2018 MacBook Pro Features 'Fastest SSD Ever' in a Laptop According to Benchmarks

[ROGmaster]

Apple was one of th first to use SSD, also the first pcie based ones. The fact Apple is using pcie based ssd, the fastest around is an advantage. It is simply tastes, and it is the faster SSD in a notebook.
The only flawed test is dirt 3 since it use OpenGL and not Metal.

Simple fact is many Windows laptops also support NVME SSDs and would perform similar to a Macbook in read/write speeds.
Also another simple fact is many Windows laptops support 2 divers( either 2 NVME drives, or a combinations of NVME and Sata SSD's).
So those guys should have tested Windows laptops with NVME SSD's against the Macbook.
It doesn't really matter all that much because somebody paying that much money for laptops should know the differences between Sata and NVME drives and how much the extra hundreds of dollars for the Macbook gives them in the end.

 

[Feenician]

Simple fact is many Windows laptops also support NVME SSDs and would perform similar to a Macbook in read/write speeds.
Also another simple fact is many Windows laptops support 2 divers( either 2 NVME drives, or a combinations of NVME and Sata SSD's).
So those guys should have tested Windows laptops with NVME SSD's against the Macbook.
It doesn't really matter all that much because somebody paying that much money for laptops should know the differences between Sata and NVME drives and how much the extra hundreds of dollars for the Macbook gives them in the end.

These were NVMe in the PCs. It’s been stated and refuted many times. NVMe is an interface, it doesn’t speak to the performance of the drive.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ng-to-benchmarks.2127397/page-6#post-26243488

The OEMs of the PCs in question are just putting crappy drives in them. It’s an inevitable result of competing on price.

 

[fairuz]

Hahaha ok. The SSD is faster. Now it is worth the 50% price increase over a pc with the same or better specs!

A 1799 computer without a dedicated GPU is ridiculous. But hey it’s got a faster SSD so that should make it up for the GPU.

I care about the SSD way more than the GPU, and I'm willing to bet most consumers do too.

Edit: I mean most are fine with the iGPU. "Worth the price" depends on how much money you have, but the dGPU is worse than worthless to anyone who never needs it. Adds weight, heat, and another thing that can break. Many laptops with dGPUs, including the high end 2012 15" rMBP, run crazy hot and have issues with graphics switching.

 

[ROGmaster]

Can anyone please explain whether this even makes a difference in real life usage. My laptop has an inferior SSD to my top tier gaming desktop but there is absolutely zero difference in real world usage/responsiveness.

In most cases it doesn't make a difference in general performance.
The biggest advantage with Windows laptops it that you can upgrade the storage to a faster higher capacity one down the road. This is something you can't do with a macbook.

 

[fairuz]

Isn’t APFS the cause of these speeds?

They're probably not copying files but opening a file pointer and writing to it, in which case no. Otherwise, this is fake news. AFPS should have nothing to do with it if these are legit benchmarks.
[doublepost=1531724422][/doublepost]

These are the type of things Apple haters / Windows PC fanboys overlook when determining the true value of an Apple device.

Yes, and Apple usually leads the way in SSD speed. The number of times I've seen someone boast about a budget build with SSDs reading at 300MB/s...

 

[Feenician]

I care about the SSD way more than the GPU, and I'm willing to bet most consumers do too.

For my usage, mostly running Linux VMs, occasionally some Windows ones if my customer is insane, the 32Gb and fast SSD is top priority. Even the 32Gb is just a nice to have for me. Generally 3x3Gb VMs is good enough in the POC phase, but more certainly wouldn’t hurt. GPU is barely relevant to me. Of course, that’s not the case for everyone.

In most cases it doesn't make a difference in general performance.
The biggest advantage with Windows laptops it that you can upgrade the storage to a faster higher capacity one down the road. This is something you can do with a macbook.

Whether it makes a difference is very much workload dependent. Upgrading with “Windows laptops” is pretty broad brushstrokes. Good luck ungluing a Surface Book 2. However, those you can you upgrade, it’s good news since the OEMs tend to cheap out.

 

[fairuz]

In most cases it doesn't make a difference in general performance.
The biggest advantage with Windows laptops it that you can upgrade the storage to a faster higher capacity one down the road. This is something you can do with a macbook.

Too bad there's no good and authoritative way to migrate all your Windows stuff over when you switch disks.

Lack of upgradable storage in MBP is annoying, though. The 2015 and earlier ones at least had an SD slot, so you could add semi-permanent extra storage with a microSD card. I put another 128GiB in mine for things that don't need to be fast.

 

[Mildredop]

This is something you can do with a macbook.

By why would you want to upgrade the SSD in a MacBook if it has the fastest ever?

 

[chucker23n1]

The biggest advantage with Windows laptops it that you can upgrade the storage to a faster higher capacity one down the road. This is something you can do with a macbook.

Plenty of Windows laptops won’t let you upgrade.

 

[ROGmaster]

Plenty of Windows laptops won’t let you upgrade.

Most of them do let you upgrade the storage.
None of the listed Windows laptops in this article have soldered SSD's, not even the Microsoft Surface book 2(although it's very difficult to replace the SSD in this machine).
[doublepost=1531735581][/doublepost]

By why would you want to upgrade the SSD in a MacBook if it has the fastest ever?

Capacity.
Or yeah you pay right from the start a huge amount for a Macbook with more storage capacity.

 

[LordVic]

That's my main gripe about the article as well. That, and the fact that no specific models of anything - GPU, CPU, SSD, RAM - are ever mentioned in the Laptop Mag post.

The generalized results look good to the general public, but a "pro"-class device benchmarked in such ways needs way more data.

The article is purposely misleading and reads more of an Apple advertisement than fact based reporting. But that's par for the course here.

And yes, based on those speeds, it appears that they're comparing to SATA SSD based devices, and even if that's what they're doing, the numbers are still even off. Something is fishy with these numbers. I've tested a few laptops that are even older than this years models with SATA SSD's and they generally get closer to the 400-500mbps of the SATA III Interface.

This doesn't also account that most of the devices listed now come for 2018 with NVME PCI-E options, at far cheaper prices than what Apple is touting they are worth. (The base i5 is the only 2018 model currently listed without the PCI-E SSD, so i have to doubt the original article is using 2018 models)

They're not even comparing like to likes. EG: Dell XPS 13" laptop is an ultrabook. The 2018 MBPro is a workstation laptop. Sure the based 13" XPS comes with a SATA SSD, but it's the only one. all other 2018 models now are PCI-E.

this test needs to provide their "variables". what are the specs of each device tested. Based off just the numbers / end results, I'm calling ******** on the result as ANYBODY who knows systems and systems building know these numbers are competely out of whack from reality

 

[chucker23n1]

They're not even comparing like to likes. EG: Dell XPS 13" laptop is an ultrabook. The 2018 MBPro is a workstation laptop.

By what definition is the 2018 MBP not an "ultrabook"? They have the same class of CPU, size, weight, rough assortment of ports, …

 

[LordVic]

nd XPS. I know that Latitude is corporate, Vostro is SMB/SOHO, Inspiron is ?, Precision is Pro, G-Series is Gamer and XPS is Performance, but which higher specc’d series is the best or most appropriate to compare with Apple?

Best way to look at it:

XPS - Consumer ultrabook
Inspiron - Fleet corporate / Lower / mid end.
Latitude - Corporate fleet and Workstation class
Precision - Corporate and high end workstation
G series - Gamer editions of some of the above product line.
Vostro appears to be gone.

In comparison to Apple? this will depend on which product.

The XPS = Air (Based on Intel's 15w platform)
the Latitude and Precision = MBPro (Based on Intel's 25w platform)
Doesn't appear to be any competition from Dell for the MacBook (Based on the Core series)


as for desktops? that's a completely different comparison entirely. One that Apple doesn't compete with anymore
[doublepost=1531745450][/doublepost]

By what definition is the 2018 MBP not an "ultrabook"? They have the same class of CPU, size, weight, rough assortment of ports, …

yeah. Thanks for the correction. the 13" MacBook Pro does use the ULV 15w i5-8259U or i7-8559U. my mistake on the CPU front. These are in fact Ultrabook based CPU options.

it's the 15" MacBook pros that use the higher end, ~25w CPU's that are not Ultrabook or comparable to the XPS line.

 

[chucker23n1]

yeah. Thanks for the correction. the 13" MacBook Pro does use the ULV 15w i5-8259U or i7-8559U. my mistake on the CPU front. These are in fact Ultrabook based CPU options.

it's the 15" MacBook pros that use the higher end, ~25w CPU's that are not Ultrabook or comparable to the XPS line.

The non-Touch Bar 13-inch uses 15W Kaby Lake (7xxx) parts; the Touch Bar 13-inch uses 28W Coffee Lake parts.

The 15-inch uses 45W Coffee Lake parts — just as the 15-inch XPS does.

They're quite comparable.

 

[aGreenPlum]

Hahaha ok. The SSD is faster. Now it is worth the 50% price increase over a pc with the same or better specs!

A 1799 computer without a dedicated GPU is ridiculous. But hey it’s got a faster SSD so that should make it up for the GPU.

£1,800 to upgrade to a 2TB SSD, too bad you can't upgrade the SSD yourself and replace with a 2TB Samsung 970 EVO with very similar performance for £600. But it's Apple so I'm sure their SSD will be better than any other SSD on the market...

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sams...-3.0-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-hd-23q-sa.html

 

[Zdigital2015]

Which is still way more information than what Apply provides.

Apple states what to expect for read and write speeds of it's flash storage on the detail page for the MacBook Pro because it is an important part of the computer itself. I have yet to see Dell publishing those particular specifications on their website. They do disclose what Wi-Fo

Best way to look at it:

XPS - Consumer ultrabook
Inspiron - Fleet corporate / Lower / mid end.
Latitude - Corporate fleet and Workstation class
Precision - Corporate and high end workstation
G series - Gamer editions of some of the above product line.
Vostro appears to be gone.

In comparison to Apple? this will depend on which product.

The XPS = Air (Based on Intel's 15w platform)
the Latitude and Precision = MBPro (Based on Intel's 25w platform)
Doesn't appear to be any competition from Dell for the MacBook (Based on the Core series)


as for desktops? that's a completely different comparison entirely. One that Apple doesn't compete with anymore
[doublepost=1531745450][/doublepost]

yeah. Thanks for the correction. the 13" MacBook Pro does use the ULV 15w i5-8259U or i7-8559U. my mistake on the CPU front. These are in fact Ultrabook based CPU options.

it's the 15" MacBook pros that use the higher end, ~25w CPU's that are not Ultrabook or comparable to the XPS line.

Thanks for the clarification on Dell's naming/tier with their different platforms. I honestly think they could eliminate a couple of these and clean up their product lineup a bit, but I digress. I believe they do not because the less tech-savvy customers look for these names when purchasing and become upset and/or confused when they cannot find what they want easily. How else can one explain the success of the HP Pavilion series.

You are correct, Apple does not have comparable desktop (SFF, mini-tower or full-tower) in its lineup anymore with which to compare with an PC OEMs.

If I may correct an error with your description of Intel's CPUs:

• The non-Touch Bar 13" MacBook Pro currently uses Intel's 15w TDP U-Series Kaby Lake CPU (i5-7360U and i7-7660U). These CPUs are unique because they use Iris Plus Graphics 640 GPUs as opposed to the more common HD Graphics. Unfortunately, Intel has not yet released comparable 8th-Gen CPUs to replace them as of yet. Intel's Iris Plus GPU-equipped CPUs are not widely used by Windows PC OEMs, but their 15w TDP HD Graphics 620 brethren (i5-7200U, i5-7300U) are, as well as the 8th-Gen 15w TDP UHD Graphics 620 successors (i5-8250U, i5-8350U, i7-8550U and i7-8650U).
• The TouchBar 13" MacBook Pros have always and continue to use Intel's 28w TDP U-Series CPUs, not Intel's 15w TDP CPUs. The TB 13" MacBook Pro introduced on Thursday, July 12th, use Intel's Core i5-8259U and i7-8559U which are 28w TDP CPUs with Iris Plus Graphics 655 and 4-cores as opposed to 2-cores in all prior generations.
• The TouchBar 15" MacBook Pro have always and continue to use Intel's 45w TDP H-Series, not a ~25w CPU. The TB 15" MacBook Pro introduced on Thursday, July 12th, use Intel's Core i7-8750H, i7-8850H and i9-8950HK and contain 6-cores as opposed to 4-cores in all previous generations.

While I think it might be up for some debate as to whether the 2012-2015 and 2016-2017 TouchBar 13" MacBook Pros qualify as "Pro", the 2018 models most certainly do. Excellent Single-Core scores and much-higher Multi-Core scores, along with Iris Plus GPUs and up to 128MB of eDRAM make these really standout in a very crowded field of PCs.

 

[LordVic]

Too bad there's no good and authoritative way to migrate all your Windows stuff over when you switch disks.

Windows has had a tool since at least Windows7 to migrate user accounts and details between computers. It's just often forgotten. Windows Easy Transfer tool is what you're looking for.
[doublepost=1531751355][/doublepost]

Plenty of Windows laptops won’t let you upgrade.

There are some, but it's rare. Soldered storage in laptops is far from the norm. Even most other ultrabooks have replacable storage via M.2, whether it's standard SATA, or NVME.

Soldering storage down is seen as a very VERY questionable move by Apple. This isn't about upgrading either, but security of data and maintenance should maintenance be required.

With other laptops, should the device die for some reason, ultimately, the data can be recovered very easily by removing the drive and swapping it to a good unit, or for technicians, plugging them into external devices to read the data. if you solder down the storage, there's no way to easily retrieve it should there be a problem. In the MacBook Pro's case with soldered storage, if your MBPro becomes unusable for some reason, you cannot access your own data without going to Apple, who must take the laptop apart to get to a proprietary socket they've added just for this purpose, but it means potential of long term (as Apple repair can take several days to weeks) before you get access to your data back.

It also means that regardless of the health of the laptop, SSD health is going to negatively affect the overall health of the device itself. Many users either forget, or don't recognize that SSD based devices have limited lifespan for write cycles. While these can be reasonably long depending on load, a drive could be EOL as early as 2.5 years, (or as late as never... again, load depends). But once that drive starts losing space / performance due to SSD's limits, the only choice is to replace the entirety of the laptop. EVEN IF THAT LAPTOP IS IN PRESTINE SHAPE.

We love to talk about how much lengevity and resale value Apple's computers tend to have. But one thing that keeps the resale high and the price high is the functionality. Users buy them, swap in new parts and hard drives to breath more life into them and continue using them for years. This cannot happen anymore with soldered in storage.

So while there are SOME windows based devices with soldered storage, it's very rare and far between that you'll find them. Hard drives should be considered "Disposable" parts of a computer and should be designed around it.
[doublepost=1531751460][/doublepost]

Apple states what to expect for read and write speeds of it's flash storage on the detail page for the MacBook Pro because it is an important part of the computer itself. I have yet to see Dell publishing those particular specifications on their website. They do disclose what Wi-Fo

Thanks for the clarification on Dell's naming/tier with their different platforms. I honestly think they could eliminate a couple of these and clean up their product lineup a bit, but I digress. I believe they do not because the less tech-savvy customers look for these names when purchasing and become upset and/or confused when they cannot find what they want easily. How else can one explain the success of the HP Pavilion series.

You are correct, Apple does not have comparable desktop (SFF, mini-tower or full-tower) in its lineup anymore with which to compare with an PC OEMs.

If I may correct an error with your description of Intel's CPUs:

• The non-Touch Bar 13" MacBook Pro currently uses Intel's 15w TDP U-Series Kaby Lake CPU (i5-7360U and i7-7660U). These CPUs are unique because they use Iris Plus Graphics 640 GPUs as opposed to the more common HD Graphics. Unfortunately, Intel has not yet released comparable 8th-Gen CPUs to replace them as of yet. Intel's Iris Plus GPU-equipped CPUs are not widely used by Windows PC OEMs, but their 15w TDP HD Graphics 620 brethren (i5-7200U, i5-7300U) are, as well as the 8th-Gen 15w TDP UHD Graphics 620 successors (i5-8250U, i5-8350U, i7-8550U and i7-8650U).
• The TouchBar 13" MacBook Pros have always and continue to use Intel's 28w TDP U-Series CPUs, not Intel's 15w TDP CPUs. The TB 13" MacBook Pro introduced on Thursday, July 12th, use Intel's Core i5-8259U and i7-8559U which are 28w TDP CPUs with Iris Plus Graphics 655 and 4-cores as opposed to 2-cores in all prior generations.
• The TouchBar 15" MacBook Pro have always and continue to use Intel's 45w TDP H-Series, not a ~25w CPU. The TB 15" MacBook Pro introduced on Thursday, July 12th, use Intel's Core i7-8750H, i7-8850H and i9-8950HK and contain 6-cores as opposed to 4-cores in all previous generations.

While I think it might be up for some debate as to whether the 2012-2015 and 2016-2017 TouchBar 13" MacBook Pros qualify as "Pro", the 2018 models most certainly do. Excellent Single-Core scores and much-higher Multi-Core scores, along with Iris Plus GPUs and up to 128MB of eDRAM make these really standout in a very crowded field of PCs.

yes, thanks for the corrections, I was wrong and misread which part was in.

The 13" non-touchbar MBPro is basically an expensive ultrabook using ultrabook components. the 13" TouchBar does have the upgraded CPUs.

Honestly, this refresh is great. my only current qualms are the keyboard and the price. Other than that, these are competitive devices.

 

[Guy Clark]

Plenty of Windows laptops won’t let you upgrade.

There is an awful lot more Windows Laptops that will let you upgrade than won't.

Apple release one machine in the MacBook Pro category whereas various manufacturers release many machines to run other proprietary and non proprietary platforms.

 

[argentini]

Isn’t APFS the cause of these speeds?

Yes, instant cloning makes a file duplication instantaneous. Why would MacRumors acknowledge this and say "a win is a win"? Ridiculous. They need to perform an actual file copy to benchmark the SSD speed. Smells like click bait.

 

[Feenician]

Yes, instant cloning makes a file duplication instantaneous. Why would MacRumors acknowledge this and say "a win is a win"? Ridiculous. They need to perform an actual file copy to benchmark the SSD speed. Smells like click bait.

But if you'd read the thread you'd know that BlackMagic disk test doesn't work like that. It creates a file from scratch every time.

Another obvious clue that this isn't what's happening is the fact that it took 2 seconds when, as you yourself say, COW is instantaneous.

 

[chucker23n1]

There is an awful lot more Windows Laptops that will let you upgrade than won't.

The assertion was: "The biggest advantage with Windows laptops it that you can upgrade the storage to a faster higher capacity one down the road. This is something you can do with a macbook." That assertion is misleading at best.

Apple release one machine in the MacBook Pro category whereas various manufacturers release many machines to run other proprietary and non proprietary platforms.

Nobody is disputing that.
[doublepost=1531762656][/doublepost]

Yes, instant cloning makes a file duplication instantaneous. Why would MacRumors acknowledge this and say "a win is a win"? Ridiculous. They need to perform an actual file copy to benchmark the SSD speed. Smells like click bait.

The benchmark has absolutely nothing to do with instant cloning, and the results for the MBP are realistic. However, their benchmark is still flawed, in that all the other results don't make any sense — there are plenty of laptops with SSDs in the GiB/s range.
[doublepost=1531762748][/doublepost]

Soldering storage down is seen as a very VERY questionable move by Apple. This isn't about upgrading either, but security of data and maintenance should maintenance be required.

With other laptops, should the device die for some reason, ultimately, the data can be recovered very easily by removing the drive and swapping it to a good unit, or for technicians, plugging them into external devices to read the data. if you solder down the storage, there's no way to easily retrieve it should there be a problem. In the MacBook Pro's case with soldered storage, if your MBPro becomes unusable for some reason, you cannot access your own data without going to Apple, who must take the laptop apart to get to a proprietary socket they've added just for this purpose, but it means potential of long term (as Apple repair can take several days to weeks) before you get access to your data back.

It also means that regardless of the health of the laptop, SSD health is going to negatively affect the overall health of the device itself. Many users either forget, or don't recognize that SSD based devices have limited lifespan for write cycles. While these can be reasonably long depending on load, a drive could be EOL as early as 2.5 years, (or as late as never... again, load depends). But once that drive starts losing space / performance due to SSD's limits, the only choice is to replace the entirety of the laptop. EVEN IF THAT LAPTOP IS IN PRESTINE SHAPE.

Yes, there are merits to having replaceable storage. I was merely disputing the implication that 1) Apple is the only vendor with soldered storage, and 2) all Windows laptops don't have soldered storage. I didn't make any argument beyond that.

 

[leicaman]

The 2018 MacBook Pros just went on sale yesterday, but Apple was quick about shipping them out and some customers already have the new machines in hand.

Laptop Mag was able to get one of the new 13-inch 2018 MacBook Pro models and performed some benchmarks to give us an idea of how it measures up to competing PCs. According to Laptop Mag, it the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is the "fastest system in its class."

The site's tests were performed on the $2,499 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar equipped with a 2.7GHz quad-core 8th-generation Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, Intel Iris Plus 655, and a 512GB SSD.

A file copy test of the SSD in the new MacBook Pro, which Apple says supports sequential read speeds of up to 3.2GB/s and sequential write speeds up to 2.2GB/s, led Laptop Mag to declare the SSD in the MacBook Pro "the fastest ever" in a laptop. Higher capacity SSDs may see even faster speeds on disk speeds tests. A BlackMagic Disk Speed test was also conducted, resulting in an average write speed of 2,682 MB/s.

On a Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark, the 13-inch MacBook Pro earned a score of 18,055 on the multi-core test, outperforming 13-inch machines from companies like Dell, HP, Asus, and Microsoft. That score beats out all 2017 MacBook Pro models and is faster than some iMac configurations. 15-inch MacBook Pro models with 6-core 8th-generation Intel chips will show even more impressive speeds.

The MacBook Pro took 16:57 minutes to transcode a 4K video clip to 1080p using Handbrake, faster than most competing machines and two and a half minutes faster than the 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro. It didn't win at an Excel VLOOKUP macro matching 65,000 names to corresponding addresses, but at 1 minute 16 seconds to complete the task, it was competitive with the Dell XPS 13 and Asus Zenbook, while beating out the Surface Book 2 and the Huawei MateBook X Pro.

One area where the MacBook Pro didn't quite measure up to other machines with similar specs was GPU performance. The 13-inch 2018 MacBook Pro uses Intel's Iris Plus Graphics 655 with 128MB of embedded DRAM and was unable to compete in a Dirt 3 graphics test, getting only 38.8 frames per second. All Windows-based machines tested offered much better performance.

Apple did team up with Blackmagic to offer a Blackmagic eGPU for gaming purposes and system intensive creative tasks, but the device is priced at $700. It does, however, offer super fast performance with a built-in Radeon Pro 580 GPU.

Additional benchmarks and details about the 2018 MacBook Pro models will surface over the course of the next few days as orders arrive and retail stores begin stocking the machines.

The new 2018 models can be purchased from the Apple online store, with prices on the 13-inch machine starting at $1,799 and prices on the 15-inch machine starting at $2,399.

Article Link: 2018 MacBook Pro Features 'Fastest SSD Ever' in a Laptop According to Benchmarks

[doublepost=1531770094][/doublepost]The Blackmagic test on my 15" MacBook Pro with 32 Gigs of RAM, 1TB HD and the 560 graphics card:

2580.7 write, 2682.5 read.

 

[Feenician]

[doublepost=1531770094][/doublepost]The Blackmagic test on my 15" MacBook Pro with 32 Gigs of RAM, 1TB HD and the 560 graphics card:

2580.7 write, 2682.5 read.

Would you mind running AmorphousDiskMark please? It's basically a clone of CrystalDiskMark. Here's the result on my 256Gb 15" 2015. You can find it here http://www.katsurashareware.com/pgs/adm.html


Thank you!

Edit: Actually wrong settings displayed in my first screenshot, if we want to match notebookcheck

Should be 5 repetitions, 1GiB. Updated my screenshot.

 

[commentzilla]

Simple fact is many Windows laptops also support NVME SSDs and would perform similar to a Macbook in read/write speeds.
Also another simple fact is many Windows laptops support 2 divers( either 2 NVME drives, or a combinations of NVME and Sata SSD's).
So those guys should have tested Windows laptops with NVME SSD's against the Macbook.
It doesn't really matter all that much because somebody paying that much money for laptops should know the differences between Sata and NVME drives and how much the extra hundreds of dollars for the Macbook gives them in the end.

The only other Mac that matches the speed reported is the iMacPro. The iMacPro uses RAW SSD chips in parallel with no onboard controller to achieve these crazy speeds. The custom T-2 acts as the controller instead of the CPU and the T-2 chip handles all of the encryption on the fly, again instead of the CPU.

I doubt you're going to find that in any PC laptop. So far, since Apple began using NVMe no one has shipped a laptop will faster transfer speeds. I remember reading that on ArsTechnica.
[doublepost=1531776749][/doublepost]

Yes, instant cloning makes a file duplication instantaneous. Why would MacRumors acknowledge this and say "a win is a win"? Ridiculous. They need to perform an actual file copy to benchmark the SSD speed. Smells like click bait.

It is stated in the article (original article which was Laptop Mag) that it was benchmarked with Black Magic and that test does not use the APFS clone feature.

I've also seen similar benchmarks for the iMacPro (Are Technica) which appears to use the same configuration, two raw SSDs in parallel with no controller on-board, the T-2 chip acts as the controller and handle on the-the-fly encryption.

 

[DeepIn2U]

I've extended the life of my 2010 MacBook Pro (back when that term actually meant something) by easily upgrading the drive and memory. No can do with this new "Pro" *cough cough* machine.

Lol oh you mean when Apple finally realized that the confusion of an AluMacBook was the same design and spec of an AluMacBook Pro both at 13”?

Give us a break with that one please.

Pro was earned when Apple caught up with the competition offering 2GB VRAM or more.