MBP 15 2016, can the 530hd handle the retina UI well?

[Calleknug]

Since Apple went with the weaker hd 530 graphics will we be seeing UI-lag when the discrete graphic card is not in use? How much of a battery hit could keeping the radeon card on at all times cause in that case?

 

[19george97]

I am hoping it is a software/driver issue.

 

[GastonM]

My 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar definitely stutters sometimes when the dGPU is not in use, especially in Safari and Chrome. Scrolling through some websites is sometimes stuttering, but not always on the same website. Mission Control is smooth most of the time though. Especially switching videos in for instance YouTube to full-screen mode can be very laggy, whereas my 13-inch MacBook Pro late 2011 is smooth as butter. I hope Apple can improve this occasional lag in future updates.
When using the dGPU everything is smooth as butter, but it also has a high impact on battery and the temperature of the computer. When using the iGPU it is running at 27 degrees Celsius to 35 degrees Celsius when doing light work. When using the dGPU doing the same kind of work it is running between 40 and 45 degrees Celsius. Fans stay running at the same speed though. Battery lasts about 7-8 hours on iGPU and 3-4 hours on dGPU.

 

[Mindinversion]

Wow, for counterpoint I have no lag or stuttering issues on mine at all, smooth as silk and responsive.
It could be something like spotlight indexing in the background or needing to reset SMC?

As for battery life with the dGPU on....maybe 3-4 hours? It really [heh heh] sucks.....the battery down faster

 

[MrGuder]

How long does spotlight continue to index from when you set up laptop for first time?

 

[Jaekae]

Mine have UI lag and stuttering that i dont think is acceptable on the 530 card.... so have switched off automatic graphic switching and run only on AMD card to have it smooth..

But sierra have zero lag on my 2012 retina macbook pro and that card is suposed to be slower than 530.. so think its crappy drivers thst maby stay crappy forever or they fix them..

 

[duervo]

How long does spotlight continue to index from when you set up laptop for first time?

With an SSD? Not long. With the PCIe NVMe SSD in the 2016's, even less. If it's taking too long (more than a few minutes), then something's wrong.

 

[kbk75]

How long does spotlight continue to index from when you set up laptop for first time?

Depends on how much you've got on your drive. I copied over ~1 TB of data and it was done indexing before I got back home from running some errands (couple hours).