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Why won't Apple release a MBPr with the same specs as the 15"

Hieveryone

Hieveryone

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 11, 2014
5,632
2,347
USA
I would love a 13" MBPr with

2.6 GHz Quad Core i7 processor,

16GB RAM,

512 GB SSD,

and an NVIDIA GT 750M dedicated graphics card

Why won't Apple do this or at least offer dedicated graphics? :confused:
 
Hieveryone said:
I would love a 13" MBPr with

2.6 GHz Quad Core i7 processor,

16GB RAM,

512 GB SSD,

and an NVIDIA GT 750M dedicated graphics card

Why won't Apple do this or at least offer dedicated graphics? :confused:
Click to expand...
1 word for you: heat. Actually make it 4 words: Heat and battery life.
 
Darn ok. Well that's too bad. I was hoping the 13" at some point would come with a dedicated graphics card.
 
Hieveryone said:
Darn ok. Well that's too bad. I was hoping the 13" at some point would come with a dedicated graphics card.
Click to expand...

On the contrary, I would be surprised if the 15" gets a dgpu option next gen. If the broadwell iris pro is a significant amount better than the 750M, I doubt apple would bother sourcing parts for a 850M...even if the 850M is amazing.
 
Freyqq said:
On the contrary, I would be surprised if the 15" gets a dgpu option next gen. If the broadwell iris pro is a significant amount better than the 750M, I doubt apple would bother sourcing parts for a 850M...even if the 850M is amazing.
Click to expand...

I have heard the Iris Pro is as good as the 650M in many ways!
 
Hieveryone said:
I have heard the Iris Pro is as good as the 650M in many ways!
Click to expand...

Irs Pro is better at compute
Nvidia 650M/750M are significantly better at gaming.


Apple likes simplicity, and their dual-gpu solution is complex. They've been getting rid of dgpus at every opportunity, so I doubt it will be an option for much longer.
 
Freyqq said:
Irs Pro is better at compute
Nvidia 650M/750M are significantly better at gaming.


Apple likes simplicity, and their dual-gpu solution is complex. They've been getting rid of dgpus at every opportunity, so I doubt it will be an option for much longer.
Click to expand...

I just like the idea of hooking up your MBPr to your TV and playing Titan Fall at 60 fps!

Not a reality yet but hopefully soon. Until then, I'll be using Xbox One for that :D
 
Hieveryone said:
I would love a 13" MBPr with

2.6 GHz Quad Core i7 processor,

16GB RAM,

512 GB SSD,

and an NVIDIA GT 750M dedicated graphics card

Why won't Apple do this or at least offer dedicated graphics? :confused:
Click to expand...

Going at the contrary of most people say, I doubt that the real problem is heat dissipation. If it was the problem, most PCs would be in trouble, since their cases are cr**py in terms of managing heat and sometimes you find a quad-core model with 13" or 14" (although this is pretty rare lately).

You'd listen to some noise from the fans but probably not louder than we listened in the Core2Duo era. On battery, the clock speed could be locked down to Macbook Air speeds (e.g. < 2GHz).

It's all about design and market. In terms of design, it wouldn't be as elegant as a 15" rMBP since it would be louder to keep temperatures as low as its bigger brother. Also, maybe a lot of people would prefer spending less for a 13" rMBP to get 15" processing power. This would harm 15" rMBP sales.
 
Personally I'd rather Apple sorted out an external TB2 high resolution display (preferably 4K) with an internal slot for a GPU card. Then I'd want a MacBook Air Retina display with 1Gb SSD as a lightweight notebook, and plug it in on the desktop to play serious games and graphics performance.
 
Hieveryone said:
I would love a 13" MBPr with

2.6 GHz Quad Core i7 processor,

16GB RAM,

512 GB SSD,

and an NVIDIA GT 750M dedicated graphics card

Why won't Apple do this or at least offer dedicated graphics? :confused:
Click to expand...

Same! This would be lovely.
 
tillsbury said:
Personally I'd rather Apple sorted out an external TB2 high resolution display (preferably 4K) with an internal slot for a GPU card. Then I'd want a MacBook Air Retina display with 1Gb SSD as a lightweight notebook, and plug it in on the desktop to play serious games and graphics performance.
Click to expand...

the device you're describing will cost like 2-3k, that'd be insane! I think what makes sense for Apple is to keep the dgpu option OR redesign the 15" so it can put that space vacated by the dgpu to good use. since the logic board is already designed and apple rarely changes logic board design language within a given design structure, it woudln't make any sense for apple to not source that option if it can make more money off of it.
 
Have you seen the insides of one of these things? If you did, you'd be surprised at how much hardware they can fit as it is.

A MacBook Pro 13 Retina comes with: Not one, but two ThunderBolt ports, an HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, a bluetooth chip, a WiFi card, an audio out and an SD card reader. The logic board, which is literally the heart and soul of your MacBook is this small:

AG3pwEJMI5xJ6Vcd.huge


For size reference, on the left is one of the USB ports which is around 15.7 millimeters. This makes the logic board approximately 80x160 millimeters squared, or rather, 3.15"x6.5" or so. Do you have any idea how small that is? That's about half the length of your keyboard and around half the width as well. Remember that discrete graphics cards also have discrete memory and that quad core processors, while the same slot, require more power delivery.

To be perfectly honest, it's amazing that Apple was able to engineer this much power out of such a small machine to begin with. Even building it to these specifications in the dimensions of what's as small as a Windows ULV notebook but with the power of a full powered 13~14" laptop is quite an engineering accomplishment.

If you really want more GPU power, you can easily throw an external GPU at it. If it's a 2013 Retina model (which has a UEFI capable bios), then external GPU's are plug and play. And I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have a GTX 770 desktop variant powering my Titanfall/Skyrim fun than a mobile series 750M or 850M. :)
 
I'd say the cost to engineer such a product would be higher, the space is constrained and its also a point where apple can differentiate between the two models.

That is have one larger higher powered product for those that one more horsepower and a less expensive model. They'd rather not lose sales of the more expensive model if they can help it.
 
Hieveryone said:
I just like the idea of hooking up your MBPr to your TV and playing Titan Fall at 60 fps!

Not a reality yet but hopefully soon. Until then, I'll be using Xbox One for that :D
Click to expand...

Considering it is a title for the xbox 360 too and it runs the source engine, I would be surprised if the rmbp with 750M couldn't do at least medium settings at 1080p at 60fps. It's a pretty efficient graphics engine. I have Modern Warfare 2, and it plays at 60+ at 1080p on medium-high.
 
Freyqq said:
Considering it is a title for the xbox 360 too and it runs the source engine, I would be surprised if the rmbp with 750M couldn't do at least medium settings at 1080p at 60fps. It's a pretty efficient graphics engine. I have Modern Warfare 2, and it plays at 60+ at 1080p on medium-high.
Click to expand...

yjchua95 says that he can only run battlefield at 50 fps (which is obviously very good) but I know the Xbox one can do 60....
 
Hieveryone said:
yjchua95 says that he can only run battlefield at 50 fps (which is obviously very good) but I know the Xbox one can do 60....
Click to expand...

I own a rmbp with 750M, so what I said above is from my experience so far. As with everything, it depends entirely on what settings you are running at. Xbox One does not run any game on all high either, but it is running a varient of a 7850...which uses more watts alone than the entire macbook pro.

Macbook pro with 750M is many times faster than a xbox 360, though.
 
Freyqq said:
I own a rmbp with 750M, so what I said above is from my experience so far. As with everything, it depends entirely on what settings you are running at. Xbox One does not run any game on all high either, but it is running a varient of a 7850...which uses more watts alone than the entire macbook pro.

Macbook pro with 750M is many times faster than a xbox 360, though.
Click to expand...

At 3:25 he goes up to 1080 resolution and the FPS drops significantly to like 30-40

Xbox one does 1080 at like 60 fps


And yeah speed wise the Xbox One is a sloth compared to the MBPr in terms of loading games, etc
 
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