Su knows when this will ever appear anywhere else - Radeon Pro 5600M now available for Macbooks

[williamcll]

While the 5600XT has been available as a standalone graphics card and the RX 5600M has appeared on some laptops, this is the first update to the Macbook pro 16 inch line. 

Quote

AMD Navi 12 GPU featured 40 Compute Units with a total of 2560 Stream Processors. AMD Radeon Pro 5600M is the first graphics card to feature this graphics processor. The card will have a maximum theoretical FP32 performance of 5.3 TFLOPs. This means that the clock speed is estimated at around 1035 MHz. The Radeon Pro 5600M has 8GB of HBM2 memory across 2048-bit. This is a dual HBM2 die configuration. The memory bandwidth of 394 GB/s translates into an effective clock speed of 1540 MHz. The card has the same Total Graphics Power (TGP) as Radeon Pro 5500M and Radeon Pro 5300M, which is 50W. This is likely why the graphics card is clocked at relatively low frequency.

Source: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/16-inch

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-launches-radeon-pro-5600m-with-navi-12-gpu-featuring-8gb-hbm2-memory

Thoughts: It's alright, but a 700$ increase in price isn't really appealing. wonder if the Pro 5700M make an appearance later on as well.

[randomhkkid]

HBM2 in a laptop is pretty big news, this is pretty much a 50W limited 5700XT. This is not the same as the 5600M in the Dell 15 SE that has 36CUs and GDDR6.

 

Curious to see how this performs as my 5500M 8GB equipped machine can only sustain ~40W in gaming loads with software and hardware mods applied. 

[732]

2 minutes ago, williamcll said:

 

Thoughts: It's alright, but a 700$ increase in price isn't really appealing.

Well, it's apple.

 

A 5700M would be amazing though

[Orangeator]

Seems like Apple has kneecapped this GPU performance due to its decision of not giving their machines proper cooling. 50W limit for a graphics card is ridiculously low, other laptops reach as high as 115W+, with the average being between 80-90W with decent cooling. Form over function strikes once again. 

[DrMacintosh]

36 minutes ago, Orangeator said:

Seems like Apple has kneecapped this GPU performance due to its decision of not giving their machines proper cooling

Apple got a custom sku gpu to fit inside the MacBook Pro form factor* 

 

ftfy. The 50W power limit is an engineered decision to make the system not die from heat. If you want to carry around a Big Chung laptop, the MacBook Pro is not for you. 

[Taf the Ghost]

51 minutes ago, Orangeator said:

Seems like Apple has kneecapped this GPU performance due to its decision of not giving their machines proper cooling. 50W limit for a graphics card is ridiculously low, other laptops reach as high as 115W+, with the average being between 80-90W with decent cooling. Form over function strikes once again. 

Moving from 8Gb of GDDR6 to 8Gb of HBM2 should quite help. That's most of the power budget change, actually.

[Orangeator]

1 hour ago, DrMacintosh said:

Apple got a custom sku gpu to fit inside the MacBook Pro form factor* 

 

ftfy. The 50W power limit is an engineered decision to make the system not die from heat. If you want to carry around a Big Chung laptop, the MacBook Pro is not for you. 

Fair, but from my perspective, a pc hardware enthusiast, I see it as putting a V8 engine inside a coupe, then limiting each gears max RPM to 2,000. Rather than just putting a 4 banger in the coupe and letting it run at spec. I see it as wasting the potential of what would be other wise powerful hardware. Taking a 2080 TI then intentionally running at 600mhz hurts me inside, knowing that all that has to be done to make it run much closer to its potential is proper cooling.

[Commodus]

31 minutes ago, Orangeator said:

Fair, but from my perspective, a pc hardware enthusiast, I see it as putting a V8 engine inside a coupe, then limiting each gears max RPM to 2,000. Rather than just putting a 4 banger in the coupe and letting it run at spec. I see it as wasting the potential of what would be other wise powerful hardware. Taking a 2080 TI then intentionally running at 600mhz hurts me inside, knowing that all that has to be done to make it run much closer to its potential is proper cooling.

I'd rather look at it this way: you're getting one of the more powerful GPUs you can cram into a laptop with that form factor.  You may not wring out the absolute potential of the chip, but you'll get a baseline level of tech that will help out across the board, like HBM2.  And besides, it's nice to see a laptop like this that prioritizes portability... well, when people actually have a reason to leave home, anyway.

[hishnash]

2 hours ago, 732 said:

Well, it's apple.

To meet the 50W TDP this will be a very tightly binned part. So high prices are to be expected.

 

 

2 hours ago, Orangeator said:

other laptops reach as high as 115W+, with the average being between 80-90W with decent cooling. Form over function strikes once again. 

But those other laptops need to massively down-clock the GPU when not connected to power due to the battery not being able to provide that high a current safely, seems a little spec sheet over function for a laptop no? 

Not when they do this down-clocking even the 5500m out performs the RTX maxQ options. And by making the laptop draw more than 100W when connected to power you also cant use it on the road since both train and plain power sockets will cut out when you go over 100W so again `spec sheet over function`.

[CarlBar]

First take a like for that title OP.

 

38 minutes ago, hishnash said:

But those other laptops need to massively down-clock the GPU when not connected to power due to the battery not being able to provide that high a current safely, seems a little spec sheet over function for a laptop no? 

 

Do you have a source on this being a widespread and common issue? I don't recall hearing anything about it but laptops aren't my thing by a fairly wide margin.

 

ALso more importantly i do know even with a 50w GPU limit your not going to be running it with the GPU pegged for any length of time not plugged in. So i'm not sure how relevant it is.

 

Third. If your going to go with a 50w limit it would make far more sense to just use a GPU with a lower rated limit, (assuming of course binning and HBM2 don't account or the power draw difference which they well might), that can then run at full bore under the power limit. Rather than putting a powerhouse GPU in that then won't reach its potential.

[WereCat]

1 hour ago, Orangeator said:

Fair, but from my perspective, a pc hardware enthusiast, I see it as putting a V8 engine inside a coupe, then limiting each gears max RPM to 2,000. Rather than just putting a 4 banger in the coupe and letting it run at spec. I see it as wasting the potential of what would be other wise powerful hardware. Taking a 2080 TI then intentionally running at 600mhz hurts me inside, knowing that all that has to be done to make it run much closer to its potential is proper cooling.

that's not a good comparison. 

HBM2 uses a lot less power than GDDR6 and also, the power does not scale linearly with performance. 

 

100W to 50W will not be a 50% performance loss, it will be way less than that. 

Combine that with HBM2 and at 50W you get most of the performance of that card while heavily cutting on power. 

[xtroria]

4 hours ago, Orangeator said:

Seems like Apple has kneecapped this GPU performance due to its decision of not giving their machines proper cooling. 50W limit for a graphics card is ridiculously low, other laptops reach as high as 115W+, with the average being between 80-90W with decent cooling. Form over function strikes once again. 

Not sure what you are expecting when the power input of the macbook is 100W max

[hishnash]

57 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

\Do you have a source on this being a widespread and common issue?

https://www.techspot.com/article/1571-gaming-laptop-battery-performance/ is a good example there have been a lot of youtubers also testing this, it seems that regardless of config the battery just cant provide the current needed to maintain performance, the main issue is how much it drops it drops so much that the 50W gpu in the MBP out performs it.

 

1 hour ago, CarlBar said:

GPU pegged for any length of time not plugged in.

Not for along time but you might for a short time the issue is not that the performance drops on the macQ but that it drops so much that it is bellow the these lower power parts. It seems Nvidia are not managing to provide the same level of performance /W at the lower end as AMD. If you just expect to use your laptop when its connected to power (at your desk since you cant use a power cord when traveling...) then maybe Dell etc should sell a dock that includes an eGPU.

 

 

1 hour ago, CarlBar said:

If your going to go with a 50w limit it would make far more sense to just use a GPU with a lower rated limit,

This gpu out performs any other GPU at 50W. The issue is again when the maxQ gpus downclock they end up under performing the 5500M 

 

19 minutes ago, xtroria said:

Not sure what you are expecting when the power input of the macbook is 100W max

Any anything that requires more than this cant call itself a proper portable system since 100W is the power limit on sockets when traveling.

[Doobeedoo]

So HBM2 being used in laptop is great to see, though even at that SKU huh. I really wonder what they'll do with new desktop cards. 

[Drama Lama]

That’s great news because now they don’t use the old r5xx s anymore 

i wonder what performance differences there are just by switching from gddr6 to hbm 2 memory 

 

[schwellmo92]

1 hour ago, Drama Lama said:

That’s great news because now they don’t use the old r5xx s anymore 

i wonder what performance differences there are just by switching from gddr6 to hbm 2 memory 

 

The memory bandwidth is very similar so the only performance difference would be the extra power they can allocate to the core due to HBM using less power than GDDR.

[michaelocarroll007]

On 6/15/2020 at 1:51 PM, DrMacintosh said:

Apple got a custom sku gpu to fit inside the MacBook Pro form factor* 

 

ftfy. The 50W power limit is an engineered decision to make the system not die from heat. If you want to carry around a Big Chung laptop, the MacBook Pro is not for you. 

This would be right but you can get RTX 2080s in Laptops like the GS65/66 or Razer Blade. All similar weight and Thickness or even the G14 at 3.5lbs much smaller and lighter with a RTX 2060. you dont need to carry around a big chunky laptop to get a GPU with Higher Wattage/ speed. 

 

I Think apple decision isn't Terrible its not like many buying this care about the performance gain for more wattage, There buying a Mac Because its a Mac not because its the fastest option. but this decision is not because its too hard to fit more into a 16" laptop chassis  at a 4k ish price tag for an option youd buy they could engineer better.

[DrMacintosh]

16 minutes ago, michaelocarroll007 said:

This would be right but you can get RTX 2080s in Laptops like the GS65/66 or Razer Blade.

Sure, you can do that. But then you hit power limitations since no battery in existence can power an RTX 2080. The end result is the GPUs have to downclock so much that the MacBook Pros end up being significantly faster when actually being used as a laptop. 
 

https://www.techspot.com/article/1571-gaming-laptop-battery-performance/

[Sorenson]

On 6/17/2020 at 10:27 AM, michaelocarroll007 said:

I Think apple decision isn't Terrible its not like many buying this care about the performance gain for more wattage, There buying a Mac Because its a Mac not because its the fastest option. but this decision is not because its too hard to fit more into a 16" laptop chassis  at a 4k ish price tag for an option youd buy they could engineer better.

Mine is coming at the end of the month all because they upgraded the graphics on it. I was really bummed when apple announced the macbook pro 2016 refresh because they made it worse in so many ways. I've been thinking about buying the 2016 macbook pro 5500m with 8gb for a while, but didn't really like the graphics performance that came with a $2500 machine. I've tried out a few windows laptops (SB2, XPS 15, Razerblade 15) but didn't like any of them enough to keep them. My biggest complaint with the XPS 15 and Razerblade 15 was you couldn't use them on your lap and browse the web without it feeling like it was going to burn you. Also, I have a heavy preference for OSX on a laptop, since it hasn't given me nearly as many issues as windows on my desktop over the past 5 years. 

 

Now, am I getting raked over for a decent GPU in the macbook pro? absolutely. But, I'm able to deal with it because it should be cooler and more comfortable to use, is essentially a down-clocked 5700xt die with HBM2, and I can trust the laptop to last me 5-6 years. 

[AndreiArgeanu]

Cool, but how does it actually compare to GPU's like the RTX 2000 series max q or not, or how about the Quadros? I don't think AMD has the punch yet to fight against nvidia, I'm hoping that RDNA2 perhaps finally can compete with nvidia's line up, I'd love to see a reduction on GPU pricing.

[Sorenson]

9 hours ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

Cool, but how does it actually compare to GPU's like the RTX 2000 series max q or not, or how about the Quadros? I don't think AMD has the punch yet to fight against nvidia, I'm hoping that RDNA2 perhaps finally can compete with nvidia's line up, I'd love to see a reduction on GPU pricing.

The 36 compute unit version of the 5600M is a little slower than the 2060. The 40 compute unit Radeon pro 5600M  with HBM2 is about on par. They’re still filling out their product stack. It will take time. But, if you’re video editing or playing games at 1080p 60, it’s all you really need. 

[ZXMustang]

Looks like I can step in here and actually add some real world experience.  I actually own both the 2019 Macbook pro with the 8gb 5500m, as well as the MSI GS75 Stealth with the 2080 MaxQ.  Now both on power adapters, the MSI machine can do a much higher framerate than the macbook obviously.  But on battery ONLY, the MSI machine can't even muster more than 300mhz core speed to the GPU and its unplayable in every game I have at 1080p except maybe Roblox.  Even in Roblox (my kids play this I dont), it stutters so bad and is still basically unplayable.

On the flip side, the mac maintains its framerate on battery or plugged in.  And thats a HUGE WIN for mobile gaming.  Im using bootcamp running W10 BTW on the mac.  So this isnt some Apple software trickery.  I can play all my games at the same settings/FPS on battery as I play them on power with the mac.  Its so refreshing not to need to lug the power adapter around when I just want to game for a hour or so and be done.  The MSI machine cant do that whatsoever.  So its basically hobbled by its power draw.  Sure on power adapter, its a beast.  But its supposed to be mobile.  And honestly it wasn't that much cheaper than the mac.

 

The macbook pro was $2880 with free $160 ear buds. (i9, 1TB, 5500m, 16gb Ram)

The MSI GS75 Stealth (i7, 1TB, 2080MQ, 32gb Ram) was normally $2900 but it was on sale on Newegg the week before Father's day for $2199.  It ended up being $2350 shipped to me.  The mac was about $500 more, but its completely mobile if I want it to be, and thats worth it to me.  Besides I have my gaming desktop I was going to dismantle.  7700k/2080 Super system.  I will just sell the 7700k and supporting parts and put my 2080 Super in a razer core and run circles around the 2080 Max Q...  Yes I know the 2080 Super is $700 and the RC is $300.  But I already had the super so I dont count that...

[Sorenson]

IDK why reviewers are getting so excited about this variant of the MacBook Pro. I got mine in yesterday and am not very pleased. I bought the i7 version with the 5600m and from my experience with it, its hot, the fans keep running loud whenever you do any work on it, and the 5600m severely throttles in bootcamp. I tried running Sekiro on it at High setting at 1920*1200 and it ran awesome for 2 minutes. After that, the laptop throttled itself and I went from 60fps to 23-33. I know there are janky solutions in bootcamp to disable turbo boost with throttlestop and reduce the clock speed of the GPU, but I'm not going to do that on a $3000 laptop. I'm personally just going to stick with my old 15" 2014 MacBook pro that doesn't try to burn me when I have the audacity to watch youtube with it on my lap. 

[Commodus]

14 minutes ago, Sorenson said:

IDK why reviewers are getting so excited about this variant of the MacBook Pro. I got mine in yesterday and am not very pleased. I bought the i7 version with the 5600m and from my experience with it, its hot, the fans keep running loud whenever you do any work on it, and the 5600m severely throttles in bootcamp. I tried running Sekiro on it at High setting at 1920*1200 and it ran awesome for 2 minutes. After that, the laptop throttled itself and I went from 60fps to 23-33. I know there are janky solutions in bootcamp to disable turbo boost with throttlestop and reduce the clock speed of the GPU, but I'm not going to do that on a $3000 laptop. I'm personally just going to stick with my old 15" 2014 MacBook pro that doesn't try to burn me when I have the audacity to watch youtube with it on my lap. 

I'm not sure why you expected Apple to devote extensive amounts of attention to performance in games using Boot Camp.  To be clear, you're justified in not wanting the 16-incher if you expect to play games in Windows, but Apple is unsurprisingly going to focus on performance in macOS.

 

That it's running hot also helps explain why Apple is switching to in-house ARM chips.  It could probably build something with as good (or better) CPU and GPU performance while keeping the whole thing cooler and quieter.

[Sorenson]

6 minutes ago, Commodus said:

I'm not sure why you expected Apple to devote extensive amounts of attention to performance in games using Boot Camp.  To be clear, you're justified in not wanting the 16-incher if you expect to play games in Windows, but Apple is unsurprisingly going to focus on performance in macOS.

 

That it's running hot also helps explain why Apple is switching to in-house ARM chips.  It could probably build something with as good (or better) CPU and GPU performance while keeping the whole thing cooler and quieter.

Sorry I should have been more clear. I was talking about the reviewers who are all talking about how much of a beast it was at playing games in bootcamp. I have a desktop so that was always going to be my main place to play games, but I wanted the extra GPU horsepower for the Mac side and thought playing games while I’m traveling for work would be a nice bonus. The performance was better in Mac OS, but the thing got too hot to comfortably use in productivity workloads one the lap so it’s kind of a no go.