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Apple launches new MacBook Pros Touch Bar Only starting @$1799
- Thread starter Vanillalite
- Start date
Well, you're essentially saying that Apple should redesign its notebooks every year when Intel comes out with new processors that are worse-performing per watt.
It's obvious why Apple would prefer to roll its own processors so they can't be shafted by Intel in running scared mode. It's a continuing trend (like worse integrated graphics on successor chips) they'd be fools to ignore and pretend that it's just a one-off thing.
This doesn't absolve Apple of not building more tolerances into their design, people have been talking about that for years, but it's ridiculous to fault Apple entirely here.
Again, this will only motivate Apple to go even thinner and make cooling even more inadequate than it already is. ARM isn't a solution and neither is 10nm. The only solution is for Apple to get different priorities.
I hate to keep being one of those people who always brings up Steve Jobs but I remember the keynote for the Intel switch regarded that the main reason for G5 to Intel Core Duo was indeed performance per watt.
OP
OP
You think it's because it's a 45w chip? My 2016 MBP 15" has a 45w chip in it and it doesn't throttle in any appreciable way. It really doesn't even get that hot unless I'm running the GPU hard at the same time.
Did Apple design my laptop to handle a 45w chip properly in 2016 and now they magically can't do it in 2018? I don't think so. I think it's a case of this new i9 chip running particularly hot.
Now that's not a good situation for Apple to release it like this, and I'm not saying they don't deserve some blame, but their laptop has demonstrated it can handle a 45w CPU. Calling it a "shitty" cooling design is ridiculous. Do you own one?
And what do you guys want me to say? It's the truth. Apple's obsession with thinness and a mediocre cooling solution lead to this.
What would have been the most decent thing to do? Not release a new lineup with chips that overheat in your current casing, or at least not release one with the i9.
If you think that's not the case, then you guys are lost.
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Do I need one? When it's demonstrated that it can't even handle the base clock of the chip?
And yes, it's shitty if, as I said, can't handle base clocks.
And, no, I don't fully think it's because of the 45w tdp.
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So you don't have experience with one but you're gonna go out there and say it's just a shit cooling design and rail on Apple post after post? Ok.
If you don't even care about this machine why are you posting so much shit about it? I'm not sure what we're trying to tell you is actually getting through.
And what else? What's your problem? The cooling solution is shit for these chips, no way around it. It was decent for the older models, that I won't deny, and if you search this thread, you'll see me changing my perception of the cooling solution in last years model.
Or is it that I can't have an opinion because I don't have one? That's bullshit.
And I didn't know calling the cooling solution shit (which it is) means throwing so much shit. If anything, is the only complaint I have towards Apple notebooks, besides some minor issues with the keyboard (which I have used). Oh, and maybe ports, but I have adapted to the dongle future already so it's a non issue.
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They make it sound like you (or Apple) could possibly in the future turn the fans on more often to get better performance.
You could definitely undervolt the CPU to get better performance.
Unlikely. Unless the bill it is a "macbook retro" and bring back more ports.
If rumours are true aren't they planning on switching to their own chips at some point
This has been a issue with Macbooks for awhile now. My 2015 would push 70-80c just watching youtube videos and would hit 105c under heavy load before it throttled back. I fixed some of that issue with opening it up and replacing the shit tier paste Apple uses with quality stuff. They also dont allow the fans to spin faster than 1500rpm until the cpu hits north of 70c. Even at 90+ new macbook fans dont hit max speed.
Also the heatsink and pipes inside these Macbook pro's are a joke.
Also the heatsink and pipes inside these Macbook pro's are a joke.
Weight and design. A thinner laptop is a lighter laptop, and a lighter laptop is more portable. And a thinner laptop is sleeker. After all, design is a major component of Apple's brand.
Unfortunately Apple's obsession with thinness hasn't yet extended to the bezels on its laptops and desktops. That would be a real win.
It's really ironic that years ago when I purchased my first MBP there wasn't any Windows laptop on the market that offered a better deal. Of course many machines back then are more powerful at the same price point, but none of them managed to strike a good balance between portability, power, battery life, and overall quality. It's a totally different story now. I can hardly go back to Windows now but it's getting a little difficult for me to justify a $3099 purchase knowing of the throttling situation and the fact that XPS 15, along with other quality Windows laptops, exist. Maybe I should just wait for the non-TB model refresh and save the rest of money for my next desktop PC :(
If this is indeed as general an issue as suggested I imagine Apple will update the firmware to partially address it. Won't be a total fix but more aggressively ramping the fans would make a significant difference.
Blaming Intel really? I didn't know Intel held a gun to Apple's head and forced them to use these processors in inadequate cooling solution.
https://9to5mac.com/2018/07/18/how-macbook-pro-throttles-with-final-cut-pro-x/
I love the first paragraph in the article you linked:
It's especially funny after tests showed the new Macbooks perform quite a bit worse than comparable products by their competitors.
It's true for the most part. They might not be "scrutinized" more but if this was a non-Apple product the amount of youtube videos and blog posts being written about the issue would be far less. Or at least the amount of traffic to said articles would be less.
I don't care about thinness. I care about weight. I would love for my MBP to be .5 to 1lb lighter.
Yeah, for sure.
Right now they have three kinds of laptops, the MacBook (one), the Air, and the "Pro." If they stick with Intel for the next 3 years, I can see this:
1. ultraportable line gains some ports, gets a little faster, combines the air and MacBook one into one product.
2. The current pro line becomes the "portable get things done' system that works for most folks.
3. A thicker, real pro workhorse machine arrives starting at $3500, with more significantly more cooling, 32gb/1tb starting specs, closer in spirit to the current iMac Pro.
2 or 3 will get a new name, or these are 1. Air, 2. MacBook, 3. Pro.
Or it'll be time for ARM Macs, with the growing pains justified by pushing all the blame for these on Intel ("we designed against what Intel told us they'd deliver, then Intel repeatedly missed their schedule, so we've taken it all in house" something along those lines.)
For now, I'm leaning towards getting a 13" quad with 16gb RAM and 1tb and if I need better performance than that in the next couple years, I'll look to iMac or Mac Pro. Regardless, I'm waiting for this line to show up in the Refurb store, maybe the 2018 iMacs will exist by then.
I'm certain it's a management problem and not the testing department. Unrealistic priorities.
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There are plenty of examples of engineering fuck-ups, even cooling-related fuck-ups, all through the Jobs-era as well.
Tim Cook makes no engineering or design decisions, anyway.
Thanks! I think it's pretty interesting to see the progression Intel's chips have taken as Apple's Touch Bar chassis design is decently suited for cooling Intel's previous chips. NotebookCheck's reviews of the 2016 and 2017 Touch Bar MBPs all note that there was no throttling (albeit internally they ran hot) as Skylake to Kaby Lake R operated within Apple's specs: dissapation of… let's say 50 W worth of heat to accommodate 45 W processors. Then Intel gets desperate with the competition from AMD, comes along to OEMs handing them chips that can draw up to 105 W of power! That is far beyond the expectations OEMs had when designing their ever thinner ultrabooks as Intel was supposed to be pursuing lower power expenditures, not all of a sudden be raising them. (There's a nice, detailed technical analysis over on Reddit about all this.)
This most recent generation of ultrabooks is some cynical marketing ploy. Intel knows that they have to remain competitive in the eyes of shareholders and consumers who are looking for Intel to stay ahead of AMD, so Intel decides to shove in 2 extra power hungry cores to stave off the appearence of stagnation. Likewise, Apple has to maintain the appearance of competivieness and provide the "latest and greatest" new processors in their products. Both companies know that their typical customers are not hardware geeks and probably not going to notice the pitfalls of these particular hardware choices. There was no way any laptop manufactuer was going to "regress" to a thicker design as more power efficient chips are right around the corner.
This whole debacle is just a small speedbump to Intel and Apple in the big scheme of things. If Intel doesn't fuck up their timeline again (they already fired their CEO over all this and some other fuck ups), Apple and other laptop manufacturers are looking ahead to Intel's 10 nm chips that will return power usage back to normal levels and probably give a nice performance increase to boot. By this time next year, reviewers are probably going to be ooing and awwing at the "dramatic" speed increases from Intel's more power efficent chips and promptly forget that there was ever a problem to begin with. Apple will then design a new, thinner chassis for 2020 that's just thick enough to handle these more power efficent 10 nm chips with the expectation that Intel is back on the quest towards further power effciency as they pursue the shrink to 7 nm chips.
As others have mentioned the rumors, Intel's recent unreliability to hit key product milestones and their penchant to concoct ridiculous stopgap solutions has probably prompted Apple to pursue in-house hardware solutions so that they don't have to have their hardware design beholden to the fluctuating specs of a third party.
I think you're right Apple is unlikely to go back to substantially thicker notebooks, but I also don't think they're going to continue whittling away at it so consistently either, at least on their pro line. For the people who argue Apple simply wasn't listening to its pro customers enough, Apple's rethinking of the Mac Pro, release of the iMac Pro, and creation of a dedicated pro workflow team all seem like evidence they realize that they pushed too far and that their really nice but heavily niche pro products weren't serving a large enough segment. But insofar as turning things around, there was no way they were going to change things up as fast as people want.
The idea that Apple has always pursued thinness above all else is likewise an extreme oversimplification—look at the iPhone X, which is the thickest iPhone since the 5, or the iPad, which has remained roughly the same thickness for years since the Air. Hell, the one Apple product I think in its ideal form is thinner is the Apple Watch, and that's 10% thicker than its original incarnation.
If the 2019 MacBook Pros are substantially different, I doubt the proximate cause will have been this batch of bad chips from Intel; the plans would have already been laid, the same way Apple had its plans for the TB3 models significantly before 2016.
Yep. I think outlets have reported that won't start happening until 2020 though.
The screw ups are getting bigger and more inexplicable. A lot of it I think has to do with Apple under-engineering designs and not putting in the requisite components for cost reasons. Under Jobs, most screw ups were related to overly ambitious designs. There's no reason for a well established design like the MacBook Pro have overheating problems like this.
Tim Cook does implement organizational structures, and it is clear he is not putting enough resources into their engineering teams. Cook is also nearly incapable of taking chances, and since he took over the level and amount of innovation has really dropped off. He is definitely a good finance guy, and that's why Apple has stayed so profitable. However, this won't last much longer if Apple doesn't reform itself.
You missed the "Windtunnel" PowerMac G4s where they totally failed to build an adequate cooling solution that the machines became the loudest Macs ever; people were constructing quiet boxes to try and cut down on the noise. Or the G5s, which were prone to overheating iMacs in their original incarnation or else shipped with liquid cooling that leaked everywhere. Or the original MacBook Air, which thermally throttled so often one of its cores would shut off entirely. I'm not really sure what makes those "overly ambitious designs" when the problem with these chips is that Intel failed to deliver on promised roadmaps and created a chip that draws way more than rated TDP. Wouldn't that have made Apple overly ambitious for not building in more headroom for these sorts of possible problems?
A chance-averse Time Cook wouldn't have okayed the 2013 Mac Pro. Yeah, it ended up being an evolutionary dead end, but you can't expect people to 100% be correct with their chances. The possibility of failure is right there in the definition of the word.
People arguing "this wouldn't have happened under Jobs" are almost always working with a very selective reading of Apple under his watch.
Even with the throttling, these are still the fastest MBPs ever right? It sucks they are a little slower than comparable Windows laptops, but unless you are doing 3D rendering or intense video editing I bet most people buying these laptops won't notice. UNLESS the fans are constantly kicking on? I hate loud fan noise.
I don't get their obsession with lower travel keyboards though. Love my Surface Book 2 keyboard. I'll take my better keyboard + touchscreen over Apple's superior trackpad + touch bar.
I don't get their obsession with lower travel keyboards though. Love my Surface Book 2 keyboard. I'll take my better keyboard + touchscreen over Apple's superior trackpad + touch bar.
Yeah I agree with you on the how much better things used to be under Jobs being some selective memory.
Jobs definitely saved Apple and he gets his props but it wasn't like every year he was there they were making an iPhone or iPad. And Apple has come up with some very cool tech in the past few years including the Apple pen, 5K iMac (it was the only 5K game in town for awhile), and the air pods. They have definitely had some stinkers and the throttling sucks, but let's not act like there were not similar mistakes in the past (as you point out).
More than anything else I think other companies are catching up to Apple. And that to me as a consumer is a great thing. Apple is not the only game in town anymore for interesting designs for laptops and desktops (see Lenovo, MS surface, etc). And there are a ton of high quality high end phones now. I think overall that is good for everyone, except maybe Apple stock holders but no one should ever care about them.
The difference is that in this case they were just making a simple update to a laptop, and totally failed to address the basic thermal problems. This isn't some new design where mistakes can be excused. This is a engineering failure, plain and simple.
Apple hadn't made a serious desktop Mac for years before the Mac Pro. It was clearly a marketing or design stunt, with very little consequences to the company whether it succeeded or failed.
There were plenty of things wrong at Apple under Jobs, and no sensible person is going to excuse them. But at least there was honest innovation, real engineering prowess, product focus, etc. Those things that are badly missing under Tim Cook.
Yeah, my 2016 15in macbook pro would heat up like crazy with just internet browsing or watching youtube. Even if I hooked up an external monitor, but had nothing running it would still get really hot.
Rumors (huge grain of salt) are that 10nm is still currently a dumpster fire for Intel, at least from a wafer yield perspective. Depending on how willing Intel is to eat that economic pain or quickly fix all of that manufacturing trouble, or we might see more 14nm+++. My expectations are low since Intel has been stumbling on 10nm for years now.
Unfortunately the only way that can happen is if you wait 5 years, or accept a series of drawbacks, like
- Plastic construction
- Passive cooling
- Half the battery
- Way less hardware
The cheeky answer here is the Macbook, but it's basically what I said above. Apple didn't go plastic, but it's a smaller frame, smaller battery, smaller screen, and just the bare minimum of hardware for the experience. I totally agree with you though - it's not really thickness of frame but lightness that makes the carry experience so good.
My opinion, every time, is that the stock CPU is best. The upgrades never seem to actually offer a noticeable enough benefit for the cost, and it's money you can just save on the timeline towards your next laptop. Of course, if you find a refurb or have a discount, well, knock yourself out.
The desktop version of the I9 CPU is a very power hungry and runs at really high temps. I'm positive Apple knew about the cpu throttle so I don't understand why they put it in such a thin laptop without upgrading the cooling solution. I imagine anyone going for such an expensive CPU would trade a slightly larger laptop for the advertised performance. We can blame intel for making the cpu but at the end of the day Apple is the one selling the laptop so they should be blamed for putting it on the market. Heat is probably the number 1 killer of laptops so I wonder how these machines will hold up in the next 2-3 years.