Apple MacBook Pro 15 (Late 2016, 2.7 GHz, 455) Notebook Review

The display is actually a surprise, because contrary to the entry-level model and the high-end spec, which were equipped with the APPA030 panel, this test model uses the APPA031 screen. It is obviously once again a 15.4-inch IPS display with a resolution of 2880x1800 pixels, but Apple seems to use multiple suppliers.

We already know this procedure from many other manufacturers in the mobile segment, but there are often important differences between the panels. This is also the case here, because the APPA031 produces better results in almost all tests. This starts with the luminance, where we can determine almost 570 nits. That the average luminance drops to ~520 nits is a result of the darker upper-right corner, which also affects the brightness distribution (83%). However, you cannot see a difference in practice due to the enormous luminance. The black value is a bit surprising, because it is a bit better at 0.29 cd/m² – despite the higher luminance. This also results in a contrast ratio of more than 1900:1 – only OLED panels are better in this respect. Even the very good 4K display of the old Dell XPS 15 cannot compete with these results. We are already eager to see whether the new XPS 15 9560 might perform better (review soon).

Every model of the current MacBook Pro 15 is a powerful multimedia notebook. All SKUs are equipped with 16 GB RAM and PCIe-SSDs, only the capacity differs from 256 GB up to 2 TB. Users can only customize the quad-core processor as well as the graphics card. Our test model is the mainstream spec, which retails for $2799 in Apple's online store. This model includes a 512 GB SSD and the slightly faster CPU/GPU combination (Core i7-6820HQ and AMD Radeon Pro 455).

As per usual, Apple removes the standard TDP limit and does not restrict the processor – only the temperature is a limiting factor. The benchmark results are therefore good and the processor can maintain its maximum clock in the benchmarks. We also ran a loop of the Cinebench R15 Multi test on macOS, but there are only small fluctuations after more than 80 runs. Only extreme workloads, like Prime95 on Windows, result in processor temperatures of almost 100 °C, where the clock will start to drop a bit. We are still within the Turbo Boost range; throttling is no problem when you only stress the CPU.

Overall, the Core i7-6820HQ is between 6-9% (Single/Multi) faster than the standard i7-6700HQ. The Core i7-6920HQ from the top-spec is another ~6% faster, which is also the case for the new entry-level Kaby Lake chip i7-7700HQ. More benchmarks with the i7-6820HQ and the other processors are available in our Tech section.

Subjectively, the mainstream configuration of the current MacBook Pro 15 does not reveal any performance problems, either. Thanks to the fast SSD and the powerful components, the whole system is very responsive and applications are launched quickly as well. The synthetic PCMark 8 (Boot Camp Windows) supports our impression and ranks the test model between its two siblings.

AMD's Radeon Pro 455 is a mainstream graphics card based on the Polaris architecture. Contrary to the fastest model from the series, the Radeon Pro 460, you only get 786 of the full 1024 shaders and the core clock of the Polaris 11 chip (14 nm) is a bit lower as well at 855 MHz. The memory equipment is similar to the base model of the MBP 15 at 2 GB GDDR5-VRAM (128-bit). The performance of the Radeon Pro 455 should be somewhere between the other two available GPUs.

The performance of the AMD Radeon Pro 455 on Windows 10 is often not sufficient for the combination of the Full HD resolution and high graphics details. You will have to reduce some details in challenging titles to ensure smooth gameplay, like Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3 or Battlefield 1. Within the Apple models, the Radeon Pro 455 is between its siblings, but it is much closer to the Radeon Pro 450 due to the low amount of VRAM. If you plan to play a lot, you should definitely get the more powerful Radeon Pro 460. The GeForce GTX 1050 is once again much more powerful and can even handle challenging titles at high details. A big problem for Windows 10 gamers is the mediocre driver support for the graphics card. The regular driver launches from AMD do not support the Radeon Pro GPUs in the MacBook Pros. A manual installation was not successful, either. This means the GPU cannot use its full potential when you use Windows / Boot Camp and there will also be problems with upcoming titles in the future.

The macOS gaming performance is, as usual, much lower compared to Windows 10. Ported games like Tomb Raider do not perform as well as their Windows 10 counterparts.

The fan behavior of our test model basically does not differ from the other models. The fans are always active, but you can only hear a slight murmur in very quiet environments. They react to load very late and increase their speed seamlessly. A normal 3DMark06 run was not enough to increase their speed. Sustained workloads (multiple benchmark runs and The Witcher 3) result in a slightly higher noise at ~38 dB(A) compared to the other models. The maximum noise is also a bit higher (48 dB(A)). This is probably a result of the Boot Camp driver, because the indicated BIOS version differs from the other test models.

The integrated GPU is only available in combination with macOS, so we also performed the idle measurements with it. We used the regular Windows tools for the load scenarios. All in all, there are only small deviations from the other two models, and the 87-Watt power adapter is once again the limiting factor under maximum load.

Our third test model also manages the advertised battery runtime of 10 hours. The 76-Wh battery in our MacBook Pro 15 lasts for more than 10.5 hours in our Wi-Fi test at an adjusted luminance of 150 nits, and it even beats the other models by a couple of minutes. You can expect little more than 50 minutes when you really stress the system.