The next-gen MacBook Pro with Retina Display Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 23, 2012 4:14 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
- Apple
- MacBook Pro
- Laptops
- Notebooks
GPU Performance
We’ve already established that NVIDIA’s Kepler architecture is fast, but the GeForce GT 650M used in the rMBP is hardly the best NVIDIA has to offer. The result however is a significant improvement in performance over the Radeon HD 6750M used in the previous generation model.
| 15-inch MacBook Pro Model | Mid 2010 | Upgraded Early 2011 | Upgraded Late 2011 | Retina |
| GPU | GeForce GT 330M | Radeon HD 6750M | Radeon HD 6770M | GeForce GT 650M |
| Cores | 48 | 480 | 480 | 384 |
| Core Clock | 500MHz | 600MHz | 675MHz | 900MHz |
| Memory Bus | 128-bit GDDR3 | 128-bit GDDR5 | 128-bit GDDR5 | 128-bit GDDR5 |
| Memory Data Rate | 1580MHz | 3200MHz | 3200MHz | 5016MHz |
| Memory Size | 512MB | 1GB | 1GB | 1GB |
The GT 650M offers fewer “cores” compared to the 6750M and 6770M used in previous MacBook Pros, but likely better utilization of the available hardware. NVIDIA also clocks the cores much higher in the 650M, the result is a ~20% increase in theoretical raw compute power.
The memory bandwidth story is also better on Kepler. While both the GT 650M and the 67xxM feature a 128-bit GDDR5 interface, Apple clocked AMD’s memory interface at 800MHz compared to 1254MHz on Kepler. The resulting difference is 80.3GB/s of memory bandwidth vs. 51.2GB/s.
The real world impact is most noticeable at higher resolutions, thanks to the tremendous amount of memory bandwidth now available. The other benefit from the new GPU is obviously things run a lot cooler, which as I’ve already shown to considerably reduce thermal throttling under load.
At 1440 x 900 we actually see a regression compared to the 2011 models, but differences in the AMD and NVIDIA GPU drivers alone can account for the difference at this hardly GPU bound setting. Look at what happens once we crank up the resolution:
At 1680 x 1050 with 4X AA enabled we see a modest 11% increase in performance over last year's MacBook Pro. As I established earlier however, the rMBP will be able to more consistently deliver this performance over an extended period of time.
What's even more impressive is the 42.4 fps the GT 650M is able to deliver at the rMBP's native 2880 x 1800 resolution. Even though I ran the test with AA enabled I'm pretty sure AA was automatically disabled. At 2880 x 1800 the rMBP is able to outperform the two year old MacBook Pro running at 1680 x 1050. How's that for progress?
While the gains we've shown thus far have been modest at best, Starcraft 2 is a completely different story. Here for whatever reason the IVB + Kepler combination can be up to 2x the speed of last year’s models. I reran the tests both on the older and rMBP hardware to confirm, but the results were repeatable. The best explanation I have is Starcraft 2 is very stressful on both the CPU and GPU, so we could be seeing some thermal throttling on the older SNB + Turks hardware here.
Once again we see playable, although not entirely smooth frame rates at 2880 x 1800. I've also included a screenshot of SC2 at 2880 x 1800 below:
Starcraft 2 at 2880 x 1800, it's playable
Although gaming options continue to be limited under OS X, Diablo 3 is available and finally performs well on the platform thanks to the latest patches. Diablo 3 performance is appreciably better on the GT 650M compared to last year’s 6750M. There’s no FRAPS equivalent under OS X (free advertising to the first eager dev to correct that) so I have to rely on general discussion of performance here. The GT 650M is fast enough to drive the rMBP’s 2880 x 1800 panel at native resolution at playable frame rates, around 18 fps on average. Connected to an external 2560 x 1440 display however the GT 650M is fast enough to deliver around 30 fps in Diablo 3. For what it’s worth, performance under Diablo 3 is far more consistent with the rMBP than with last year’s MacBook Pro. I suspect once again we’re seeing the effects of thermal throttling under heavy CPU/GPU load that has been well mitigated by the move to more power efficient silicon.
Diablo 3 at 2880 x 1800
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EnzoFX - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
Tell MS to buy them then. Can you really not see how Apple forcing this, makes others want to compete?UberApfel - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
You must be new to economics.ciparis - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
Because there were so many 2800-class displays on notebooks before Apple introduced them. Or desktop for that matter.Innovating while securing your own future production capacities, even if it means others will have a hard time copying you, is a perfectly reasonable business decision.
Taft12 - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
Perhaps they really did buy 'em all, but anticompetitive would be preventing any more factories capable of producing high-resolution displays from coming into existence. Now *THAT* would be impressive!OCedHrt - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
Already exists on PC. And in 2012 Apple introduces DPI scaling? Windows had this in XP if not earlier.Akdor 1154 - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
yes, and it STILL isn't up to par, even with Windows 7. You can see on the shots in the review how well it performs - titlebars are too small, icons are nastily pixellated (as it can only go up to 1.5x, not a round 2x), and third party support is patchy at best. (As an aside, I would be very interested in an article on the differences on high-res drawing APIs between Windows and Mac OS. )Microsoft got there first with a half-done approach, Apple polished it.
N.B. I'm a happy Windows user, but this particular piece of tech is making me quite jealous..
internetf1fan - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
" (as it can only go up to 1.5x, not a round 2x)"Anand is wrong. They looked at only the preset options given by Windows which are 100%, 125% and 150%. Had they bothered to look at the other options, they would have noticed that you can easily set the custom DPI at 200% to get a x2 behavior you want. This review is seriously shoddy.
fmcjw - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
Yes, never seen Anand totally gushing like this. It's as if he can justify all the non-upgradeable design quirks and incompatibility with existing applications, simply by gazing at the hi-res display. I don't think many can distinguish pixels on a 13" FullHD, or even an 11" 1366x768 at normal viewing distances.In his bias and self-deception he glossed over flaws and uses the resolution as the way out of every flaw. Isn't the old matte display better than the new fancy "low-gloss" glossy display? Anand failed to look into the battery type integrated, whether it's one of the 1000-cycle packs. More unforgivably, he glossed over the low color gamut aspect, omitting a common sRGB comparison table.
Until I see a demo unit, I'll stick to the view that this is just a gimmick to lock in users by favoring proprietary, Retina-optimized applications, while 95% of applications are better off in FullHD/1920x1200 on a laptop.
This review is proof that even one of the most professional reviewers can be blinded by his own self-deception and pretty looks.
themossie - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
What proprietary, Retina-optimized applications? You're already running Mac OS X, it's not gonna get any more proprietary :-)The maximum selectable resolution on the MBP Retina Display -is- 1920x1200. When you select 1920x1200, it renders at 3840x2400 and downscales the image to 2880x1800.
Can easily distinguish pixels on an 11" 768p machine - I use one on a daily basis. 13" 1080p from normal viewing distance is much harder to distinguish.
damianrobertjones - Sunday, June 24, 2012 - link
"New super resolutions are coming to notebook/ laptop computers. Thanks to Apple and their forward looking business sense. Wonder when it comes to PCs..... with Windows 8?"Pointless on smaller screens.