IMO if I will be using a bunch of dongles to achieve the same functionality I'd prefer a slightly thicker, heavier system which includes the dongle functionality. A lot less hassle with little downside.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
2018 MacBook Pro Features 'Fastest SSD Ever' in a Laptop According to Benchmarks
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
OLED won’t be coming to computers any time soon. The burn-in issues would be awful with a computer display because so many elements are always on screen and don’t move. That’s why you can’t buy any type of OLED computer monitor anywhere.
There are quite a few HDR LCD monitors out there. I suspect OS X isn’t ready for HDR, and as of right now there just isn’t enough demand for it.
Not sure what XPS 13 they used, maybe the lowest tier version which costs half as much as a MBP so not an Apples to Apples comparison...., the 9350(2016)/9360(2017)/9370(2018) come with nVME versions, ie Samsung PM951/PM961/PM971 (950/960EVO/970EVO equivalents), PM961 can hit 2GB/s+ and the PM951 can hit 1GB/s+. My sister's refurb XPS13 9350 a 2016 model has a PM961. Pretty sure the PM971 can also hit near 2.5GB/s. I mean even my relatively cheap Inspiron 7577 Gaming unit came with a PM961 which I replaced with a 960 Pro, so I'm pretty sure they used the lowest tier XPS for comparison which is pretty deceptive. I'm sure the MBP 2018 models must be great but this comparison is not.
If you want a proper laptop review Notebookcheck is the one, they are very detailed from calibration to power draw, to temps in various parts of the laptop under idle/load, throttling etc. They usually rate the MBPs well but they do proper comparisons unlike the source here.
As for OLED I see it as more of a transition, it will never truly replace LCDs especially not on laptops, that torch will go to microLEDs. The blue phosphor still has only a fraction of the life of the red/green. You probably don't want a color shift (due to differential weakening of phosphors) in less than two years, even if you don't notice major screen burn in certain areas. Pretty much means you will lose color accuracy vs LCDs. Still remember seeing a guy with 2 phones of the same model one new and one used for a year or so and the colors were slightly off in the older one due to the differential half lives of the phosphors, of course only noticeable due to having a side by side comparison.
If you want a proper laptop review Notebookcheck is the one, they are very detailed from calibration to power draw, to temps in various parts of the laptop under idle/load, throttling etc. They usually rate the MBPs well but they do proper comparisons unlike the source here.
As for OLED I see it as more of a transition, it will never truly replace LCDs especially not on laptops, that torch will go to microLEDs. The blue phosphor still has only a fraction of the life of the red/green. You probably don't want a color shift (due to differential weakening of phosphors) in less than two years, even if you don't notice major screen burn in certain areas. Pretty much means you will lose color accuracy vs LCDs. Still remember seeing a guy with 2 phones of the same model one new and one used for a year or so and the colors were slightly off in the older one due to the differential half lives of the phosphors, of course only noticeable due to having a side by side comparison.
Last edited:
Very much agree. OLED is not meant for computers with so many static images.
Looks like you’re looking at read speeds. The article quotes write speeds
2015 XPS 13 with PM951
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-13-9350-InfinityEdge-Ultrabook-Review.153376.0.html
2018 XPS 13 with PM961. Reviewed in April, 8th Gen Intel i7
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-13-9370-i7-8550U-4K-UHD-Laptop-Review.296596.0.html
Flogging a dead horse at this point. PC OEMs have not emphasized SSD performance, especially in consumer laptops. The fastest ones are very expensive and would blow the parts budget.
Lol! Some people believe Apple are the first to use these processors, and some even believe that Apple has access to faster SSD's than the mainstream, PC world?! Lololol. I guarantee there have been users with the Samsung 970 in their Windows laptops, the DAY those SSD's went on sale. There Apple Kool-aid is so strong with some of these delusional folks. SMH
No, no-one believes that. Nice straw man. I believe the SSDs PC OEMs are mid-tier at best. Sure, nothing stopping PC owners, putting in better ones, but they don’t come free.
This whole discussion is pointless without knowing the configurations and methodology used to produce these results. And what's the point of including a review from late 2015 in comparison to a mid 2018 product?
Apple does have access to faster ssds because they design their own controllers.
Yup, my 2017 Acer I bought last October had the 8th gen CPU.
My only concern now is hardware and software stability/qc for all Macs not just the laptops. I'll say the same for iDevices since those seem to impode on me at the 12 month mark. I'll wait and see what the Fall brings, but my belief that Macs and iDevices are built rock solid has pretty much been flushed.
For anyone who buys a new MBP, I hope the keyboard issues are fixed and they run like a dream.
What mid 2015 product do you believe is being compared? Go ahead and find an XPS from any year with significantly more than >500Mb/s sustained write, never mind 2,500Mb/s. You certainly won’t
Bowing out of the thread at this point. Denial is a helluva drug.
That’s definitely part of it but you can buy off the shelf parts that have similar results. OEMs don’t use them though. They play the usual sticker games of course, 3.Gb/s* NVMe speed!” And those who don’t know any better suck it up. I mean I get it, these things are built to budget. Dell, HP et al. are not a charity and people buying XPS’ by and large aren’t looking for $3k+ laptops.
*NVMe theoretical maximum interface speed. Drive performance may vary
Good point, but the word sustained makes a huge difference, if they mentioned that I wouldn't have minded as the SLC buffer is not typically saturated in typical use. The PM961 or the Toshiba XG5 wouldn't drop to 400 MB/s unless the dynamic SLC buffer was saturated which would be after around maybe a 15-20GB (512GB version) file or continuous transfer of that amount, after that point you are writing directly to the TLC portion until enough of the SLC buffer is cleared. The SM961 obviously being the Pro equivalent wouldn't have that issue though not used often by OEMs. Apple is using the MLC NAND meaning Pro like performance regarding sustained speeds. AS for the XG5 it required a firmware upgrade as it initially had some weird throttling issue it seems before even saturating the SLC buffer, at least in my experience.
Last edited:
A MateBook X Pro with an i7-8550U, MX150 2GB, 16 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD is $1500. A Samsung 970 EVO 2 TB is $800. Total is $2,300 (and you have a spare 512 GB SSD).
An i7 MacBook Pro with a 2 TB SSD is $3,700.
I believe the X1 Carbon is also much much faster but not even on the list, why..?
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-2018-WQHD-HDR-i7-Laptop-Review.284682.0.html
Doesn’t it also matter if there is 2 PCI Lanes or 4 PCI Lanes as well. Remember reading that the Dell XPS only had 2 PCI Lanes where the X1 Carbon had 4 PCI Lanes which affected speeds. Not 100% sure on this but remember reading about something like this. Apparently some how this affects the speeds as well
Uh, this one from your post (#231):
2015 XPS 13 with PM951
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-13-9350-InfinityEdge-Ultrabook-Review.153376.0.html
I don't feel asking for configuration and testing methodology information is being in denial. In fact I think it's a prudent thing for any comparison to provide.
Pretty sure that was regarding the Thunderbolt on the 9350, I believe either the 9360 or 9370 remedied that to 4 lanes.
With the exception of the new 2018 X1 Carbon that is.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-2018-WQHD-HDR-i7-Laptop-Review.284682.0.html
[doublepost=1531583054][/doublepost]
You are right, that was an issue as well. Thunderbolt speeds. Very few could go up 40gbps
This.
[doublepost=1531583726][/doublepost]
The Chinese government spyware is free I presume?
Only MLC NVME drives will sustain these speeds. A lot of drives on the market use TLC which, with a good controller, can use SLC caching to hit pretty high write speeds (maybe 1.5GBps) till that fills up. But the lower end NVME drives are literally no faster writing than SATA if they don’t use SLC caching.
I made a general statement, so sorry if you took offense to it, or assumed I was referencing you. But then again, if the shoe fits, wear it, as they say...
Only problem I had with the article was, not using the word "sustained" as that makes a huge difference for TLC drives after the SLC buffer is saturated after 10-40GB of continuous writes depending on SSD size, making the disparity much much bigger, but they aren't wrong on the MBP's storage having faster writes than the competing laptops.
The 970EVO is a TLC drive the 970 PRO would be the equivalent to the MBP's MLC NAND in terms of sustained performance after 10-40GB+ continous writes. Also with the MBP having soldered NAND it was probably important not to skimp by going to TLC as you can't replace the flash, sustained speeds, longevity-max TBW is also key, hence why they chose MLC.
The 970EVO is a TLC drive the 970 PRO would be the equivalent to the MBP's MLC NAND in terms of sustained performance after 10-40GB+ continous writes. Also with the MBP having soldered NAND it was probably important not to skimp by going to TLC as you can't replace the flash, sustained speeds, longevity-max TBW is also key, hence why they chose MLC.
Last edited:
If you don’t like the facts, throw up a HURR DUR APPLE FANBOIS straw man. Standard SOP around here.