Apple Debuts New 15-Inch MacBook Pro and $1,999 27-Inch Retina iMac | Hacker News Reader

Apple Debuts New 15-Inch MacBook Pro and $1,999 27-Inch Retina iMac

techcrunch.com

59 pointskjhughes54 comments

Kind of disappointment, they are still replacing NVidia chips by AMD. M370X, M290, M290X, M295X...

AMD R9 series are known for overheating. M295X (The high end option for iMac) goes up to 105C under recent games and starts throttling. (The clock reduces to avoid melting introducing shutters and frame drops.)

Why the hell does Apple keep going with the SHITTIEST mobile GPU maker on the planet? I just cannot understand. But then again, I am only supposed to consume, not question, I guess...

And I say this as a 2011 MBP user (yes, it has AMD graphics ... with pathetically awful OPENCL support from AMD or Apple).

Apple, please just use nVidia (or heck, even Intel) and let AMD die the quiet and inglorious death it deserves.

Probably has to do with GPU licensing. Nvidia wants all GPU makers to pay up, and Apple is a customer of Imagination. Apple probably wants to punish Nv. Yet another example of apple putting its wallet before user experience.

I've been waiting to upgrade my Mid 2012 15" MPB Retina for a while. I bought the high end model at the time, and the difference between mine and the new version is basically:

* 2.7Ghz -> 2.8Ghz

* Nvidia GT 650M -> AMD R9 M370X

* PICe SSD 2x -> 4x

* Battery 95Wh -> 99.5Wh

* force touch trackpad

I'm not sure it's worth the price.

Not really trying to defend the specs here(AMD, yuck) but the CPU should be much faster than the one you have. It's not a straight 100MHz difference with all the processor changes between 2012 and 2015.

Thing is, there has been little "processor change". The new model still uses Haswell, which I think is barely 1-gen over the 2012 model.

Ah, I thought Ivy Bridge was newer than 2012 but I guess it's been kicking around for quite awhile now.

Thanks for posting this. This is not an upgrade, this is the same old crap from two years ago with a little more polish

Ivy Bridge to Haswell is a nice bump even at the same clock rate, but I'm in the same boat of having a three-year-old retina MBP and being thoroughly underwhelmed with the upgrades available.

Clock speed by itself is no longer a relevant measuring stick for modern CPUs and this will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.

I have a mid-2012 15" non-Retina MBP and I don't think I'm going to upgrade yet either, still waiting for the new processors to be released in the 15". Added an SSD and put a hybrid drive in my Superdrive to hold me off. My patience is starting to run thin though. :/

Same here, very disappointed. I expected a major revamp with Broadwell at least, and we got barely a 2014 model: no Broadwell, no USB-C, no 32gb of memory. Basically they just swapped the graphic card and the trackpad, and raised the price for good measure.

I guess it's not their fault if Intel keeps slipping deadlines, but I'm starting to think Apple want to make sure all their 2012 customers buy a new one before introducing a significantly better model, forcing people to buy twice.

upgrade my Mid-2014 15" Retina diff * Nvidia GT 750M -> AMD R9 M370X * PICe SSD 2x -> 4x * Battery 95Wh -> 99.5Wh * force touch trackpad

No major upgrade

same here. I was going to order one last week to get the 1TB ssd via pcie 4 lanes (I have the 16/512 and that's hurting me at times, both ram and ssd), and to generally refresh battery and other things that get older; I was also worried apple may be going ipad on us (like they did on the 12 inch model), and get rid of the few ports left, all of which I'm using. (tb1 for Gb ethernet -- latency is an order of magnitude lower than wifi) tb2 for an imac27 in TargetDisplayMode, usb for a hub for target dev devices, the hdmi for a second 24inch monitor and the other usb for a backup drive.

I'm sure that if I could somehow do all of this over usb3 it would be tremendously slower, and there would be serious video issues. I used to use a usb2 video card (diamond bvu195), before apple added thunderbolt and hdmi, that was a major upgrade in productivity, so I'm happy to see they have not dropped ports and have simply added the new touchpad; I might very well refresh even though raw performance and capabilities are pretty similar, as a --vote with dollars-- gesture, depending on what dollars are available.

cheers,

Is this switch from Nvidia to AMD new in this generation? I'm so glad I got in on an nvidia based rmbp in 2013. I've had nothing but trouble with amd graphics across 3-4 older laptops running windows and linux. Never again.

iMacs have been shipping with ATI/AMD cards since 2009:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_(Intel-based)#Unibody_iMac

They did ship just prior to the Retina models with Nvidia graphics which many found to be more stable and better performing; the one on my desk has a 4g 780m chipset having moved off the 6870ATI set I had earlier.

I guess its one of those back and forth battles between the two little guys and Intel. Intel never has offered an integrated system with any gaming performance but it does not seem many care.

Recent amd drivers have been really good on both Linux and Windows - give them a try sometime.

You know, they kept saying the same thing way back when I still gave them second chances. But they never delivered on their promise, over and over. :(

I haven't had problems with AMD drivers on Windows, but on Linux I tried the AMD proprietary driver recently based on hearing good things. The version in Ubuntu 14.04 had noticeable tearing when scrolling, and Team Fortress 2 froze my computer. So I tried using the beta driver from AMD, and it broke things seemingly beyond repair (I spent hours going through suggestions on Stack Overflow). So to those who are considering trying it out, try it with caution!

Yep, it is. I had a 2012 and now a mid 2014 rMBP and they are both Nvidia chips.

I wish there was an option for matte screen iMac...

This is a valid point -- Matte used to be standard for design work and is still useful today. Gloss is nice but reflectivity and color accuracy can be problematic.

Frustrating that Apple is basically down to 2 SKUs. When I picked up my MBP in late 2013, I could change the memory, ssd, and gpu. Now, if you want the updated GPU, you _must_ get the 512GB SSD (something I don't need). There's really only a $2K and $2.5K price point now.

The cost of the hardware options doesn't reflect the marginal cost of the hardware at all. It's just a price discrimination mechanism, which is why there is so much bundling.

looking at anandtechs side by side comparison with the 2014 model, this isn't much a of a change.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9268/apple-announces-2015-15-r...

Recap:

* discrete NVidia 750M replaced by AMD R9 M370X

* PCIe SSD 2x -> 4x

* battery 95Wh -> 99.5 Wh

* added force touch trackpad.

The performance of those new SSDs is legit, though. Those drives even wallop the “trashcan” Mac Pros. http://barefeats.com/hard199.html

But that said, with Skylake all but certain this fall, most folks would be well-advised to hold out.

Interesting that these were announced before WWDC. Apple clearly don't need any filler.

I need a new magic track pad, was hoping they will release a new one with force touch soon. Anybody have information about that? Possibly a new keyboard as well with the wider spacing like the new macbook?

Finally!

"[Thunderbolt] Support for up to 5120 by 2160 resolution at 60Hz on a single external display (model with AMD Radeon R9 M370X only)"

Maybe, just maybe, that means Thunderbolt 5K Displays are coming.

Maybe.

Wait, what? But there is no model with AMD Radeon R9 M370X?

Still no Broadwell

Not much of a downside, as Broadwell is only a very marginal improvement over Haswell.

Still no adequate amount of RAM.

Really? 16GB combined with the PCIe swap really does seem like it would meet the definition of "adequate" for 95% of users.

It seems that you can upgrade to 32GB as well (update: replies are correct, I seem to have imagined this, both models are still limited to 16GB).

My fear is that this means Apple believes Skylake is delayed, since they'll presumably want to do another release early during that cycle.

I do not see a 32GB option on their site.

It seems that you can upgrade to 32GB as well.

For the iMac, yes, but apparently not for the Macbook Pros. See:

http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MJLT2L...

Maybe wishful thinking, but I don't think this is bad news for Skylake. It's just a token refresh, but it also gets Force Touch into the 15" Pro ahead of a WWDC where FT APIs for 10.11 and iOS 9 will presumably be topics of discussion. It might actually mean Skylake is right on time: people would also be ticked off if they bought what looked like a bigger update (i.e. to Broadwell) and then a redesigned Skylake model appeared just months later.

Mind if I ask what are you doing with your RAM?

I am right now running half a dozen VMs (I'm doing some tests of network management software) and I can see a healthy margin of free memory before the machine will start to swap. I'm under Linux, but I have used similar workloads under Yosemite on a similarly configured Mac. If this laptop could go to 16 gigs (it was an emergency purchase after its 16 gig predecessor was stolen) I wouldn't even bother to check its memory.

What the user does with the ram does not really matter. 16 GB is baseline nowadays and the price difference between 16 and 32 GB is minimal. So it's perfectly valid for power user to want at least 32 GB RAM (personally I would happily pay for 64 GB). My original comment concerned Macbook Pro with its stupid 16 GB RAM limit (remember, it's the ultimate top-of-the-line portable power workstation from Apple).

Where is my 27" retina display, damn it.

The only thing this new MacBook Pro has over the Chromebook Pixel (LS) is OSX (iffy as a positive with the availability of Chrubuntu), a better graphics chip, and more hard drive space.

Not sure that's worth $700...

As always, it depends on what you want to use it for. I say this even as a borderline Apple "hater" but if you want to use the notebook for running Office or the Adobe suite or any number of OSX- (or even Windows-) only software, running the Chromebook OS or Chrubuntu won't get you what you need, regardless of savings.

Not saying I'd personally shell out for a MBP (because there's nothing I need that is OSX-only) but most of my applications need at least OSX or Windows to run.

Well, it will if you run a VM :)

I still don't see the $700 difference.

http://thenextweb.com/google/2015/05/17/i-switched-from-a-ma... doesn't inspire confidence in ChromeOS...

Sounds a lot like the good ol' "the apps aren't there problem."

The writer there loves it, but recognizes that if you're using the Office suite or need Photoshop it's obviously not going to work for you yet.

Basically in one week the author realized that his existing workflow wouldn't transition exactly over to a different operating system, surprising nobody.

Which is why I qualified with Chrubuntu.

At least with https://www.reddit.com/r/chrubuntu/ as a reference point, it looks like the $700 is in not having to deal with system configuration and debugging before you can use it.

Also, a quad core processor with far larger cache (it's the version with the 128MB eDRAM), far faster graphics, higher resolution screen, and four times the storage.

The 13" rMBP would be a generally better comparison, albeit still with substantially faster graphics, but it's the same price as the high-end Pixel, so I suppose less of an interesting talking point.

> a quad core processor with far larger cache (it's the version with the 128MB eDRAM)

The 128MB of eDRAM is for the Iris Pro integrated graphics.

> far faster graphics

I was not disputing this.

> higher resolution screen

Well, more raw pixels. Lower DPI.

> four times the storage.

Again, not disputing this.

Still don't see the $700 of value.

> The 128MB of eDRAM is for the Iris Pro integrated graphics.

Common misconception. The CPU uses it as well, as an L4 cache.

> Well, more raw pixels. Lower DPI.

Yes, that's what "higher resolution" means...

> Still don't see the $700 of value.

In that case, you'd probably be better off with the 13" MBP, which is the same price as the high-end Pixel and closer to it spec-wise.

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