Makes me think the only reason for the switch was that AMD offered the chips for peanuts.

Newer parts from Nvidia or AMD would do so much more with the same TDP. There's only so much you can do with GCN 1.0 in such a thermal constrained chassis, the choice of GPU is really bizarre. Well under 20% gain across the board, that's what I'd call barely noticeable. 'The R9 370X is about 5.5 percent faster than the 750M in the Cinebench GPU test, 14 percent faster in the GFXBench T-Rex test, and 11 percent faster in the GFXBench Manhattan test.' This time, with their 'up to 80% gain' though. Usually Apples 'Up to' performance claims are exactly that, a maximum, but they're still rather respectable. There is no option to skip Intel's highest end version of the integrated GPU with Broadwell.Įver heard of switching to the integrated GPU when the discrete chip is not needed, to save on power consumption? Intel only released a version of quad core Broadwell that includes an overpriced version of their integrated GPU, which is entirely pointless once you decide to include a discrete GPU.

The entry level Retina Pro is not the only version that exists. Those Broadwell chips are, in other words, made precisely for a laptop like this one.ĮDIT: Here's AnandTech's piece on the mobile quad-core Broadwell launch if you missed it, they did separate laptop/desktop articles. They all even use the same FCBGA1364 socket - like Haswell-U and Broadwell U, Intel made them to be drop-in upgrades for current designs. The laptop chips Intel just released are 47W quad-core Broadwell CPUs with Iris Pro 6200. Same for the $1299 iMac.Ģ) These use 47W quad-core Haswell CPUs with Iris Pro 5200. Every Broadwell version includes Crystal Well, which is pointless when you already include a real discrete GPU.ġ) The entry-level MacBook Pro does not include a dedicated GPU. Intel decided against releasing a version of quad core Broadwell targeted at this laptop. That crowd, by virtue of my comments earlier up the page, is those interested in integrated graphics and Crystal Well. So you have to release something interesting that will get interest or target a non-regular crowd. In a stop-gap, you do not release a whole stack, because you end up annoying those who invest and then realise the next thing is just about to be released.

New macbook pro keyboard lou