marc80
Newbie Boot Camper
Posts: 6
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Post by marc80 on Mar 7, 2021 23:28:19 GMT
Hi all,
My old 15 inch MacBook Pro gave me so many headaches that Apple decided to send a direct replacement.
I've now received it but have the chance to return it and add some upgrades. I want to use it for Bootcamp games at around 1440p (ghost recon, gta, Anno 1800, AoE 4 when its out), in addition to native gaming (Cities:Skylines), some scientific apps like Matlab, light video editing and basic tasks. I'd like to get around 4 years (of up-to-date games/software) use out of it.
The direct replacement is a 16 inch, 6-Core i7, 16GB RAM with 5300M and 1TB SSD (the base model but with bigger storage).
Asking because it's been hard to get a clear idea of the relative gaming advantage of a 5500m over a 5300m when using modded Bootcamp drivers. Unmodded only seems to only make ~5% difference. When modding the 5500m supports MorePowerTool (which the 5300m doesn't) and I can't tell if that gives it a big sustained fps advantage. Gaming/fps benchmarks for a fully modded 5300m vs a fully modded 5500m mbp would probably settle this.
So what would you all do? Hold on to it or is it worth returning it for one with a 5500m with 4 or 8 GB VRAM? what about for 32GB RAM? Both? Neither but more storage? Or just save up for Apple Silicon and hope Win/x86 emulation doesn't suck?
Budget is fairly limited, around 500 USD.
My first post, great site. Please let me know your thoughts and thanks in advance.
Marc.
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Post by .:Hydrogen:. on Mar 8, 2021 4:43:43 GMT
I think if you can get the 5500m 8GB model and do the VRM thermal pad mod you don't necessarily have to use morepowertool and can get a substantial performance uplift compared to the 5300m. I would not suggest waiting for the 2021 16-inch macbook pro cuz I think it uses M1X CPU when it releases and does not support bootcamp.
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Post by IceMan on Mar 8, 2021 7:46:26 GMT
I think if you go with 5500m with 8GB VRAM and some RAM if you can have 16 or 32 GB you should be ok to play as Hydrogen says if you do that VRM thermal pad mod for your GPU. so if that is in your budget go for that. if not i would then choose the 5500m GPU and see if you can keep the cost on your limit
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marc80
Newbie Boot Camper
Posts: 6
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Post by marc80 on Mar 8, 2021 23:11:37 GMT
I think if you can get the 5500m 8GB model and do the VRM thermal pad mod you don't necessarily have to use morepowertool and can get a substantial performance uplift compared to the 5300m. I would not suggest waiting for the 2021 16-inch macbook pro cuz I think it uses M1X CPU when it releases and does not support bootcamp. Thank you for the reply. Agree about the M1X so this is my chance. So you think the 8GB VRAM will improve gaming performance much over the 5500m 4GB version? Do you/does anyone have any links to benchmarks for a modded 5300m vs a modded 5500m? |
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marc80
Newbie Boot Camper
Posts: 6
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Post by marc80 on Mar 8, 2021 23:18:21 GMT
I think if you go with 5500m with 8GB VRAM and some RAM if you can have 16 or 32 GB you should be ok to play as Hydrogen says if you do that VRM thermal pad mod for your GPU. so if that is in your budget go for that. if not i would then choose the 5500m GPU and see if you can keep the cost on your limit Good suggestions and I think the RAM is generally a good idea for the other uses too. Any idea about how much difference in gaming FPS % these ideas (5500m, VRAM, RAM, thermal pads) will make in the end, relative to the base model I have? Are we talking 10%, 30%? |
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Post by .:Hydrogen:. on Mar 9, 2021 1:48:02 GMT
I think if you go with 5500m with 8GB VRAM and some RAM if you can have 16 or 32 GB you should be ok to play as Hydrogen says if you do that VRM thermal pad mod for your GPU. so if that is in your budget go for that. if not i would then choose the 5500m GPU and see if you can keep the cost on your limit Good suggestions and I think the RAM is generally a good idea for the other uses too. Any idea about how much difference in gaming FPS % these ideas (5500m, VRAM, RAM, thermal pads) will make in the end, relative to the base model I have? Are we talking 10%, 30%? This is Max Tech's benchmark of the 5300m vs 5500m 8gb in unigine heaven using the extreme preset (in MacOS though). Attachments:
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Post by IceMan on Mar 9, 2021 8:14:21 GMT
like Hydrogen says if you go and wait for M1X or M2 or what ever they are going to call it . you wont be able to go with bootcamp. I cant say about performance without modded and with modded version of 5500M but if you want to play games and use bootcamp go for that setup. And having more VRAM is good and also RAM  |
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Post by .:Hydrogen:. on Mar 9, 2021 8:43:12 GMT
Because 16-inch macbook pros have the VRM overheating/throttling issue, doing the thermal pad mod is pretty much a must-do if you are using bootcamp to game.
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marc80
Newbie Boot Camper
Posts: 6
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Post by marc80 on Mar 9, 2021 12:28:05 GMT
Good suggestions and I think the RAM is generally a good idea for the other uses too. Any idea about how much difference in gaming FPS % these ideas (5500m, VRAM, RAM, thermal pads) will make in the end, relative to the base model I have? Are we talking 10%, 30%? This is Max Tech's benchmark of the 5300m vs 5500m 8gb in unigine heaven using the extreme preset (in MacOS though). Thanks for the screenshot. I saw this one and wondered if modding both would somehow push the difference over the 9% increase Max Tech got. Just to understand the price/performance. |
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marc80
Newbie Boot Camper
Posts: 6
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Post by marc80 on Mar 9, 2021 12:37:26 GMT
like Hydrogen says if you go and wait for M1X or M2 or what ever they are going to call it . you wont be able to go with bootcamp. I cant say about performance without modded and with modded version of 5500M but if you want to play games and use bootcamp go for that setup. And having more VRAM is good and also RAM Agreed, Intel is still the way to go. Just don't know about the value of upgrades as finding benchmarks for these scenarios hasn't been easy. Would have thought they'd be helpful to people weighing up modded drivers for their particular setup. If I can come up with some of my own I'll share them here. |
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marc80
Newbie Boot Camper
Posts: 6
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Post by marc80 on Mar 9, 2021 18:14:41 GMT
Just want to post what I've found so far. ![]() MacBook Pro 6 Core - i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz (2591MHz) x6 - 16GB RAM - AMD 5300M (4080MB) x1 - Flat on desk at ~15 Deg Celsius ambient, fans revving Win 10 Pro/Windows NT 6.2 (build 9200) 64 bit - 20H2 - Unmodded AMD Drivers 26.20.13003.5002 Unigine Heaven 4.0 - Extreme Preset (D3D11, 1600x900 8xAA windowed) - warmed after previous run through 49.3 FPS, Score 1242, Min 28.1 FPS, Max 108.2 FPS Unigine Valley 1.0 - Extreme Preset (D3D11, 1600x900 8xAA windowed) - warmed after previous run through 56.7 FPS, Score 2373, Min 28.4 FPS, Max 107.5 FPS MacBook Pro 6 Core - i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz (2591MHz) x6 - 16GB RAM - AMD 5300M (4080MB) x1 - Flat on desk at ~15 Deg Celsius ambient, fans revving Win 10 Pro/Windows NT 6.2 (build 9200) 64 bit - 20H2 - Modded BCD Adrenaline Red (Feb 2021) Drivers 27.20.14533.1000 Unigine Heaven 4.0 - Extreme Preset (D3D11, 1600x900 8xAA windowed) - warmed after previous run through 51.2 FPS, Score 1289, Min 20.5 FPS, Max 111.4 FPS Unigine Valley 1.0 - Extreme Preset (D3D11, 1600x900 8xAA windowed) - warmed after previous run through 58.1 FPS, Score 2430, Min 31.1 FPS, Max 108.5 FPS From this it would seem the BCD drivers add around 3-4% to the FPS count, though they can lower the minimum FPS considerably. If I get another MBP16 with better specs I'll add these results here. Extrapolating: a 5500m GPU with more VRAM might be expected to add another 8-9% (not sure if this holds for modded drivers?). Reports are that the thermal mod nets another 15-20% regardless of hardware. So altogether maybe a 30% improvement is possible, if I pay up and don't mind the warmer lap. Notes: - RAM was never limited throughout the tests. Don't know about VRAM. - Installed the BCD drivers using the simple Device Manager instructions on the main page, not the instructions in the long video video by Mat HD. - Windows complained that Radeon settings and driver versions do not match. Don't know if this would have had any effect on the results. |
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Post by .:Hydrogen:. on Mar 10, 2021 0:21:05 GMT
theoretically, if people do the thermal pad mod on their 16-inch macbook pros they don't have to use morepowertool and modify the bios.
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