Apple made a number of announcements regarding its Mac lineup today, including the long-awaited MacBook Air with Retina display, and a Mac Mini with actual desktop components. With such high-profile announcements, one that flew under the radar is that Apple is going to start offering the 15-inch MacBook Pro with AMD Radeon Pro Vega graphics, beginning next month.
This is the same graphics architecture that can be found in Apple"s iMac Pro, and it uses High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2). This is meant to double the memory bandwidth, all while using less power. According to Apple, this will be up to 60% faster than the AMD Radeon Pro 560X, which is what"s currently offered in the 15-inch MacBook Pro.
If it"s not obvious, this will be exclusive to the 15-inch model, as the 13-inch MacBook Pro doesn"t have dedicated graphics. It uses a 28W U-series CPU that has Intel Iris Plus graphics, while the 15-inch MacBook Pro has a 45W H-series processor and dedicated graphics.
Apple hasn"t revealed pricing for the new GPU options yet, only that they will be coming in November. You can find out more at Apple.com.