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Waiting for Skylake MBP thread
- Thread starter adildacoolset
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Thus far, the leaks seem to suggest there will not be a 28W Skylake U chip this time. Leaks from 2014 describe 15W and 25W chips, while more recent leaks suggest only 15W chips.
Sources:
http://www.thinkscopes.com/2015/05/...-plattform-overview-and-thinkpad-speculation/
http://www.fudzilla.com/news/notebooks/38305-mobile-skylake-has-many-improvements
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-skylake-iris-graphics-new/
For those interested in performance of GPUs. Look at reviews of Intel Broadwell CPUs with Intel HD6200. It has 48 cores with 128 MB of eDRAM. Skylake GT3e will have the same amount of cores(48), with 64 MB of eDRAM, so it should perform the same.
GT4e on the other hand has 72 cores with 128 MB of eDRAM. So it should be 50% faster than Iris Pro 6200. And in the range of GTX860M performance....
Is Intel HD6200 different from Iris Pro 6200 or its the same?
I wonder how Metal will improve GPU performance on the Mac
my last 2 macbook pro's have been the early 2011 and the late 2013 15". the 2011 jump to quad cores made that computer one of my favourite upgrades ever. 2013 felt like a bit more of a "luxury" upgrade, with improvements to the screen and form factor, and a modest speed bump. i'm definitely pleased with it, but i do a lot of motion graphics work so i'm always hoping for another 2011 performance jump
i saw recently that the skylake release is supposed to be a 10% cpu boost over the current pros, which themselves seem to bench about the same as my 2013.
i'm probably not in the market for anything for the next 12-18 months, but is there any hope on the horizon that all the power efficiency improvements that have been the focus for the past few years will translate to another sandy-bridge style core-count increase?
the airs / new MacBooks are the lines that can continue pushing the thin and light envelope; i'd love to see the pros re-assert themselves as performance-centric machines. also - before anyone suggests it - not looking to ever translate back to a desktop form factor. a base level of portability still trumps performance, but i'd love to see the pros do a little more to distinguish themselves from the ultrabook type machines.
i saw recently that the skylake release is supposed to be a 10% cpu boost over the current pros, which themselves seem to bench about the same as my 2013.
i'm probably not in the market for anything for the next 12-18 months, but is there any hope on the horizon that all the power efficiency improvements that have been the focus for the past few years will translate to another sandy-bridge style core-count increase?
the airs / new MacBooks are the lines that can continue pushing the thin and light envelope; i'd love to see the pros re-assert themselves as performance-centric machines. also - before anyone suggests it - not looking to ever translate back to a desktop form factor. a base level of portability still trumps performance, but i'd love to see the pros do a little more to distinguish themselves from the ultrabook type machines.
Sorry it is the 25W chips. The difference is that the FIVR is just thrown out again (after they moved it in with Haswell). Apperantly fully integrated voltage regulators weren't a good idea but they make up the 2-3W difference. It is the same TDP class as before.
my last 2 macbook pro's have been the early 2011 and the late 2013 15". the 2011 jump to quad cores made that computer one of my favourite upgrades ever. 2013 felt like a bit more of a "luxury" upgrade, with improvements to the screen and form factor, and a modest speed bump. i'm definitely pleased with it, but i do a lot of motion graphics work so i'm always hoping for another 2011 performance jump
i saw recently that the skylake release is supposed to be a 10% cpu boost over the current pros, which themselves seem to bench about the same as my 2013.
i'm probably not in the market for anything for the next 12-18 months, but is there any hope on the horizon that all the power efficiency improvements that have been the focus for the past few years will translate to another sandy-bridge style core-count increase?
the airs / new MacBooks are the lines that can continue pushing the thin and light envelope; i'd love to see the pros re-assert themselves as performance-centric machines. also - before anyone suggests it - not looking to ever translate back to a desktop form factor. a base level of portability still trumps performance, but i'd love to see the pros do a little more to distinguish themselves from the ultrabook type machines.
10% to 20% cpu boost
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/07/24/intel-skylake-processors-leaked-slides/
not to be pedantic, but 20% quoted in the article appears to be referring to the processors that would go in the macbook (and even then appears to be a rounding up from 17%). so as far as macbook pros are concerned, the performance boost looks to be minimal.
It is possible that they make the new 15" pro so thin/small that it doesnt have space for a dGPU. This might make sense especially if there is the possibility of an external GPU via Thunderbolt 3.
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For those interested in performance of GPUs. Look at reviews of Intel Broadwell CPUs with Intel HD6200. It has 48 cores with 128 MB of eDRAM. Skylake GT3e will have the same amount of cores(48), with 64 MB of eDRAM, so it should perform the same.
GT4e on the other hand has 72 cores with 128 MB of eDRAM. So it should be 50% faster than Iris Pro 6200. And in the range of GTX860M performance...
Is the GT4e the one that is (likely) bound for the 15" rMBP? GTX860M performance seems more than adequate for my current and future needs.
Just so you don't get false hope, the GT4e won't have the same performances as a GTX 860M for gaming, it'll still lack a high memory capacity and bandwith.
It could be quite good for GPGPU via OpenCL however.
Thanks for that. I have no intention of dedicated gaming on my Mac. I'm more interested in, as you said, openCL performance over outright dedicated gaming performance. I'm thinking that if its a nice boost over the current iGPU, there will be no need for me to spend the extra cash on a 15" dGPU (if there is one in the future).
They aren't going to do that. There may be some options without a dedicated GPU, but they won't strip the 15" pro of a dedicated GPU altogether.
There will eventually be 6-core processors in the 15" MBP, but the earliest possibility is 2017. Might take a few more years.
Apple will definitely drop the last vestiges of the discrete GPU from the MBP line. It is only a question of when. The discrete GPU market is dying and the mobile discrete GPU market is on its last legs. Desktop discrete GPUs will hold on a few years longer.
If you are interested in OpenCL performance, than why you considered GTX860M, as being capable GPU in that terms? O_O
M370X is WAY faster in OpenCL, so as current Iris Pro CPUs. And no, in OpenCL Iris Pro whatever will be called in Skylake CPUs will not be faster than M370X from even current MBP. 1 TFlop of compute power. And AMD cracked the drivers of OpenCL for OS X El Capitan. I have no idea, how people can be so confused?
Anyone that plays games or does photo/video editing needs a dedicated GPU. Apple isn't going to just abandon that market for no reason.
Well photo and video editing is easily done on an Iris/Iris Po with OpenCl on the latest Macbook Pro. Gaming however is a different story. Apple really doesn't care about gaming performance (the macbook is not a gaming notebook, razer blades are), if they did care they would have stuffed in the latest and greatest Maxwell GPU but they didn't. If there were to be a redesign, and we all know what that means (slimmer), they would have to drop the dGPU just because they wouldn't be able to cool it (there are throttling issues on current dGPU MacBooks, imagine something worse on a slimmer design) and all they care about is OpenCL performance. Plus, with Thunderbolt 3 and its ability to handle a powerful eGPU, dGPUs would be rendered pointless anyways. Haven't you noticed that they have been sending "clues" about the future of the dGPU, they removed it from the entry level 15 inch Macbook Pro, whereas previously the dGPU was a standard future of the 15 inch regardless of price. (Sorry for any possible mistakes, English is not my native language)
P.s: Iris pro 6200 (48 EUs) is capable of 882 GFlops, while the M370X is capable of 992 GFLops. GT4e (rumoured to be called Intel HD 550) is supposed to be 50% faster than Intel Iris Pro 6200. The Iris Pro 5200 on the current 15 inch Macbook pro achieves 832 GFlops. If Intel is accurate and honest about the supposedly 50% increase in performannce, theoretically, Intel HD 550 (GT4e, 72 EUs) will achieve 1,323 GFlops. That would make the GT4e faster than the M370X, not in gaming, but in raw compute performance.
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Yeah, Apple will only care about OpenCL performance and that's why I kept pushing my software vendors to adopt OpenCL/Metal to boost their application performance as dGPU will likely be left out in the future. So if they're serious about improving their Mac app performance, going the OpenCL route is the only way.
Guys, you forgot about next year GPUs. 14 nm plus HBM from top to bottom on whole line of AMD GPUs. 1280 GCN cores, plus 2 GB of HBM would meant 2.5 Tflops of Compute power and 256 GB/s of bandwidth. And yes it is possible, as 14 nm FD-SOI, or FinFET will have higher density than 28 nm. And its not just x2 Density, its more like x2.3 higher. So more transistors, smaller package in the same power envelope. 640 GCN cores GPU made on 28 nm Process will have bigger footprint than 14 nm 1280 GCN core GPU.
And that is core count of FirePro D300 or M290X. I don't think Intel will be able to match it in any way. Not yet, at least.
And that is core count of FirePro D300 or M290X. I don't think Intel will be able to match it in any way. Not yet, at least.
With a possible September event for the iPhone and maybe macs (probably only iMac if anything), has Apple ever announced/released new macs during the back2school program?
Apple has offered integrated graphics only on the 15 inch pro years before now (2009 model I believe), and it has never signaled a retreat from discrete GPU altogether. One of the purposes of the Macbook Pro is to be a mobile workstation. While I get that "pointless" things are often eliminated by Apple, such as the optical drive, a dedicated graphics processor is not that. I don't see them removing dedicated graphics from the Macbook Pro for a while. They will likely offer versions without it, but I feel that it'll be an option for a good while. Integrated graphics have come a long way, but a dedicated gpu continues to be a more powerful option.
DGPU is not pointless. The reason to get rid of it is to allow high power APUs or SoCs work in that situation, because simply PCIe is gigantic bottleneck for EVERY modern GPU. The power of GPUs is right now way higher than it is displayed on the screen, and its bottlenecked by PCIe.
And thats exactly why everyone went with SoCs. The problem is that there is no balance. AMD has great GPUs, and rubbish CPUs, Intel has great CPUs and rubbish iGPUs. There is a hope that Zen finally will bring back AMD on the right spot, because 14 nm process, new architecture for CPUs with performance like Ivy Bridge or Haswell CPU on single core(IPC), coupled with massive 2 GB eDRAM(HBM) with extremely high bandwidth of 256 GB/s with lets say 2048 GCN cores would bring a lot of benefit for whole industry, and stagnating PC market. All packed in around 125W power envelope. Much, much less than any current solution with quad core, and that kind of performance GPU. But that is still a mist over the future.
And thats exactly why everyone went with SoCs. The problem is that there is no balance. AMD has great GPUs, and rubbish CPUs, Intel has great CPUs and rubbish iGPUs. There is a hope that Zen finally will bring back AMD on the right spot, because 14 nm process, new architecture for CPUs with performance like Ivy Bridge or Haswell CPU on single core(IPC), coupled with massive 2 GB eDRAM(HBM) with extremely high bandwidth of 256 GB/s with lets say 2048 GCN cores would bring a lot of benefit for whole industry, and stagnating PC market. All packed in around 125W power envelope. Much, much less than any current solution with quad core, and that kind of performance GPU. But that is still a mist over the future.
It will very likely be on par with the Haswell GT3e, or slightly better. That will be an amazing performance boost for people used to the 13" machines though. 13" MBPs haven't had relatively good integrated GPU performance since the Geforce 320 in the 2010 models.
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