Graphics for 15" rMBP Haswell

[Ice_Dragon]

Any leaks? I heard AMD's Sea Islands possibly.

 

[ViRGE]

Nothing substantial, so anything is on the table. However Sea Islands is probably one of the less likely options, since Apple is all NV right now and the 2013 GPUs aren't substantially different from the 2012 GPUs.

 

[Syrome]

I doubt we will see any AMD hardware in the 2013 Haswell version. To be honest, any GPU upgrade will be with Nvidia for the next several years in my opinion.

 

[dagamer34]

You're not going to be seeing any 20nm GPUs by the time there is an update so any serious bump in performance won't be until next year.

 

[joshhedge]

Probably a GT 750M or GTX 760M, depends what clocks they decided to go with. I find it intriguing that they went with the 650m in the rPro, but clocked it higher than the 660m, probably cheaper to buy the chips.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

The important thing about the Haswell update is that the integrated graphics should be able to run the retina screen without much hiccups.

 

[bearxor]

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if they pulled a dGPU out of the rMBP and saved that as a specific MBP feature.

 

[Ice_Dragon]

Well I was reading SemiAccurate so that's why I asked though the hell with paying $1,000 for a year subscription. I was thinking the info got out elsewhere.

 

[TheStu]

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if they pulled a dGPU out of the rMBP and saved that as a specific MBP feature.

Why would they want to put the MBP on any higher footing than the rMBP. I would imagine that they only still sell the MBP so that they have a break in price points, and due to the larger margins of selling the same chassis and display panel for the last 4 years.

 

[Tyranicus]

Why would they want to put the MBP on any higher footing than the rMBP. I would imagine that they only still sell the MBP so that they have a break in price points, and due to the larger margins of selling the same chassis and display panel for the last 4 years.

This. The retina is their flagship laptop. There is no way they would give the regular MBP a better GPU.

 

[Rakehellion]

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if they pulled a dGPU out of the rMBP and saved that as a specific MBP feature.

The retina is a MacBook pro, and a higher end model than the non-retina.

 

[Rakehellion]

Any leaks? I heard AMD's Sea Islands possibly.

GT 740M, probably. Nothing exciting to see here, folks.

 

[Ice_Dragon]

GT 740M, probably. Nothing exciting to see here, folks.

You're probably right. SemiAccurate was (as someone on another board said) probably just fishing for subscribers.

 

[vbuggy]

You're probably right. SemiAccurate was (as someone on another board said) probably just fishing for subscribers.

You don't say.

I mean let's face it, the upgrades across model-to-model go like this:

- fanciful rumours start
- everyone starts treating these rumours as gospel
- buzz mounts, every effin' tech rag is repeating these rumours
- Apple releases completely predictable upgrade
- Shimpi releases conveniently arranged benchmarks and semi-critical / closet-fanboi review
- everyone internalises the change and proclaims it better than anything else out there while having amnesia about the original rumours
- cycle repeats

 

[bearxor]

Why would they want to put the MBP on any higher footing than the rMBP. I would imagine that they only still sell the MBP so that they have a break in price points, and due to the larger margins of selling the same chassis and display panel for the last 4 years.

This. The retina is their flagship laptop. There is no way they would give the regular MBP a better GPU.

I'm not going to call this a prediction, just a "it wouldn't shock me move."

I would suspect that Apple may be more interested in better battery life and a lighter chassis than they are in GPU power, as long as the integrated GPU is "good enough". Which is getting really close to happening.

And I think we all know that the timer on the MBP started last year. How long until it's eliminated from the lineup entirely?

The retina is a MacBook pro, and a higher end model than the non-retina.

I would disagree that it's a "higher end model". It's more of a sideways step. You lose a couple of things by going with the rMBP. Easily upgradeable RAM and HDD. The built in optical drive. Firewire without using an adapter. Line in. Anti-glare display option.
Not to say you don't gain anything by choosing the rMBP, because you do. But the two models are more separate models right now than they are a "higher and lower" model of the same thing. For now, anyways.

 

[Rakehellion]

I would disagree that it's a "higher end model". It's more of a sideways step. You lose a couple of things by going with the rMBP. Easily upgradeable RAM and HDD. The built in optical drive. Firewire without using an adapter. Line in. Anti-glare display option.
Not to say you don't gain anything by choosing the rMBP, because you do. But the two models are more separate models right now than they are a "higher and lower" model of the same thing. For now, anyways.

"Upgradeable" isn't really a feature for most people. Just buy it with the features you need.
2880x1800 > 1440x900
SSD > hard drive
16GB memory > 8GB
Thunderbolt > Firewire.

Optical drives are slower, older tech than memory cards and are being done away with, just like they did with the floppy drive, parallel port, and fax modem. You can download from the App Store faster than you can install from a DVD.

And obviously in sacrificing some upgradeability, they shaved 20% off the weight and 30% off the thickness, enormous advantages when choosing a portable.

And when you go to the MacBook Pro website, you're greeted with retina goodness, not grainy, bulky garbage.

Retina is the future.

 

[bearxor]

Retina is the future.

So, when I said:

And I think we all know that the timer on the MBP started last year. How long until it's eliminated from the lineup entirely?

That wasn't enough to convey that I think the rMBP is the future?

 

[Rakehellion]

You seem to disagree that it's higher end. That's kind of what I meant by the future.

 

[dagamer34]

So, when I said:

That wasn't enough to convey that I think the rMBP is the future?

Even if the rMBP is the future, it takes a while for Apple to phase out the past. The base $999 MacBook Air still has a hilariously small 64GB SSD. And for the longest time, Apple stuck 2GB of RAM in it's products when you needed at LEAST 4GB to run a system smoothly (they only phased their last 2GB RAM products in 2012).

Classic Macs will stick around 1-2 years past their prime, but I think anyone buying them after the Haswell update is wasting their money.

 

[vbuggy]

And when you go to the MacBook Pro website, you're greeted with retina goodness, not grainy, bulky garbage.

Well, they're artificially keeping it grainy garbage so that people will notice 'the magic of the waste of time that is Retina*' in shops.

*Sorry, but virtual 1440 x 900 just doesn't do it for me and the 'like 1920' mode is laughable - it if wasn't such a productivity-downer - when you line it up against decent FHD competition on the Windows side, despite the extra space. I'm effectively forced to use the panel in native res all the time and it's massively sub-optimal in that respect.

 

[vbuggy]

And when you go to the MacBook Pro website, you're greeted with retina goodness, not grainy, bulky garbage.

Well, they're artificially keeping it grainy garbage so that people will notice 'the magic of the waste of time that is Retina*' in shops.

*Sorry, but virtual 1440 x 900 just doesn't do it for me. I'm effectively forced to use the panel in native res all the time and it's massively sub-optimal in that respect. What would actually work for anyone who isn't solely tweaking pretty pictures on their machine or using it as a glorified Facebook machine is a 1920 panel or a scaled 4K panel (to 1920).

 

[joshhedge]

GT 740M, probably. Nothing exciting to see here, folks.

Why would apple downgrade from the GT 650M?

 

[Rakehellion]

Well, they're artificially keeping it grainy garbage so that people will notice 'the magic of the waste of time that is Retina*' in shops.

*Sorry, but virtual 1440 x 900 just doesn't do it for me and the 'like 1920' mode is laughable - it if wasn't such a productivity-downer - when you line it up against decent FHD competition on the Windows side, despite the extra space. I'm effectively forced to use the panel in native res all the time and it's massively sub-optimal in that respect.

I don't understand what you're saying the problem is. There's a bug in scaled mode?

 

[joshhedge]

I don't understand what you're saying the problem is. There's a bug in scaled mode?

I also have no idea what he is referring to, or the problem he is apparently facing. Using bootcamp windows 7, everything within OS X looks crisper at the respective resolutions.

 

[Tegeril]

I don't understand what you're saying the problem is. There's a bug in scaled mode?

The scaled mode is amazing. You can run at your choice of resolutions and all of them look like you're running it at the panel's native resolution. He's on crack?