How do the thermals compare? That’s more important in a constrained enclosure.
anandtech is saying the Pro 5600M is 50 Watts. I would imagine the Pro 5300M and Pro 5500M are on order 50 W to 80 W, especially since they are using GDDR6 memory with higher boost clocks, while the 5600M is using HBM with much lower boost clocks.
That link I found to AMD's page says that all three Radeon Pro SKUs are 50W TDP. The RX version of the 5500M is supposedly 85W, but that's at higher clocks.
I read that all as 'using HBM2 memory is spendy, but maybe it reduces power consumption enough that adding 30% in compute resources stays more-or-less in the same power budget.'
5600m provides non-raytracing 2060-ish level mobile performance in a 50W TDP package (it's not just a RTX 5600 with faster memory). In a die unique to Apple. Yes I paid the upgrade price. I could also could have bought a gaming PC. Instead, I wanted one computer that could do everything - macOS, Windows, *nix, work, "real" gaming, you name it. This is the only one.
The Mac Pro SSD user upgrades come in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB sizes. The order page notes that the 1TB upgrade retails for $600, the 2TB kit sells for $1000, with the 4TB kit coming in at $1600. The 8TB upgrade retails for $2800.
When initially purchased, 1TB of storage is a $400 premium versus 256GB. The larger 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB configurations add $800, $1400, and $2600, respectively
This is why buying an Apple Mac makes no sense anymore. It is bad enough that the Mac Pro gets creamed buy cheap Thread ripper systems but then you have these outlandish prices for storage options and upgrades. I really don't see why people even bother with Macs any more. Even the laptop upgrades make no sense cost wise.
You need to think who are the target audiences. For a machine that's $6000 at start, it's clearly not serving individuals first. A studio & organization always have the budget for and they don't care about price-performance ratios. They want the best gear for the job, that's it.
Let's not forget the 28-Core Xeon W is half-a-year earlier, or Intel will not simply abandon a workstation platform like your average consumer one. For a $6,000 machine, you'll need long-term plans.
Just keep making incremental updates and options. Hopefully upgradeable SSDs will be available for all of the other Macs in the future.
They won't be unless Apple makes a total change in the enclosures. You can open a current MBP and iMac but the iMac is not that easy. We'll see if Apple goes back to an easy to open front or rear case for the iMacs but I don't see them changing from soldered RAM and SSD on some of the MacBooks or changing back to a screwed on case. Most CPUs are also soldered to keep the height of the motherboard as thin as possible. Adding a CPU socket doubles the height of the CPU.
Intel only offers BGA since 5th-gen, not merely a design decision made by Apple or any OEMs.
$800 for a GPU upgrade is offensive. It's like Mr. Cook randomly pulls a lever and takes that value. As an upgrade price, $400 would be more reasonable.
Compared to what? How is $800 offensive but $400 just fine? Doesn't it depend on what you're getting for the money?
Upgrading to the highest spec, especially in a laptop, is often very expensive and makes sense only for a small minority of users. If you don't see the value in the option, don't choose it. Otherwise, why should you be "offended" that this option (and it is an OPTION) is made available to people who might appreciate it?
At first I figured it must be AMD setting the prices but other manufacturers are pricing this line of GPUs much lower. Here's a laptop with a faster RX 5600M laptop for $879, $1299 for 1TB SSD and 16GB RAM:
Apple's cheapest option for the 5600M is $3199. Given that manufacturers can sell an entire laptop with a faster version of that chip for $879 and still make a profit, Apple charging $800 just for the GPU upgrade seems a bit excessive.
They are using HBM memory instead of GDDR, which adds something to the cost but it shouldn't be all that much extra.
They might be pricing it to avoid it being a mainstream option if it runs hotter than the lower performance GPUs. If they priced it reasonably, more people would buy it and possibly complain about thermals. We'll see when the reviews come in if it runs hotter.
It's nice to have the option at least. I hope this doesn't mean they'll be skipping RDNA2 GPUs (September) until next year though. RDNA2 is supposed to come with a 50% performance-per-watt increase. If that turns out to be true, I'd rather have an entry model with RDNA2 in September.
I don't see an option for 5600M.
That's not saying the 16" is not overpriced for now, but, If this is only using a six-core, 1080p display and one Thunderbolt 3 (most likely via PCH), it's not unreasonable to see $1,299.
$800 for a GPU upgrade is offensive. It's like Mr. Cook randomly pulls a lever and takes that value. As an upgrade price, $400 would be more reasonable.
Compared to what? How is $800 offensive but $400 just fine? Doesn't it depend on what you're getting for the money?
Upgrading to the highest spec, especially in a laptop, is often very expensive and makes sense only for a small minority of users. If you don't see the value in the option, don't choose it. Otherwise, why should you be "offended" that this option (and it is an OPTION) is made available to people who might appreciate it?
At first I figured it must be AMD setting the prices but other manufacturers are pricing this line of GPUs much lower. Here's a laptop with a faster RX 5600M laptop for $879, $1299 for 1TB SSD and 16GB RAM:
Apple's cheapest option for the 5600M is $3199. Given that manufacturers can sell an entire laptop with a faster version of that chip for $879 and still make a profit, Apple charging $800 just for the GPU upgrade seems a bit excessive.
They are using HBM memory instead of GDDR, which adds something to the cost but it shouldn't be all that much extra.
They might be pricing it to avoid it being a mainstream option if it runs hotter than the lower performance GPUs. If they priced it reasonably, more people would buy it and possibly complain about thermals. We'll see when the reviews come in if it runs hotter.
It's nice to have the option at least. I hope this doesn't mean they'll be skipping RDNA2 GPUs (September) until next year though. RDNA2 is supposed to come with a 50% performance-per-watt increase. If that turns out to be true, I'd rather have an entry model with RDNA2 in September.
I don't see an option for 5600M.
That's not saying the 16" is not overpriced for now, but, If this is only using a six-core, 1080p display and one Thunderbolt 3 (most likely via PCH), it's not unreasonable to see $1,299.
The AMD options don't seem to be showing up on their site any more:
It's not that the 16" overall is overpriced, the 5600M upgrade is just expensive. That whole laptop with an RX 5600M is $880, the MBP GPU upgrade alone is $800. It's a slightly different GPU and has HBM memory but similar performance.
The performance of the 5600M is worth paying more for but most of the upgrade price looks like profit margin. There's no way AMD is charging Apple $400 for that part, I'd estimate $200-300 at most so $500-600 of the upgrade price would be profit margin.
It's the same with a lot of enthusiast-class upgrades though (Mac Pro wheels, XDR display stand), when the shipping volume is lower, the price goes up significantly because otherwise it's not worth offering the option at all. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the refurb prices on these models after the Apple Silicon Macs arrive because I have a feeling Apple's own GPUs are going to be matching or exceeding them at a much lower price point but they could always apply similar margins to those too.
$800 for a GPU upgrade is offensive. It's like Mr. Cook randomly pulls a lever and takes that value. As an upgrade price, $400 would be more reasonable.
Compared to what? How is $800 offensive but $400 just fine? Doesn't it depend on what you're getting for the money?
Upgrading to the highest spec, especially in a laptop, is often very expensive and makes sense only for a small minority of users. If you don't see the value in the option, don't choose it. Otherwise, why should you be "offended" that this option (and it is an OPTION) is made available to people who might appreciate it?
At first I figured it must be AMD setting the prices but other manufacturers are pricing this line of GPUs much lower. Here's a laptop with a faster RX 5600M laptop for $879, $1299 for 1TB SSD and 16GB RAM:
Apple's cheapest option for the 5600M is $3199. Given that manufacturers can sell an entire laptop with a faster version of that chip for $879 and still make a profit, Apple charging $800 just for the GPU upgrade seems a bit excessive.
They are using HBM memory instead of GDDR, which adds something to the cost but it shouldn't be all that much extra.
They might be pricing it to avoid it being a mainstream option if it runs hotter than the lower performance GPUs. If they priced it reasonably, more people would buy it and possibly complain about thermals. We'll see when the reviews come in if it runs hotter.
It's nice to have the option at least. I hope this doesn't mean they'll be skipping RDNA2 GPUs (September) until next year though. RDNA2 is supposed to come with a 50% performance-per-watt increase. If that turns out to be true, I'd rather have an entry model with RDNA2 in September.
I don't see an option for 5600M.
That's not saying the 16" is not overpriced for now, but, If this is only using a six-core, 1080p display and one Thunderbolt 3 (most likely via PCH), it's not unreasonable to see $1,299.
The AMD options don't seem to be showing up on their site any more:
It's not that the 16" overall is overpriced, the 5600M upgrade is just expensive. That whole laptop with an RX 5600M is $880, the MBP GPU upgrade alone is $800. It's a slightly different GPU and has HBM memory but similar performance.
The performance of the 5600M is worth paying more for but most of the upgrade price looks like profit margin. There's no way AMD is charging Apple $400 for that part, I'd estimate $200-300 at most so $500-600 of the upgrade price would be profit margin.
It's the same with a lot of enthusiast-class upgrades though (Mac Pro wheels, XDR display stand), when the shipping volume is lower, the price goes up significantly because otherwise it's not worth offering the option at all. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the refurb prices on these models after the Apple Silicon Macs arrive because I have a feeling Apple's own GPUs are going to be matching or exceeding them at a much lower price point but they could always apply similar margins to those too.
I think it's temporary and will subject to change. The 16" had a very competitive price when it's launched, though not many remembered.
Other reason being people are paying less attention to current models & all went waiting for the ASi, if I had to guess.
Comments
I read that all as 'using HBM2 memory is spendy, but maybe it reduces power consumption enough that adding 30% in compute resources stays more-or-less in the same power budget.'
Let's not forget the 28-Core Xeon W is half-a-year earlier, or Intel will not simply abandon a workstation platform like your average consumer one. For a $6,000 machine, you'll need long-term plans.
That's not saying the 16" is not overpriced for now, but, If this is only using a six-core, 1080p display and one Thunderbolt 3 (most likely via PCH), it's not unreasonable to see $1,299.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/sr/game-laptops/g-series/amd?appliedRefinements=11656
https://www.theverge.com/21328344/dell-g5-15-se-review-2020-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen
It's not that the 16" overall is overpriced, the 5600M upgrade is just expensive. That whole laptop with an RX 5600M is $880, the MBP GPU upgrade alone is $800. It's a slightly different GPU and has HBM memory but similar performance.
The performance of the 5600M is worth paying more for but most of the upgrade price looks like profit margin. There's no way AMD is charging Apple $400 for that part, I'd estimate $200-300 at most so $500-600 of the upgrade price would be profit margin.
It's the same with a lot of enthusiast-class upgrades though (Mac Pro wheels, XDR display stand), when the shipping volume is lower, the price goes up significantly because otherwise it's not worth offering the option at all. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the refurb prices on these models after the Apple Silicon Macs arrive because I have a feeling Apple's own GPUs are going to be matching or exceeding them at a much lower price point but they could always apply similar margins to those too.
Other reason being people are paying less attention to current models & all went waiting for the ASi, if I had to guess.