook Pro never had discrete GPUs, and Apple has offered an entry level Macbook Pro without a dGPU long before the rMBP. They really haven't been changing much.

 

[shareef777]

Both are cars and can be used to go from point A to point B. The sports car will just reach B faster, while looking nice. Plus we are talking about notebooks not cars, lol.

That's the point. Sports Cars are called "SPORTS" for a reason. They go faster. Just as a MacBook should continue to be called a Pro if it works faster then the other variants of the MacBook lineup.

 

[OSX7]

13" Macbook, and 13" Macbook Pro never had discrete GPUs, and Apple has offered an entry level Macbook Pro without a dGPU long before the rMBP. They really haven't been changing much.

Macbook 2010 had the NVIDIA GeForce 320M, a discreet part. It was separate from the CPU so it counts as discreet.
Macbook Pro 13" 2009, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, was an onboard gpu (integrated into the chipset, not the cpu) so it still counts as a discreet part.
Macbook Pro 13" 2010, NVIDIA GeForce 320M, a discreet part also.
Mac Mini 2011, AMD Radeon HD 6630M, discreet.
Macbook Air 2010, NVIDIA GeForce 320M
Shall I go on?
All were included in the base config, and all have been replaced by Intel's iGPUs.

 

[koyoot]

My late 2008 c2d died on me last week so I might have to bite the bullet and get another MBP. Looking at the rMBP 15 but is it better if I don't go for the dGPU option ? My old one had it and I used it every once in a while for gaming and editing pictures but it sounds like you'll get more longetivity going with a model without it?

If you don't need the dGPU - go for iGPU model. If you need it, go for dGPU. It is as simple as it can be.

 

[cmChimera]

Macbook 2010 had the NVIDIA GeForce 320M, a discreet part. It was separate from the CPU so it counts as discreet.
Macbook Pro 13" 2009, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, was an onboard gpu (integrated into the chipset, not the cpu) so it still counts as a discreet part.
Macbook Pro 13" 2010, NVIDIA GeForce 320M, a discreet part also.
Mac Mini 2011, AMD Radeon HD 6630M, discreet.
Macbook Air 2010, NVIDIA GeForce 320M
Shall I go on?
All replaced by Intel's iGPUs.

That's not how discrete GPUs are defined. Those were integrated GPUs because they shared system RAM for graphical processing. Discrete GPUs are discrete because they are completely separate entities that have their own memory.