Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:
Since new MacBook Pro models launched last month, an increasing number of early adopters have reported serious graphics issues on Apple’s latest notebooks. The glitches and other problems appear to be most prevalent on built-to-order 15-inch models, but standard 13-inch and 15-inch configurations are also affected.
One owner, Jan Becker, reports:
Apple called me from Cupertino. They put together a group of engineers to get to the root of this. I re-created the incident while I was on the phone with them and sent them the log files of the crash. They also want to “capture” my MacBook Pro with all the files on it to investigate more.
I love this response by Apple. Though they appear silent, they really do throw everything they have at a problem to get to the heart of it. They take this very seriously.
In a possibly related note, ZDNet’s David Gewirtz wrote about switching from the high end 15″ dual-GPU model to a 13″ single-GPU MacBook Pro:
It’s pretty interesting how the dual GPU architecture is supposed to work. Part of the time, the lower power, but also lower-performing, on-chip Intel HD 530 graphics processor is used. When crunch time comes, the Radeon Pro 460 with 4 GB of video RAM kicks in and pounds pixels onto the screen.
I’ve used this dual GPU architecture before. About four years ago, I bought the most powerful Windows laptop I could find, a beast of a Sager. It had a dGPU configuration.
When it worked, it was breathtakingly fast. When it worked.
Over the 18 months or so that machine was my main machine, I had constant driver problems. The GeForce GTX 670M didn’t always run properly. The on-chip Intel video driver wouldn’t properly change settings. System hangs and freezes attributable to driver conflicts were a regular occurrence. It was maddening.
It’s not clear that the dual GPU design is behind this wave of glitches. Reportedly, some of the glitches occur on a 13-inch single-GPU model. But most of the issues seem to occur on the 15-inch dual-GPU model.
Regardless, an interesting problem. Hoping Apple shares the details on the cause, once they figure it out.
Mine (Radeon Pro 460) exhibits some of the more minor of these glitches.
A couple of interesting observations:
1) I have seen absolutely zero issues in Bootcamp. Bootcamp only runs on the dGPU and doesn’t do any switching.
2) I can’t be 100% certain of this, but I try to look at which GPU is used when glitches do occur and it’s always the Intel GPU.
So either the Intel GPU is faulty or it’s the switching to it that messes something up.
Ouch, hate to hear this. This is why I’m rarely an early adopter.
No problems so far with mine (13″ Touchbar), but I haven’t exactly stressed the video system.
However, the battery life I’ve see so far is incredibly disappointing. Nowhere near what my 3 year old 13″ MBA gets even now. I am hoping this is due to spotlight, time machine or some other “new system” background process and will settle down after a bit more use, but this is very concerning.
No video problems at all here (460 GPU option). Not when running the built-in display and not when running 2 external 4k screens.
Only true issue so far is battery life. It is miserable. Took it to the office fully charged today. The only things running: iStat Menus, Fantastical, OneDrive sync and MS Word (64-bit version). I had Safari open briefly to look up three sites – otherwise only working on a pure text document in Word. Screen brightness around 50%, integrated GPU. After exactly 4 hrs and 13 minutes the machine shut itself off with an empty battery. My over 4 year old 2012 Retina MBP (same CPU clock speed, same 16 GB RAM) easily gets to seven hours with its original battery. Never had a machine that was over 50% below Apple’s advertised numbers – so far they have all been very much in the ballpark. Love the machine, but this is not exactly making me happy.
A good rule for buying Apple products is “always get the second one”. The second iteration of the original MacBook Pro was a lot better than the first (Core 2 Duo instead of Core Duo), the iPad 2 was about a million times better than the original, etc.
However, in this case I couldn’t really wait. My current machine is 3.5 years old and I was starting to bump up against its limits. Didn’t really think I could hold out for another round of Apple’s new refresh policy of “somewhere between a year and a half and never”.
Too early to tell for sure, but it sounds like software, not hardware, according to Apple Insider.
Which would also explain your computer working in windows KK – you might not be using the same software, or if you are it is optimized better or acting in a different way in windows.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/12/02/reported-2016-macbook-pro-graphics-issues-likely-caused-by-third-party-software