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Macbook Pro - Rumor Custom Chipset


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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I mean, if they went with a chip that wasn't Intel compatible, yeah. Basically any software used on them would have to be recoded completely. Soooo that would be a terrible decision on their part, to break Adobe, Office, and every software package ever including us.

Most likely it will just be an Apple branded version of an existing CPU, it would be incredibly foolish for them to try and force another CPU architecture on the market and I really doubt it will be anything more than a rebrand, personally.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

The PowerPC > Intel I felt was a healthy growing pain of a revision. Them taking a step toward normalcy and compatibility which I very much approved of, even though at the time I was handling AppleCare calls, lol. Apple choosing to step AWAY from the rest of the world's tech (Unless it actually conveyed a huge benefit that I am currently unaware of) I would not like.

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10 hours ago, Kevin McAllister said:

Well they have done it before..... twice in fact - Motorola to Power PC and PowerPC to Intel.

I bet the custom chipset integrates an Intel chip and an Apple A10 or some weird combination like that.....

Kevin

I wonder if "chipset" is the key word here. Use intel processor chip as an application/central processor but custom platform hub instead of intels generic offerings. So say Kaby Lake Cpu with A10 acting as platform hub and system processor. The new little cores always handle platform tasks the scheduling controller decides between large core  or the intel cores running applications.

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  • 1 month later...
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Most reliable leak on the Macbook Pro I've found so far: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/10/macos-10-12-1-spills-the-beans-on-the-new-macbook-pro/

 

It's possible the chipset rumors came from the needed hardware to run the "Magic Toolbar" if that is indeed what they end up calling it. If it was going to be a completely new or custom chipset for the machine overall we would be able to find evidence in the current release of 10.12.1 most likely. Unfortunately no word on the GPU hardware so far other than that it will be "Superior" which, one would hope was true every revision.

However, I am also not seeing an ESC key, which is annoying and troubling... It appears to be integrated into the toolbar contextually. Guess we will find out more on Thursday the 27th.

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You're sort of right about the missing escape key. Why do I get the feeling this is yet another move by Apple to undermine functionality in the effort to unify its product line into a dumbed down platform for users too preoccupied to care?

 

Apple/Mac use since the days of the Apple II+. 

 

Screen Shot 2016-10-26 at 8.53.03 AM.jpgEnd of rant.

 

Edited by RGyori
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
13 minutes ago, rDesign said:

I hope it is only the 13" MBP that loses the ESC hardware key, and not the 15" model as well. Fingers crossed...

 

This is my hope as well, especially since the smaller one is less likely to be the one with an appropriate CPU/GPU combo for using design software.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Still watching, but so far they seem to be hanging their hats on the Touch Bar which is disappointing. The 13" MBP seems to be stuck with an Intel GPU, so that's no good, but the 15" model looks like it might have a decent GPU choice with one of AMD's Polaris line, but that line ranges from lame to fantastic so I'll have to see the specific model they picked before I know what kind of performance can be expected.
 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Well the main problem I'm having at the moment is that according to the entire internet there is no such thing as the Radeon Pro 450 or the Radeon Pro 460.

There is the "Radeon Pro Duo" which is a monster desktop card that sells for $1500 and usually comes with it's own liquid cooling rig, so most likely it isnt THAT one. The only other members of the Radeon Pro line are the WX 7100, WX 5100 and the WX 4100.

Sooooo I am not entirely sure if they just have a card in there that hasn't been announced publicly until now, or if they just renamed it on their own which would be irritating. I'll keep digging to see what's going on. If it's anything like the WX series, then it's basically the FirePro/Quadro card class where you pay a lot extra for features that most software, including Vectorworks, won't use which worries me.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Wow... they really did just make those labels up it looks like. Even Google Trends didn't have these models on their radar until the moment of the announcement today:

Screen Shot 2016-10-27 at 2.54.18 PM.png

 

Apple seems to just love making my life slightly more difficult each day, lol. Now we will be getting lots of requests for Touch Bar support which is fine, but it only exists on a small segment of their hardware line and only the 15" models in that segment have a GPU that's appropriate for Vectorworks. I wish they had released external keyboards with the Touch Bar as well so that the utility could be available to the entire Mac range at a reasonable price and make our decisions on allocating resources for Touch Bar support easier.

Also, even once I find out the specs on these GPUs they've picked, they only offer 2GB and 4GB VRAM options, which quite frankly were great numbers in 2013, but today are sub par. I am kinda disheartened by their focus on weight and thickness (which I have never heard ANYONE complain about) at the expense of everything else. At least they kept the headphone jack.

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Well I suppose you could compare them to the Microsoft Surface Book with Performance Base card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M 2GB GDDR5 memory) or the Microsoft Surface Studio cards (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M 2GB GPU GDDR5 memory or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M 4GB GPU GDDR5). They are in the same range for video ram.

 

I'm disheartened by the fact they can't do a computer event without talking about iOS or Apple TV....

 

KM

Edited by Kevin McAllister
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meh Keynote

 

from the Apple Store:

"Graphics

Your MacBook Pro comes standard with a discrete Radeon Pro 455 graphics processor with 2GB of dedicated GDDR5 video memory. For even better graphics performance and additional memory for more demanding tasks, you can configure your MacBook Pro with the Radeon Pro 460 with 4GB of dedicated GDDR5 video memory.

Radeon Pro is the world’s first notebook graphics processor to be manufactured with a 14 nm process. Thanks to shrinking lithography, Radeon Pro offers vastly greater performance per watt, which translates into increased graphics performance across the board.

Radeon Pro includes two geometry processing engines, which can improve render speeds in pro apps like Maya and Final Cut Pro X. It also features a wider shader core architecture, which delivers greater throughput, significantly improving the smoothness and playability of modern games.

Note: In addition to the discrete Radeon Pro graphics, your MacBook Pro also features integrated Intel HD Graphics 530, a great energy-saving feature for low-intensity graphics workloads."

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

The worst part now is HOW badly the specs and price are beaten by Windows machines. The Razer Blade http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade is extremely similar in size (let's be fair, they flat out stole Apple's design) to the Macbook Pro line, but monsters them in the GPU department with the GTX 1060 with 6GB VRAM included. Even if you spec the screen to retina-equivalent and double the amount of SSD storage it still comes in $200 less than the cheaper 15" model.

Now, there is of course the issue of the OS itself, but that is only going to last so much longer. Users NEED hardware that performs and Apple was already 4-5 years behind when they launched this, and theyre already beaten handily by machines that have been on the market for almost a year. It used to be that when you bought a high end Mac, you had the cream of the crop for easily 10 months and then a still more than adequate machine for the next 2 years minimum. 

 

I understand that the majority of their income is now the iPhone and that the entire Mac line only accounts for 10% of their revenue, but it still seems like they are overly proud of what are now standard to substandard specs in an admittedly beautiful chassis. It doesn't seem like it will be long before the OS experience and the build quality will be the only two reasons left to Think Different and that makes me sad.

Now I've just noticed you are capped at 16GB max for the new MBPs... that's... yikes. It doesn't affect Vectorworks as much as the GPU choice does, but bleh.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Looks like this is being treated as the debut of these new GPUs, unfortunately AMD hasn't opened up about them yet so I can't pull anything but that comparative specs Apple offers which are all "Up To xX faster" which are not useful. As soon as I can get legitimate benchmark numbers for the Radeon Pro 450, 455 and 460 I'll comment directly.

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