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2018 MPB 15” i7 vs i9

L

lukeyyyyy

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 18, 2010
49
28
Hey Guys

Currently on a late 13” mbp, 2.4ghz i5 with 8Gb of ram looking to upgrade to a 2018mbp 15” and I’m wondering if the upgrade to i9 will be of use, also 16gb vs 32gb

I typically like to keep my computers between 4 - 6 years.

I’m a full stack developer so a typical session would be 10-15 chrome tabs, an ide such as IntelliJ a text editor like atom, with several java / node services recompiling, slack, emails, the odd Vm and code builds every so often which at the moment take forever in a day! Understandably.

As a hobby I edit lots of raw images, and have a shed load of drone 4K footage to edit, something the iris 5100 can’t cope with.

Oh and enjoy the odd game of league of legends!

Thanks
 
lukeyyyyy said:
I’m a full stack developer so a typical session would be 10-15 chrome tabs, an ide such as IntelliJ a text editor like atom, with several java / node services recompiling, slack, emails, the odd Vm and code builds every so often which at the moment take forever in a day! Understandably.
Click to expand...
I don't think you need a core i9, and I also believe it will run hotter, so you may run into thermal throttling sooner.

lukeyyyyy said:
As a hobby I edit lots of raw images, and have a shed load of drone 4K footage to edit, something the iris 5100 can’t cope with.
Click to expand...
How's the ram utilization on your current machine. I think 16GB will be more then enough, but I don't edit 4k footage.
 
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So for the dev job I sit on green to yellow memory pressure and usually have a 1-3gb swap. regarding the 4K video editing since I use adobe premier it’s almost impossible to use with 4K, way to slow.

I did have a gaming computer back home but moved to aus earlier this year rendering my MacBook as my only machine.
 
Yes, it will. But as I mention I do keep my computers for a lengthy 4-6 years. Will 16GB be viable in that time for my workflow?

I appreciate it’s all speculation but going off history, I’ve felt limited by 8gb ram for over a year.
 
I'm a full stack developer too with a 2016 MBP. I'm tempted to upgrade to get the 32GB of RAM. I can run just fine on 16GB, but some of the virtual servers I'm running require quite a lot of RAM and I'm sometimes having to run a PHP5 and PHP7 server at the same time with 2+ GB RAM allocated to each and then I'll need to have Windows running on Parallels to do some testing so that's another 4+ GB. Most of the time 16GB is perfectly fine even when I'm doing all this and have Photoshop and Final Cut running in the background, but running debug processes on my code can seriously jack up the memory usage sometimes.

Once in a while, I will run out of memory when debugging, but it depends on what your projects are like. Mine are very large sites with rather sizable databases and big memory requirements. If you don't need to spin up memory hogging servers, 16GB is plenty.
 
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lukeyyyyy said:
Yes, it will. But as I mention I do keep my computers for a lengthy 4-6 years. Will 16GB be viable in that time for my workflow?
Click to expand...
No one can predict what will happen 4 years from now. All I can say is many MacRumor members will be buying 32GB of ram out of fear and will in all likelihood never need that much. I understand the thought process, and I'm not knocking anyone but people see 32GB and they're thinking they better play it safe and order 32GB. I did that myself on my 2012 rMBP and it was a waste of money. I know my needs are different then yours but I just mention that has an example.

If you want peace of mind get the 32GB
 
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maflynn said:
I don't think you need a core i9, and I also believe it will run hotter, so you may run into thermal throttling sooner.


How's the ram utilization on your current machine. I think 16GB will be more then enough, but I don't edit 4k footage.
Click to expand...

How about intermittent peak performance considering 8559u vs 8950hk? I should type latex with live preview. It only eat each score on single thread. Now I must wait 7-15 seconds to see the result when I change the texts on my MacBook with 6y75. I don't need long continuous high load performance. Just the peak performance when I change the texts in .tex files.

My biggest concern is whether 8950hk can boost to 4.8g in this scenario. Because intel said 4.8g only can be reached below 50(?) degrees Celsius.
 
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lukeyyyyy said:
Hey Guys

Currently on a late 13” mbp, 2.4ghz i5 with 8Gb of ram looking to upgrade to a 2018mbp 15” and I’m wondering if the upgrade to i9 will be of use, also 16gb vs 32gb

I typically like to keep my computers between 4 - 6 years.

I’m a full stack developer so a typical session would be 10-15 chrome tabs, an ide such as IntelliJ a text editor like atom, with several java / node services recompiling, slack, emails, the odd Vm and code builds every so often which at the moment take forever in a day! Understandably.

As a hobby I edit lots of raw images, and have a shed load of drone 4K footage to edit, something the iris 5100 can’t cope with.

Oh and enjoy the odd game of league of legends!

Thanks
Click to expand...


i9 is the last thing i would consider upgrading. Over the years the biggest things I'm always glad I spent extra money on are

  • RAM
  • Storage space

In your case I would go 32GB assuming you keep it say 5 years(i'm going in the middle of your 4-6 year prediction). If you are using this thing for work and you are keeping it for a while why even chance it? It's a low investment over a long period plus resale will be better. I would skip the i9.
 
Like others have said, I usually prioritize my upgrades in RAM > SSD > GPU > CPU in that order. Besides I have a touchy feeling that the i9-8950hk processor will drain up the battery faster than the base i7-8750h. GPU this year is basically rebranded w/ an X appended to last year's model no. that is minimally faster so CPU upgrade might even precede the GPU upgrade this year.

My concern over the years that I always had when upgrading CPU in a laptop was how much of an impact it will have on the battery for the performance delta I would gain by opting for a faster CPU. For my personal use, I've come to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the extra gain for sacrificing battery life w/ faster CPUs. ymmv.
 
Cardino said:
How about intermittent peak performance considering 8559u vs 8950hk? I should type latex with live preview. It only eat each score on single thread. Now I must wait 7-15 seconds to see the result when I change the texts on my MacBook with 6y75. I don't need long continuous high load performance. Just the peak performance when I change the texts in .tex files.

My biggest concern is whether 8950hk can boost to 4.8g in this scenario. Because intel said 4.8g only can be reached below 50(?) degrees Celsius.
Click to expand...

I use latex on my 2013 MBP and it’s plenty fast enough for a live (and near instantaneous) preview.
 
uller6 said:
I use latex on my 2013 MBP and it’s plenty fast enough for a live (and near instantaneous) preview.
Click to expand...
Do you use texpad? Yes, it can show live preview immediately when I writing in english. But it doesn't support xelatex. So if I writing in asia language in beamer, you see 15-35 seconds lag.
 
maflynn said:
No one can predict what will happen 4 years from now. All I can say is many MacRumor members will be buying 32GB of ram out of fear and will in all likelihood never need that much.
Click to expand...

Again I believe that by the time 16GB becomes obsolete, the other hardware components in the computer will also be in line for replacement, and the need for an upgrade becomes unavoidable. The new 2018 MacBook Pro 13 is still 8GB base, and I feel people who are buying 32GB of memory are well aware of what they need and have a business or use case that supports the extra cost of adding more RAM. smirkings VM example is a very good showcase for who needs to double their memory.
 
32Gb you'll know if you need it. CPU side best bet is to wait on the more unbiased reviews and analyse your work flow. The i9 is extremely performant for a mobile CPU, it's also power hungry and requires a lot of cooling.

My own hex core notebook with 8750H can pull as much as 90W. All the hex core CPU notebooks Turbo up aggressively then will roll back CPU frequency due to power & thermal design limitations.

Short burst tests only reveal short term performance. What needs to be seen is the long term performance illustrating the CPU's settling frequency, 3.4GHz upwards would be solid value.

Q-6
 
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i wonder if you are using this i9 to the max if a fully charged macbook can last you 2 hours
 
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lukeyyyyy said:
Hey Guys

Currently on a late 13” mbp, 2.4ghz i5 with 8Gb of ram looking to upgrade to a 2018mbp 15” and I’m wondering if the upgrade to i9 will be of use, also 16gb vs 32gb

I typically like to keep my computers between 4 - 6 years.

I’m a full stack developer so a typical session would be 10-15 chrome tabs, an ide such as IntelliJ a text editor like atom, with several java / node services recompiling, slack, emails, the odd Vm and code builds every so often which at the moment take forever in a day! Understandably.

As a hobby I edit lots of raw images, and have a shed load of drone 4K footage to edit, something the iris 5100 can’t cope with.

Oh and enjoy the odd game of league of legends!

Thanks
Click to expand...


Get 2.6GHz i7, with 32GB ram. Problem solved. I tried launching all my apps at once, and did Geekbench tests. This computer performs well, without any thermal issues. Btw, on Geekbench, it performed better than an i9!!

When launching all my apps, it blazes through everything super fast. Impressive machine.

Get Apple Care. Just in case. Saved my butt when I was a Staingate victim on an older MacBook Pro.

Best,
Matt
 
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