Why do the new MacsBooks have Radeon graphics?

[Rakehellion]

Last year's MacBook Pro had a Geforce 750M, but the latest silent refresh has an AMD R9 M370X. While it does offer slightly improved graphics performance, why would they not just use a Nvidia 950M? Is there some improvement in power consumption? The machine uses 85W max

The AMD graphics can do 5120x2880 at 60Hz and has significantly better OpenCL performance. They might be pushing for 5K all across the board, but I think that's a stretch.

From AMD's website:

r9 m370x
gpu arc​hitecture
(nm gcn)	28
compute units 7	10
​stream processors	640
max engine clock
(mhz)	800
max memory
(gb)​	2
​​memory type	gddr5
max memory clock
(mhz)	1125
max memory bandwidth
(gb/s)	72
max memory interface
(bit)	128
​opengl 4.3	​yes 
​opencl 1.2	​yes
amd app acceleration6	yes
max displayport (up to 4k)
external displays supported
2
​max hdmi (up to 4k)
​external displays suppor​​ted	​1​

 

[chubbyfatazn]

Some good reading in this thread if you haven't already seen it

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2431908

 

[JDG1980]

Last year's MacBook Pro had a Geforce 750M, but the latest silent refresh has an AMD R9 M370X. While it does offer slightly improved graphics performance, why would they not just use a Nvidia 950M? Is there some improvement in power consumption? The machine uses 85W max

I don't doubt that Apple is getting the best binned chips that AMD can provide. Still, while Cape Verde was a very efficient architecture by the standards of 2012, there's no way it is going to beat GM107 on performance per watt.

The question of why Apple didn't go with the 950M is one that many people have been asking. Several possible answers:

• Although Maxwell does better than Kepler on OpenCL performance, there are still some benchmarks where GM107 falls short of Cape Verde. Apple has placed a lot of emphasis on OpenCL, especially with the dual-GPU Mac Pro. In the discrete GPU market, this aligns their goals with AMD's. Nvidia would prefer to push CUDA, while Apple doesn't want to be tied into another company's proprietary standard (see also: Flash, Java).
• AMD was almost certainly willing to provide a much better deal on pricing than Nvidia.
• There's a good chance that Apple is deliberately providing support to AMD for competitive reasons. Apple wants to be able to play its suppliers against each other; they don't want to be forced to rely only on Intel for x86 CPUs and Nvidia for GPUs. AMD is going to be in a tight spot until late 2016 at least, and Apple wants to ensure that AMD makes it through - not out of altruism, of course, but because the existence of a competitive AMD is in Apple's own self-interest. Therefore, whenever AMD can provide something reasonably competitive, Apple will favor them over Nvidia. (AMD's CPUs have not made appearances in Apple products, simply because they are too far behind. But an Apple design win for Carrizo isn't completely out of the question.)

 

[Rakehellion]

AMD was almost certainly willing to provide a much better deal on pricing than Nvidia.

But hasn't AMD been cheaper for years now? Why all of a sudden?

Same with OpenCL. They've been pushing that for a while. Last time they had AMD graphics was in 2011.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Apple dont buy for gaming performance or features, they buy for OpenCL performance.

 

[Rvenger]

I am locking this one because it is basically a duplicate of this thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2431908


-Rvenger