Every 15" MBP I have owned & used has run hot, when used as intended. Skylake will change nothing as Apple will undoubtedly prioritise thin & light over productivity & utility by reducing the Notebooks thermal headroom to the absolute minimum. As I stated to a friend this is Apple`s best and we have few if any alternatives, other than Windows based hardware. Apple fully takes advantage with the current 15" MBP dGPU being absolutely sub par for a $2500 system.
The bigger issue is that many rush to defend Apple, yet the Windows space a similar specified Notebook would be completely disregarded at this price point. I don't specifically think the 15" MBP is a poor quality Notebook, equally it could be so much more for those that need such levels of performance in a portable form factor, bottom line the 15" MBP is vastly overpriced. If more of us demanded more of Apple and voted with our $$$$ I have little doubt Apple would respond positively, sadly we don't...
Q-6
rMBP design is about 4 years old. Apple is a design driven company, not just hardware. It doesn't care about the latest and greatest and specs (even if it comes out with the latest and greatest, the hardware becomes old within a month or two....Moore's law still applies). It forces manufacturers to fit things in
their schedule, not the other way around.
Dell, HP and all these other companies have like 500 versions of their pc's and they update specs all the time, and nowadays specs don't mean anything.
There is
nothing that you can do on your Dell that I can't do on my 2014 rMBP. CPU and GPU upgrades are so minuscule nowadays, it doesn't really matter. This is Apple's ideology and has always been that way. This is why when you go to any store, you see other 3rd rate companies copying Apple's design. Everything now looks like a chiclet keyboard or rMBP chasis.
When Apple comes out with a new design next year, others will copy it in a year or two. And so on.
The industry has changed a lot, so Apple is trying to adapt too.
My rMBP doesn't really get that hot, if I'm browsing the web, watching netflix, etc. But once things like Flash get used, it does become much hotter. No doubt about it. And not counting rendering and other heavy tasks. But your Dell's will do the same. The only difference is the Dells are plastic piece of crap, with terrible battery, finicky OS, etc. etc.
I'm really tired of this discussion. Apple just makes better products and we are trying to help the OP get a rMBP for the lowest price since he/she is a student. It's better to have a 1 year old rMBP than a brand new Dell just because it has a newer GPU...the overall experience is just better on the Mac side.
Why are you defending Dell on a Mac forum anyway? There are literally hundreds if not thousands of PC forums. The OP specifically asked for a Mac not an ugly Dell.
FWIW both new XPS 13 & 15 have extremely solid run times on battery and run significantly cooler than equivalent rMBP`s, equally I would shy away form Dell unless on a business contract as I agree their after-sales support is atrocious.
