Other World Computing posted this picture on their blog showing a MacBook Pro with Retina Display hooked up to a pair of iMacs serving as Thunderbolt displays and a third monitor via HDMI. This setup powers four screens with a total of 15,680,000 pixels.

The writer of the post, OWC Mike, seemed impressed with the performance of the MacBook Pro:
- "Moving images and media didn’t create any lag and we were able to play video on all four displays simultaneously."

Apple officially supports hooking three monitors into the Retina MacBook Pro, noting in the Thunderbolt ports FAQ in its Support Knowledge Base:
- "MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) can support an HDMI-compatible device on its HDMI port while also using two Thunderbolt displays."

This makes the Retina MacBook Pro the first Mac -- other than a tower-based workstation like the Mac Pro -- to natively power four displays simultaneously.

Mr. Stringfellow, still remember me man? how is everything?

We used to challenge each other on xbox live back in 06? I actually just got myself the 2012 11" air i7/2.0/8GB/256. Pretty happy with my purchase since i have upgraded from my core duo black book.

Think that was because of unoptimized apps ...think ml will makes it better

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nex...-display-review

this review is till date the best review
check it out haters and fans

To be quite honest, the hardware in the rMBP isn’t enough to deliver a consistently smooth experience across all applications. At 2880 x 1800 most interactions are smooth but things like zooming windows or scrolling on certain web pages is clearly sub-30fps. At the higher scaled resolutions, since the GPU has to render as much as 9.2MP, even UI performance can be sluggish. There’s simply nothing that can be done at this point - Apple is pushing the limits of the hardware we have available today, far beyond what any other OEM has done. Future iterations of the Retina Display MacBook Pro will have faster hardware with embedded DRAM that will help mitigate this problem. But there are other limitations: many elements of screen drawing are still done on the CPU, and as largely serial architectures their ability to scale performance with dramatically higher resolutions is limited.

Some elements of drawing in Safari for example aren’t handled by the GPU. Quickly scrolling up and down on the AnandTech home page will peg one of the four IVB cores in the rMBP at 100%.

The GPU has an easy time with its part of the process but the CPU’s workload is borderline too much for a single core to handle. Throw a more complex website at it and things get bad quickly. Facebook combines a lot of compressed images with text - every single image is decompressed on the CPU before being handed off to the GPU. Combine that with other elements that are processed on the CPU and you get a recipe for choppy scrolling.

To quantify exactly what I was seeing I measured frame rate while scrolling as quickly as possible through my Facebook news feed in Safari on the rMBP as well as my 2011 15-inch High Res MacBook Pro. While last year’s MBP delivered anywhere from 46 - 60 fps during this test, the rMBP hovered around 20 fps (18 - 24 fps was the typical range).

Remember at 2880 x 1800 there are simply more pixels to push and more work to be done by both the CPU and the GPU. It’s even worse in those applications that have higher quality assets, the CPU now has to decode images at 4x the resolution of what it’s used to. Future CPUs will take this added workload into account, but it’ll take time to get there.

The good news is Mountain Lion provides some relief. At WWDC Apple mentioned the next version of Safari is ridiculously fast, but it wasn’t specific about why. It turns out that Safari leverages Core Animation in Mountain Lion and more GPU accelerated as a result. Facebook is still a challenge because of the mixture of CPU decoded images and a standard web page, but the experience is a bit better. Repeating the same test as above I measured anywhere from 20 - 30 fps while scrolling through Facebook on ML’s Safari.

Whereas I would consider the rMBP experience under Lion to be borderline unacceptable, everything is significantly better under Mountain Lion. Don’t expect buttery smoothness across the board, you’re still asking a lot of the CPU and GPU, but it’s a lot better.

It’s because all of this that I’m doing something I’ve never done before in an Apple review. We rarely give out Editor’s Choice awards at AnandTech, and I’m quite possibly the stingiest purveyor of them. I feel that being overly generous with awards diminishes their value. In this case, all of the effort Apple has put into bringing a Retina Display to the MacBook Pro is deserving of one.

I’m giving the MacBook Pro with Retina Display our bronze Editor’s Choice award. Making it the first Mac to ever receive one. It would have been a silver had the software story been even stronger (iWork, Mountain Lion, Office and Photoshop being ready at launch would have been a feat worth rewarding). And it would have been a gold had Apple been able to deliver all of that but without sacrificing end-user upgradability. Which brings me to my final point.

I accept the fact that current mobile memory and storage form factors preclude the creation of the thinnest and lightest form factors. But I would like to see Apple push for the creation of industry standard storage and memory form factors that wouldn’t hinder the design of notebooks like the Retina Display equipped Macbook Pro. Apple has already demonstrated that it has significant pull with component vendors, this should be possible. The motivation behind doing so is no different from the motivation driving the use of Retina Displays: for the betterment of the end user experience.

Hi, I have been reading the discussion above.
It's mentioned that MBP RD can only achieve 20 to 30frame rate compared to non RD MBP at 48-60frame per second.... Does it happen only if you are using the highest display resolution?
Do you have this issue if you run your MBP RD at the Best For Retina Display resolution.?
Thanks

It's quite disheartening to read that non Retina Display MBP is better then the RD MBP

Thanks for feedback.

I'm new to MBP and I'm planning to book one in July or August. Hope to make the right decision whether to go for RD or not

read many reviews, but I'm really confused.
Apple added four times the pixels, but why does it still shrink when its at 2880x1800? :s
shouldn't the icon have more detail?

+1

Not EVERYONE has a RDMBP yet, those who do, good. But we want to discuss about it and its pros and cons. Not see the wallpapers and videos and it supports. Because that's not the only thing thats going to judge weather we buy it or not.

But some are just excited with their new toy I guess.

Anyone tried installing windows on rmbp?

Sorry for asking....wat is MDs?...medical degrees...medical devices?..mat despatches?....
In another world....just bought the new MBA 13 inch...seems to be lot faster compared to my old mba...

bro, this is already full scale at best retina right? 

okay, so in which setting does the Safari scrolling lags?

Got the 4gb...well...this is my portable laptop anyways...used specifically for powerpoint presentation and word documents...so 8gb is too overpowered for me...oh ya....does macs have any app to convert any documents formats to pdf? Like windows got this program called cute pdf writer? Any help will be much appreciated...

Thanks..what I meant actually is a virtual printer apps whereby when you select this as a default printer...it will convert the output automatically into pdf doc...does mac have those apps? thanks in advance.

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Added on June 24, 2012, 1:58 pm
Thanks...

That scenario might be practical if you want to do presentation. But in my case, its the audiences that wanted my presentation for their references. So i'm thinking of converting it to pdf for copyright purposes. Will try both of your suggestion and see how it goes.

Lol i just realize that rmbp doesnt have the optical drive..i mean i knew it already bt didnt give much thought bout it
Only when im thinking of installing window on it with dvd i bought for my mbp late 2011 , thn i suddenly realize  how the f*** im going to use that dvd in the upcoming rmbp

I'm dilemma in choosing either MBA 13" 4GB or 8GB RAM and 128GB or 256GB SSD. I don't have heavy collection of media to store, but I definitely need at least 10-20GB partition for Windows. The applications that I use mainly Web Browsing, MS Office sometimes photo editing using Adobe Photoshop. The addition of RM300 for upgrade to 8GB RAM I think it's still reasonable but the cost of RM900 upgrading the SSD to 256GB is really need to think more about it.