TWO BIG IMPROVEMENTS in the
2015 MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch
Posted May 27th, 2015, by rob-ART morgan, mad scientist
May 28th, 2015, added some results for 2014 MacBook Pro 15-inch
There are a two significant performance enhancements in the 'mid 2015' MacBook Pro Retina with 15.4-inch display: STORAGE and GPU.
GRAPH LEGEND
M2015 rMBP 15" = 'mid 2015' Retina MacBook Pro 15-inch Intel 2.8GHz Core i7-4980HQ CPU, 16GB 1600MHz DD3L SDRAM, AMD Radeon R9 M370X Discrete GPU, Intel Iris Pro Integrated GPU, 1TB PCIe-based Flash Storage (x4 Link Width)
M2014 rMBP 15" = 'mid 2014' Retina MacBook Pro 15-inch Intel 2.8GHz Core i7-4980HQ CPU, 16GB 1600MHz DD3L SDRAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M Discrete GPU, Intel Iris Pro Integrated GPU, 1TB PCIe-based Flash Storage (x4 Link Width)
L2013 rMBP 15" = 'late 2013' Retina MacBook Pro 15-inch with Intel 2.6 Quad-Core i7-4960HQ CPU, 16GB 1600MHz DD3L SDRAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M Discrete GPU, Intel Iris Pro Integrated GPU, 512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage (x2 Link Width)
E2015 rMBP 13" = 'early 2015' Retina MacBook Pro 13-inch with Intel 3.1GHz Dual-Core i7-5557U processor, 16GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM, Intel Iris Graphics 6100 Integrated GPU, 512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage (x4 Link Width)
RED bar in graph indicates the FASTEST result.
Faster STORAGE
Faster GPU
RED bar in graph indicates the FASTEST result.
INSIGHTS
The new 15-inch MacBook Pro's PCIe-based Flash Storage is a screamer. It is faster than any single flash module we have tested to date. (NOTE: The 256G version has a slower large sequential write speed of 1198MB/s.)
In the graphics intensive tests featured here, the new Radeon R9 M370X GPU was as much 62% faster than the GeForce GT 750M it replaces. Yet in some tests not yet published, we saw only a 5% gain.
Besides storage and graphics, a notable new feature is the Force Touch trackpad with Taptic Engine. However, the re-engineered keyboard with butterfly mechanism remains a 12" MacBook exclusive.
The 13" Retina MacBook Pro lags behind in all but one graphics test. That's due to its having only the Intel integrated GPU. On the other hand, its flash storage is second in speed only to the latest 15" model. And it can boast of being smaller and lighter.
'MID 2014' rMBP 15-inch NOTES
We added storage results for the 'mid 2014' MacBook Pro 15-inch with 1TB PCIe-based Flash. Oddly, another 2014 unit we tested was no faster than the 'late 2013' MacBook Pro 15-inch. So if you plan to buy a refurbished 2014, you've been warned.
We only had a brief test session with the 'mid 2014' MacBook Pro 15-inch with 2.8GHz Core i7 processor. We added it to the Motion and Tomb Raider graphs. The best way to characterize it is that the GPU intensive apps perform the same as the 'late 2013' MacBook Pro 15-inch and the CPU intensive apps perform the same as the 'mid 2015' MacBook Pro 15-inch.
