Apple Refreshes MBP Retina 15", 5K iMac price drop [Graphics & Compute comparison UPDATE]

[randomhkkid]

Apple Refreshes MBP Retina 15"

Apple has refreshed the 15" model of the retina Macbook Pro line:

• CPU remains the same (No Broadwell quad core)
• GPU has been updated to the new AMD R9 M370X.
• Force Touchpad
• New PCIE SSD (2.5x Faster)
• Battery capacity increased to 99.5WHr up from 95Whr resulting in an hour more battery life from 8 to 9 (Official estimate). 

Only the new high end model has the AMD graphics chip, the lower end model only include Iris Pro.

• 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
• Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
• 16GB 1600MHz memory
• 512GB PCIe-based flash storage¹
• Intel Iris Pro Graphics
• AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB GDDR5 memory
• Built-in battery (9 hours)²
• Force Touch trackpad

 

• 2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
• Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz
• 16GB 1600MHz memory
• 256GB PCIe-based flash storage¹
• Intel Iris Pro Graphics
• —
• Built-in battery (9 hours)²
• Force Touch trackpad

 

My thoughts:

Strange that Apple has chosen AMD dedicated compared to Nvidia considering the power and heat efficiency mobile maxwell seems to hold. Then again I can't find any specs on the M370X appart from the fact it's based on the Litho XT GPU or Strato Pro/XT GPU, possibly AMDs new architecture? (Unlikely). The only reason I can think of is due to the compute advantage AMD holds that may be helpful for video production.

Also the lack of CPU upgrade is surprising as I didn't expect Apple to update the line before the launch of Broadwell mobile quad cores.

 

GPU Performance update 1:

 

Anandtech has just posted an article stating that the M370X is based off Cape Verde silicon. So GCN 1.0 7770 circa 2012, however the M370X will be clocked lower.

http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9276/M370X%20GPUZ.png

 

Comparing benchmarks for the 7770 and 960m

 

GFX bench T-Rex offscreen 1080p

960m 311.4fps

7770 266.6fps 

960m 16.8% faster

 

GFX bench Manhattan 3.1 offscreen 1080p

960m 122.2fps

7770 78.9fps

960m 54.87% faster

 

So this isn't particularly looking good for the AMD card, also mobile maxwell is much lower power and ~3 years newer than the GCN 1.0 architecture from 2012.

 

Compute comparison:

 

From GFX bench the gap between the two cards is not as dramatic as the graphics, however the 960m is still a faster card:

 

Computer Vision - Face detection

960m 49.744 mPixels/s 

7770 36.346 mPixels/s 

960m 36.86% faster

 

Video processing - Video composition

960m 53.898 Frames/s

7770 52.045 Frames/s 

960m 3.56% faster

 

From this it doesn't look like the switch to AMD was for the compute performance wither, I can only assume the switch was due to cost or for reasons to do with driver and architecture parity across the range of products.

 

I've done some digging trying to find a comparison between the M370X and the 960m(The Nvidia card I assumed they'd use)

 

From GFX bench T-Rex offscreen 1080p

960m 311.4fps

Strato XT (Highest performance possibility for M370X) 342.3fps

 

So it looks like best case the AMD may be slightly faster, however we do not know if this comes at the cost of heat and power. Also this is just one benchmark so may not be representative of overall performance.

 

5K iMac price drop

Apple has introduced a new low end tier for $1,999 without a fusion drive and the high end 3.5ghz model has dropped to to $2,299.

 

Sources: http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150519005744/en/Apple-Introduces-15-inch-MacBook-Pro-Force-Touch#.VVstIJNVhHx

http://www.nextpowerup.com/news/16592/amd-radeon-mobility-r9-m300-series-get-benchmarked/

https://gfxbench.com/device.jsp?benchmark=gfx31&os=Windows&api=gl&cpu-arch=x86&hwtype=GPU&hwname=NVIDIA%20GeForce%20GTX%20960M&did=25314219&D=NVIDIA%20GeForce%20GTX%20960M

http://anandtech.com/show/9276/2015-15inch-retina-macbook-pros-dgpu-r9-m370x-is-cape-verde

 

Page 5 isn't working for some reason.

[Guest Generallee]

Apple haters incoming, brace for impact

 

inb4 apple sucks

inb4 macbooks overpriced

inb4 im broke as fuck and cant buy an ipod 

inb4 look at me im being interesting

[CtW]

Why would they do this? Don't all mobile AMD GPUs kinda suck and use a crap load of power?

[ZetZet]

Apple haters incoming, brace for impact

 

inb4 apple sucks

inb4 macbooks overprices

inb4 im broke as fuck and cant buy an ipod so i have to hate on apple

inb4 look at me im being interesting

mbp is the only product from apple that actually makes sense.

[MrSuperb]

there is no mobile broawell quad core yet

[C0LL0SS0S]

still the best looking with the razer blade, don't get it why other OEMs not replicate that design, it is so beautiful

[Guest Generallee]

still the best looking with the razer blade, don't get it why other OEMs not replicate that design, it is so beautiful

 

 

They do. 

[Guest Kloaked]

Why would they do this? Don't all mobile AMD GPUs kinda suck and use a crap load of power?

I was thinking the same thing, but Apple does know a thing or two about heat dissipation if that were the case.

[C0LL0SS0S]

 

 

They do. 

Oh, should be the standard by now ^^

[ImBleu]

Apple has always used Nvidia discrete graphics on their computers (except for the Firepros in the Mac Pros), seems weird to jump to AMD.

[randomhkkid]

Apple has always used Nvidia discrete graphics on their computers (except for the Firepros in the Mac Pros), seems weird to jump to AMD.

Recent iMacs have all been AMD

[tsk]

AMD struck a deal with Apple, that's why it's an AMD GPU. Nice to see something other than nvidia on laptops, although I don't know how they compare to maxwell mobile.

[Sheldon_King]

Apple has always used Nvidia discrete graphics on their computers (except for the Firepros in the Mac Pros), seems weird to jump to AMD.

That is not true. Back with SandyBridge they used the 6770m in the macbook pros.  http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Apple-MacBook-Pro-15-Late-2011-2-4-GHz-6770M-glare.66918.0.html

[captain cactus]

What the hell is an R9 370M? How does it compare to Maxwell?

 

Also: why AMD? As a MBP user I have a lot of things that are CUDA accelerated. AMD doesn't have such a feature, so why AMD? I kinda wished they put in a GT950M or even a 960M in there, with more VRAM.

 

Oh well. This isn't for me anyway. My MBP is less than half a year old. Glad I bought it with the nVidia GPU.

[ZetZet]

What the hell is an R9 370M? How does it compare to Maxwell?

 

Also: why AMD? As a MBP user I have a lot of things that are CUDA accelerated. AMD doesn't have such a feature, so why AMD? I kinda wished they put in a GT950M or even a 960M in there, with more VRAM.

 

Oh well. This isn't for me anyway. My MBP is less than half a year old. Glad I bought it with the nVidia GPU.

because amd offered apple a better deal?

[qwertywarrior]

i can think of a couple of reasons why Apple uses AMD GPUs

remember the nightmare that was the G80 (something with the solder that ended up lifting the chip off the board) since then they never bothered with a Nvidia GPU

and AMD is the only one that has great OpenCL performance and 2.0 support (nvidia only catched up since maxwell)

[randomhkkid]

AMD struck a deal with Apple, that's why it's an AMD GPU. Nice to see something other than nvidia on laptops, although I don't know how they compare to maxwell mobile.

 

 

What the hell is an R9 370M? How does it compare to Maxwell?

 

Also: why AMD? As a MBP user I have a lot of things that are CUDA accelerated. AMD doesn't have such a feature, so why AMD? I kinda wished they put in a GT950M or even a 960M in there, with more VRAM.

 

Oh well. This isn't for me anyway. My MBP is less than half a year old. Glad I bought it with the nVidia GPU.

 

Added some performance metrics to the first post.

[Sauron]

mbp is the only product from apple that actually makes sense.

 

Nah, not really ^^ you can get a faster thinkpad (for example) at a significantly lower price. With a quadro in it, too, if you need one.

[captain cactus]

because amd offered apple a better deal?

Good deal or not, not having CUDA is a big minus in pro-land. Cinema 4D uses it, Adobe CS uses it, 3DS uses it, etc. That's a lot of software now stuck with standard rendering which isn't very speedy.

[randomhkkid]

What the hell is an R9 370M? How does it compare to Maxwell?

 

Also: why AMD? As a MBP user I have a lot of things that are CUDA accelerated. AMD doesn't have such a feature, so why AMD? I kinda wished they put in a GT950M or even a 960M in there, with more VRAM.

 

Oh well. This isn't for me anyway. My MBP is less than half a year old. Glad I bought it with the nVidia GPU.

Possibly because now all Apple's professional class products contain AMD GPU's meaning that they can optimise all professional applications for the same architecture moving forward.

 

Though kinda narrow minded if this is the case, basically a big FU to the older products containing Nvidia GPUs

[ZetZet]

Nah, not really ^^ you can get a faster thinkpad (for example) at a significantly lower price. With a quadro in it, too, if you need one.

thinkpad's are plastic and their batteries don't last and the screens are not nearly as good. Mbp is good as all around package, it would need touchscreen though.

[CaliJL]

What the hell is an R9 370M? How does it compare to Maxwell?

 

Also: why AMD? As a MBP user I have a lot of things that are CUDA accelerated. AMD doesn't have such a feature, so why AMD? I kinda wished they put in a GT950M or even a 960M in there, with more VRAM.

 

Oh well. This isn't for me anyway. My MBP is less than half a year old. Glad I bought it with the nVidia GPU.

Same, but I am kind of curious to see how that 'r9 370m' performs.

[randomhkkid]

Same, but I am kind of curious to see how that 'r9 370m' performs.

I wouldn't expect anything earth shattering, it's not shouted about on the Apple website so I would only expect and incremental boost in performance.

[itsmefurqan]

Actually they didn't drop the price. They just added a lower spec model.

[captain cactus]

I wouldn't expect anything earth shattering, it's not shouted about on the Apple website so I would only expect and incremental boost in performance.

Apple says it's "up to 70% faster" in games. Still have to wait on official benchmarks. Again, that's why I am confused. Suddenly out of nowhere AMD has an R9-3xx card on mobile which supposedly has a new architecture. I expected some press release or something.