Does the lack of discrete graphics "slow down" the 13-inch rMBP?

I love my 15-inch rMBP. But it is a little big and heavy, and I may be due for an upgrade when I go to college next year--particularly to a computer a bit more portable. But I guess my concern is with the lack of discrete graphics in the 13-inch. However, I don't play games, but I do use Photoshop and Lightroom pretty often. Is there any significant performance slump in the 13-inch due to the lack of discrete graphics? Would I notice it?

Any help is appreciated.

 

if you use it heavily or do a lot of filters, transitions, effects or layers it makes a major difference in current versions, since Adobe has integrated an OpenCL Mercury Rendering engine into both the windows and OSX versions of photoshop and lightroom.

Benchmark Results: Photoshop CS6 - Can OpenGL And OpenCL Overhaul Your Photo Editing Experience?

Windows and OSX variances are fairly similar. Also note that NVidia Kepler based GPU's are OpenCL neutered for gaming etc, and Adobe has more or less dumped the proprietary CUDA technology.

 

The lack of a discreet GPU actually helps these machines, as the Iris and Iris Pro are much better suited to the OpenCL Adobe now uses versus the Geforce GT 650M/750M found in the 15-inch rMBP. A Dell Precision M3800 with its K1100M will do better since its Quadro-based GPU has proper OpenCL support, and Adobe now performs better under Windows anyway.

 

surprisingly NO. the Iris/Pro actually benchmark great in OpenCL, but in actual hands on are not much better than the 4000 IGP at this point in time. The windows drivers are maturing but even the " current " driver in Mavericks is not squeezing much of a performance boost out of the new IGP's. gaming however ....... yes substantial increases over previous generations.

and you are correct the K1100m is roughly 250% faster than the Iris Pro. the k5100m about 1400%

it is another case of benchmarks and marketing NOT matching the real world work environment

 

I miss the days when your gaming GPU was good enough for professional use.

Stupid companies trying to milk professionals with their "workstation" crap.

K5000M and 680M are the same card, just with a different driver...

 

Oh we can still do it, albeit with a very limited number of GPU's... Specifically the GCN based Radeon's where DPFP and other Pro functions are not nearly as neutered

Gaming chips were never good for really heavy pro level stuff, especially since the days of the Voodoo2 / Matrox Millennium GPU where 3D became commonplace. We have always needed a different set of functions just that pro GPU's have trickled down now that software and needs have become so complex that it was necessary to split pusing pixels for high framerates and pushing gigabytes of mathematically complex formulas for creating that media became mutually exclusive in most cases. and now time is serious money in the pro market so of course the major players in content creation and design want to harness GPGPU functions et al to make their product faster and more productive

 

Alright, thank you all. I don't do too much heavy-duty graphics work, but I edit photos, including RAW, I use Lightroom, etc.

I'm also wondering in just day to day web-browsing and video-watching, will the lack of a graphics card slow it down or cause the computer to become hotter?

 

Lack of a discrete GPU will mean the laptop will be less hot. Less hardware heating it up. Intel's integrated graphics on the new Haswell (4th gen i-series) is a lot better than it was. More than enough to accelerate all your desktop apps and even some light gaming. Web browsing, photo editing and video watching are all very low impact. In fact you can do all those things on a tablet. As for lightroom and photo editing, just make sure you have enough RAM. Unless you're a big gamer or you're using this for day-in day-out work you likely won't even notice the lack of GPU.

 

For what it's worth, even with a ULV Ivy Bridge i3, I can play Borderlands on my Vaio Duo 11 at 1366x768 and medium detail, and it's perfectly fluid. And the integrated graphics on Haswell are a LOT better than Ivy Bridge. Integrated graphics are a lot better than they used to be.

 

I'm eagerly anticipating Broadwell. That will likely be the point where I change systems. I'm not as down on the rMBP as I used to be, and a 13-inch with Broadwell could be a solid choice of power for light to moderate gaming (looking for stuff to run smoothly at 1280x800) and portability.

 

To be honest, if anything's going to put me off the 13-inch, it's that 1200x800 resolution. 1440x900 is bad enough on the 15-inch, but I was using my friend's 13-inch and noticing how little room there is on StreetView and Spotify and other things (not that Street View is great on these computers anyway, made my computer go from 120 F to almost 200 in just a few minutes).

 

I agree; that screen resolution on a laptop that costs $1200 is, in 2014, downright unconscionable.

 

Tell that to the large majority of the students in my age group who bought/were gifted a MacBook this summer. Especially since none of my local stores actually stocks the retinas (we only have the FatBooks and Airs).

 

I know it still sells. I never said it doesn't sell...that's a different issue. I said charging $1200 for a 1280x800 screened-laptop in today's market is unconscionable, and I stand by that statement.

 

Anandtech put both Iris and Iris Pro through the wringer a few months ago - real world type tests not just generic benchmarks. And as Anandtech does they also went in depth into the new architecture. They found that while it isn't going to push NVidia out of the gaming space it is FAR more powerful than prior IGPs. Iris Pro actually performs roughly on par in most areas with a 650M.

 

True. The deciding factor is games. If you want to play modern games the nvidia GPUs are significantly faster, everything else doesn't matter quite as much. There was someone on YouTube who did a comparison between the iris pro and 650M, then did another video with the 750M. He used a great set of tests including image processing, video transcoding, GPU computing and some games.

 

I'd be interested in watching that video.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Iris Pro vs 650M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATKDuQOQw9k&feature=youtube_gdata_player

750M added to the mix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4rgL9dW7mw&feature=youtube_gdata_player