What I'm wondering is when will Apple finally update the OpenGL drivers, so we can take full advantage of the GPUs ?<p>Of course it's possible to do many things with workarounds, but for example compute shaders are introduced in OpenGL 4.3 IIRC, and Apple currently supports only OpenGL 4.1 with some 4.2 extensions, released in 2010 already :P<p>Any idea if Apple has any plans to update their OpenGL drivers to modern versions ? Or are they just gonna focus on the more iOS/mobile optimized Metal ?<p>Sucks anyway to do cross platform graphics development on a Mac laptop soon if they don't do something about this.
I'm a die-hard MacBook Pro fan, and despite the negative press around the new model's specs, I will somehow find a way to convince myself to buy one.<p>This comparison is the first good news I found. I just entered the GPU model from my Retina 2015 MacBook Pro and the highest GPU option from the 2016 line-up.<p>I think, for a notebook, this looks pretty good, and it uses about 1/3 the energy of its desktop counterpart (Radeon RX 460).<p>A few spec comparisons to the 2015 GPU:<p><pre><code> 1. floating-point - 82% faster
2. texture mapping - 82% faster
3. texture mapping units - 60% more
4. shading units - 60% more
5. GPU memory - 100% more
</code></pre>
Radeon Pro 460 (MacBook Pro) vs Radeon RX 460 (desktop):<p><a href="http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-RX-460-vs-Radeon-Pro-460" rel="nofollow">http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-RX-460-vs-Radeon-Pro-460</a><p>That's not as bad as everyone has made it out to be, right? Or, is it that the 2015 was just terrible?
And here I am, just finding out the 15" has discrete graphics after buying the 13" which does not.<p>Regardless, to me 13" is a much better form factor. I had a 15" years ago and it seemed to have so much awkward empty space around where your wrists go.
What I don't understand about Macbook Pros (as an owner of one) is that there isn't a model with a "Pro" level graphics card - so an AMD FirePro or Nvindia Quadro. The price bracket they are in has competitor laptops with them, and a lot of "pro" 3d graphics software only officially support them.
Dell is updating the XPS 15 with a NVIDIA 10 series card soon-ish (December?). Any one shopping for a decent dGPU on a light laptop should consider it.
I've just shared my spreadsheet comparing 2016 Laptops.<p>There's a column listing Gflops, which is relevant to this thread:
<a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nnmI9pN9rBMBJHE1gqYAPfbnfJiZFdA8voah8O2nmNk/edit?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nnmI9pN9rBMBJHE1gqYA...</a>
Does anyone know what the maximum possible (combined-)output resolution of the Radeon Pro 460 is? I'm having a hard time finding this info on AMD's website.