Has anybody worked with the new 13" (2015) Macbook Pro?

maxiwille

Hi All ! im also considering to buy the new MAcBOOK Pro Retina 13". Could you explain a little more of the dedicated GPu? What is that exactly ? is there a way to work it out?

Thanks a lot

Maxi

Skulpture

In a very simple explanation:

Motherboards have their own graphics output with a little bit of dedicated memory to power monitors and displays. These are generally ok for day to day use and a light gaming/videos, etc. This is called CPU because the graphics are being done on the motherboard.

But as gaming and other professional video fields have developed now we can buy separate graphics cards and slot them into the motherboard. These have their own memory. Usually 2gig of ram or more. This is called GPU because its being done on the graphics card.

Isadora used to run *mostly* on CPU but now the latest actors run on GPU because generally people have dedicated GPU cards now. As technology has advanced these cards have become staggeringly quick and very powerful.

Isadora can use both. For instance the "Classic Movie Player" actor says VID-CPU on the output telling us that its playing VIDEO-CPU but the newer "Movie Player" actor shows us VID-GPU.

I hope this helps. Others with much better hardware knowledge can expand on my explanation but this is the description is a very simple form.

Skulpture

I would also read over this page:

http://troikatronix.com/support/kb/optimizing-for-speed/

:)

Unfenswinger

The early 2015 MBP 13" has a Broadwell dual core CPU with an Intel Iris 6100 GPU built into it. There is no option to have a discrete GPU like the 15".

The Iris 6100 is quite a reasonable performer for an integrated GPU but no match for the nVidia 750M in the current (old) 15" MBP. I'd expect the next revision of the MBP 15" to have the 980M (if Apple stays with nVidia) which is a seriously good mobile GPU.

You'd have to get the 13" get the fully loaded version to make it worthwhile with the i7 CPU upgrade, as much RAM as you can afford and as much Flash storage. The base and mid CPU models don't strike me as being up to the job.

Personally, my advice would be to go for a retina 15" with an i7 quad core CPU with the 750M GPU. Better still wait for the update which might just get announced at WWDC. I'm waiting for the update before buying a new laptop because the GPU and speed improvements (x2) to the Flash storage will make it a much more capable AV playback computer. It should thoroughly thrash my 2010 Mac Pro.

HTH.

Edit: Rumour sites say new MBP 15" arriving in the Stores on Wed.

Edit2: Always risky to second guess Apple. No Broadwell CPU but a Radeon M370x GPU 16GB RAM standard and flash storage 2+x faster and force touch track pad.

crystalhorizon

Curious about the new 15' MBP. For sure Firewire is a thing of the past :-(

Unfenswinger

The creative community watch with bated breath to see how many useful ports Apple now see as obsolete!

tadakan

There hasn't been a real firewire port on a MBP in several years now. I don't see any reason to think that the thunderbolt to FW 800 adapters would stop working though... I'm currently using a m-audio profire 2626 (rather old audio interface) on my 15" mbp and it works just fine with the adapter. Apple will just make us buy more and more adapters as they continue to change ports.

Skulpture

To be honest firewire was awkward and tricky to work with. The FW800 cable never stayed in and if it did come loose it cold fry the circuit boards in hard drives and capture cards, etc. I had many a FW410 (m-audio) fry on me at my last job.

Thunderbolt seems to be a bit better but the cables still wiggle and for me - doesn't seem snug enough.

Unfenswinger

I'm glad Apple didn't decide to combine several connectors into the one C type for aesthetic reasons and it's still possible to interface with the real world.

I bought the new rMBP and will be happy to benchmark it for people once it arrives next week, if there's any Izzy scenes you want run then post them up.

The GPU seems to be a reasonable performer without being earth shattering but the real attraction is the flash storage, Read: 1814 megs/sec Write: 1507 megs/sec which is pretty gobsmacking.

Skulpture

Sounds great @Unfenswinger please do keep us updated :)