Roger Fingas
Early benchmarks have appeared for Apple's new 15-inch MacBook Pro configurations with Radeon Pro Vega 20 graphics cards, suggesting the top-tier machines may be worth it for people who need peak performance.
Configurations with a Vega 20 are managing Geekbench OpenCL scores between 72,799 and 80,002. The best performance is naturally reserved for Pros with Core i9 processors, starting at 75,817. OpenCL is an industry-standard framework for running apps across multiple processor types.
Apple is deprecating OpenCL in favor of its Metal 2 standard, but a 2.9-gigahertz Core i9-equipped Pro nevertheless has a Metal score of 73,953.
The new figures are strong against Pros with Radeon Pro 560X cards, which typically have Metal numbers around 57,000 and OpenCL scores close to 65,000. The benchmarks were first spotted by MacRumors.
Data has yet to appear for Vega 16 cards, which add $250 to a Pro's cost. The Vega 20 option is $350.
15-inch MacBook Pros are already expensive, starting at $2,799. Without increasing storage, maximizing performance — including a Vega 20, a Core i9, and 32 gigabytes of RAM — costs $3,849.
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16 Comments
Holy smoke, I just went broke reading this. I want one pretty bad, though.
I would be happy for an i7 and the Vega 20.
Buying pretty much as soon as Adorama gets them in stock (they did start listing the Vega option in the GPU drop down though). Never thought I’d be dropping $5K on a MacBook Pro, but I’m ready for it with this kind of power. :)
Will these options end up getting the APINSIDER discount as well when they arrive?
Just had a look on the Australian Apple store.
Ow. A$5K without going for the i9. (OK, I put 32GB in it, too.)
Really have no way of justifying it, even if I was looking for an upgrade. But nice to know it's an option.
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