Haswell/Intel HD 5000 with retina res?

nitromullet

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Jan 7, 2004
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I'm looking to pick up a new Macbook Pro in the next few months, and the general sort of vibe I'm getting is that it's best to wait for the new Haswell MBP to launch sometime. The main reasons cited are better battery life and vastly improved IGP performance.

I think the better battery life is probably a given, but I'm curious about how well the Haswell IGP will handle the retina resolutions. To this end, I'm curious, has anyone run a Haswell Macbook Air with a high res external monitor to see how well the the IGP does?

I've looked all over for this, and haven't found anything. This seems like it would be a no-brainer. I can't be the only one interested in this.
 

bearxor

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I don't don't believe the Haswell processors in the MBA have the higher performance IGP that's been rumored for the MBP line.
 

nitromullet

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I don't they they will either that's why I'm curious about how well they perform at retina level resolutions.
 

TheStu

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I don't they they will either that's why I'm curious about how well they perform at retina level resolutions.

No, what's he's saying is that the high end iGPU is the 5100, but the MacBook Airs have the 4600. It's not a 1:1 comparison. That and the slower CPU in general.
 

nitromullet

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The new Haswell MBA has the Intel HD 5000 (GT3). I know the cpu itself in the MBA is slower (lower clocks/voltage) than what is believed to be in the rMBP, but I'm curious as to how well the iGPU in the MBA handles higher resolutions. As I understand it the current iGPU in the rMBP is a little slow for effectively pushing the retina displays, and I'm curious if the Haswell iGPU will fix that.

edit: I wasn't aware that there was an HD 5100 ("Iris"), only the 5000. Is the general consensus/speculation that all models of the rMBP with get the HD 5100, or the 15" will get the HD 5100 and the 13" the H D5000?
 
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nitromullet

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If you're playing games, probably not. Other than that it should be fine.

Yeah, not terribly interested in playing games on a MBP. I would be running the MBP with my NEC 2560x1440 display.

From what I have seen the rMBP 13 (with the HD 4000) can be pretty laggy at 2560x1600 even when just surfing the web. I'm hoping that Haswell/HD 5100 will fix that.

I was curious about how a Haswell MBA handed higher resolutions, but it sounds like it's not really that comparable. Also, I'm starting to get the impression that OS X is also doing some interpolation on the rMBP, which could also be the cause of the some display lag reviewers/users have mentioned.
 
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TheStu

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The new Haswell MBA has the Intel HD 5000 (GT3). I know the cpu itself in the MBA is slower (lower clocks/voltage) than what is believed to be in the rMBP, but I'm curious as to how well the iGPU in the MBA handles higher resolutions. As I understand it the current iGPU in the rMBP is a little slow for effectively pushing the retina displays, and I'm curious if the Haswell iGPU will fix that.

edit: I wasn't aware that there was an HD 5100 ("Iris"), only the 5000. Is the general consensus/speculation that all models of the rMBP with get the HD 5100, or the 15" will get the HD 5100 and the 13" the H D5000?

You're right, I was looking at the wrong line on the review. Another system had the 4600. Oops.

The old MacBook Air with the intel 4000 iGPU could run a 1440p display, with is pretty close to the res of the rMBP13, so... yes?
 

JAG87

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My 13" rMBP runs great with the HD4000, so I don't see how a 5000 series iGPU could be any slower.
 

Pia

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HD 5000 as installed in the new Airs doesn't have that much performance advantage over the HD 4000. On paper it should be much stronger, but it's probably thermal throttling or something.
 

runawayprisoner

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Retina resolutions lag because Apple couldn't get their software algorithms right. The whole interface is actually driven almost entirely by the CPU since there is no dedicated hardware in the GPU for all that scaling and rendering. But Apple also limits the amount of CPU resources they use for the interface just so other tasks would still have some headroom, and also to lower power consumption and keep battery life in a reasonable range.

Mavericks should fix most of that issue. So it wouldn't matter if you have HD 4000 or HD 5100.

Neither is good enough to push any serious graphics at native resolution on the Retina display anyway.
 

JAG87

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Jan 3, 2006
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Retina resolutions lag because Apple couldn't get their software algorithms right. The whole interface is actually driven almost entirely by the CPU since there is no dedicated hardware in the GPU for all that scaling and rendering. But Apple also limits the amount of CPU resources they use for the interface just so other tasks would still have some headroom, and also to lower power consumption and keep battery life in a reasonable range.

Mavericks should fix most of that issue. So it wouldn't matter if you have HD 4000 or HD 5100.

Neither is good enough to push any serious graphics at native resolution on the Retina display anyway.


What scaling? When you run at native resolution (best for retina), there is no scaling going on.
 

nitromullet

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What scaling? When you run at native resolution (best for retina), there is no scaling going on.

There is still a software algorithm working in the background scaling the image on the best for retina setting, otherwise non-retina programs would look tiny on a 13" 2560x1600 display. The difference is with the best for retina setting you are not getting interpolation.
 

TheStu

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What scaling? When you run at native resolution (best for retina), there is no scaling going on.

Best for retina isn't the native res, it's 1/4 the res, it's using 4 pixels to render 1 point.

For other resolutions, OS X is taking the resolution, doubling it, and then scaling it back down to the panel resolution. So on the 13", which has a 1680*1050 effective resolution setting, it doubles that to 3360*2100, then scales it down to 2560*1600.
 

JAG87

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There is still a software algorithm working in the background scaling the image on the best for retina setting, otherwise non-retina programs would look tiny on a 13" 2560x1600 display. The difference is with the best for retina setting you are not getting interpolation.

Yes, and the algorithm is not doing anything when the application is hidpi aware. So there is no scaling of any kind going on, not vector, nor raster. The non-retina application is actually the one that will cause lag, because the algorithm detects it and has to scale it up to 2560x1600.


Best for retina isn't the native res, it's 1/4 the res, it's using 4 pixels to render 1 point.

For other resolutions, OS X is taking the resolution, doubling it, and then scaling it back down to the panel resolution. So on the 13", which has a 1680*1050 effective resolution setting, it doubles that to 3360*2100, then scales it down to 2560*1600.

Your first sentence makes no sense. Best for retina is effectively 2560x1600, using hidpi graphics that have been re-rendered @2x and @2y resolution from their originals.

Your second paragraph is correct, and that would incur more load as it has to actually render at even higher than native resolution, and interpolate down afterwards. And it only does this because rendering at 1680x1050 and interpolating up would look uglier, and Apple decided to go the nicer-looking more intensive way.
 

TheStu

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Your first sentence makes no sense. Best for retina is effectively 2560x1600, using hidpi graphics that have been re-rendered @2x and @2y resolution from their originals.

It's not all HiDPI graphics though, the window elements, the fonts, everything that's not an image.

It's a point vs pixels issue. OS X sets 'native/ best for retina' as 1280*800 points, and also knows that the panel has 2560*1600 pixels, so it uses 4 pixels for each point. For things that are properly attributed as @2x, then it load it at that resolution. The true native resolution of the panel is 2560*1600, but that isn't exposed to the user.

Think about iMovie on the 15", when you're at the 1920(effective) setting, the video preview in the application is actually a proper 1920*1080 pixel preview, but it's a 1448*814 point preview due to scaling.
 

nitromullet

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So basically, it sounds like either Mavericks fixes the software or it won't matter if you are running Ivy Bridge or Haswell because both will lag in certain, non-gaming, situations on a retina display.
 

Tyranicus

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People keep talking about lag when scrolling on Retina MacBooks. I've been using mine since December, and have yet to see any lag.
 

blackened23

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Yeah, not terribly interested in playing games on a MBP. I would be running the MBP with my NEC 2560x1440 display.

From what I have seen the rMBP 13 (with the HD 4000) can be pretty laggy at 2560x1600 even when just surfing the web. I'm hoping that Haswell/HD 5100 will fix that.

I was curious about how a Haswell MBA handed higher resolutions, but it sounds like it's not really that comparable. Also, I'm starting to get the impression that OS X is also doing some interpolation on the rMBP, which could also be the cause of the some display lag reviewers/users have mentioned.

Hmm? I've used HD4000 extensively at 2560x1600 and i've never noticed lag. Not once - it works great except (obviously) for games. I think HD5000 will be fine outside of gaming.
 

AkumaX

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People keep talking about lag when scrolling on Retina MacBooks. I've been using mine since December, and have yet to see any lag.

Me neither..

..but the only thing I don't like about Intel is how they introduced 6 different iGPU SKUs:

HD 4200
HD 4400
HD 4600
HD 5000
Iris 5100
Iris Pro 5200

I mean, srsly, wtf??
 

TheStu

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Me neither..

..but the only thing I don't like about Intel is how they introduced 6 different iGPU SKUs:

HD 4200
HD 4400
HD 4600
HD 5000
Iris 5100
Iris Pro 5200

I mean, srsly, wtf??

I find it annoying if only because last generation was the HD 4000, and I'm used to the discrete world where a new leading number indicates a new generation.
 

MrX8503

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Oct 23, 2005
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People keep talking about lag when scrolling on Retina MacBooks. I've been using mine since December, and have yet to see any lag.

There was certainly lag. Anand did a review of it and recorded the FPS. Its gotten better though since then.