Apple Launches 2018 MacBook Pros: 8th Gen Core, Up to 32GB of RAM, Third-Gen Keyboard, Quad-Core on 13-Inch and More

[antonis]

He didn’t get this first hand so he said take with a grain of salt of course.

We'll have to wait and see if a grain of salt can still ruin the new keyboards.
[doublepost=1531471365][/doublepost]

4 years of warranty.

Does anybody else offers 4 years of warranty on the keyb?

It depends. Does anybody else offers a keyboard with a consistently faulty mechanism straight from 2015 to 2018 ?

 

[Stotka]

At this point I dont really care about speccs. I dont need 32gb ram on the go or a 6 core cpu. What I do care about is the thermals and my 2015 15” is like using an oven and sitting next to a airplane engine (i do clean and replace the paste on a regular basis) wish the whole machine could be cooler!

 

[cocoua]

$900 for the laptop, $900 for all the repairs they will have to do. Allegedly.

XD

true in my case, ALL my Macs since the 2004 dual G4 tower had a lot of problems, many of them after warranty but Apple fixed for free in special programs, I've been so unlucky with it's hardware!

 

[bluecoast]

Of course it would benefit them to lie about it, it would minimize an issue that may be larger than they are letting on. What planet are you from?

There was a story the other month that Apple had started to dictate to its suppliers, that they had to use screws and bolts etc only from suppliers that Apple approved of.

So maybe these two stories are connected.

 

[macintoshmac]

We'll have to wait and see if a grain of salt can still ruin the new keyboards.
[doublepost=1531471365][/doublepost]

It depends. Does anybody else offers a keyboard with a consistently faulty mechanism straight from 2015 to 2018 ?

While true, but I'd say, consistently faulty means every single of those keyboards is a failure. It is not so. For some, on this very forum, the issues have yet to surface.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

Well it looks like I'll be holding onto my 2014 MBP for a few more years. Mac prices are outrageous now. I remember when the 13" MBP starting price was $1,249 CAD (checked Mactracker app). Now it's $1,729 for the base model. Maybe I'll save up for a few years and get this 2018 model in 2022.

 

[macintoshmac]

Well it looks like I'll be holding onto my 2014 MBP for a few more years. Mac prices are outrageous now. I remember when the 13" MBP starting price was $1,249 CAD (checked Mactracker app). Now it's $1,729 for the base model. Maybe I'll save up for a few years and get this 2018 model in 2022.

Wise choice.

 

[cocoua]

2,6 Ghz 6 cores
Intel® Core™ i7-8850H
https://ark.intel.com/products/134899/Intel-Core-i7-8850H-Processor-9M-Cache-up-to-4_30-GHz
PC benchmarks:
https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/search?dir=desc&q=i7-8850H&sort=multicore_score

2,9 Ghz 6 cores
Intel® Core™ i9-8950HK
https://ark.intel.com/products/134903/Intel-Core-i9-8950HK-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4_80-GHz
PC benchmarks:
https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/search?dir=desc&q=i9-8950HK&sort=multicore_score

comparative
blue - i9-8950HK
pink - top 2017 rMBP
yellow - top 2012 rMBP

 

[bigpoppamac31]

Wise choice.

I'm genuinely not sure if you're serious.

 

[bluecoast]

Seriously. We have to hear the same thing regarding NVIDIA GPUs. We get it guys. We have no idea what the business relationship is between Apple and NVIDIA. Apple and AMD seem to have a very good relationship.

Also, these are laptops. I prefer Apple balancing internal graphics with battery life. If I need more power, I have eGPUs. We are not in the 2000s anymore. External speed has skyrocketed. An external 4TB Samsung 850 EVO is just as fast as internal SATA3 speeds.
[doublepost=1531444244][/doublepost]

Yep. To some, that $500 does not have enough benefits. To others, it does. I prefer macOS to Windows 10 (this is someone that spend $1,000 on Windows 10 licenses as soon as it was available) and would pay $200 for macOS alone. For the other $300, say what you want about them, but Apples Pages/Numbers/Keynote programs are not that bad for what I need it for - which I receive for free. That saves me with the Office 365 subscription or Office 2016 boxed set price. The build quality (at least to me) still seems better than the Dell XPS in some ways, so that is another thing. For what I do, AMD cards are actually better than NVIDIA cards. I never used a Dell XPS from 8-5 daily for weeks to know, but I think MacBook Pros still have more battery life. When I was just using Pages one day, I was able to get 14 hours of battery life on my 2016 MacBook Pro.

These are all subjective. That is what makes the $500 "premium" worth it for me. Others may disagree, which is fine and good because there is a choice out there.
[doublepost=1531444525][/doublepost]

Gimmick is subjective. As someone that works in FCPX, I use the Touch Bar A LOT. It might be a gimmick to you, but not to me. I find touch screens a gimmick. Do you? We can have different opinions.

And actually, for what I do, AMD cards perform better than NVIDIA cards. Guys, it depends on the work and what the software you use is optimized for.

Awesome post.

I’m not a creative pro like you obviously are, but it’s plain to see that these machines are firmly aimed at creative pros and thus they’re best places to criticise them (meaning to evaluate).

Ditto the touch bar - more than before you can seee that Apple is pushing this as a useful item to those working on complex visual projects (including apps) and/or ones that use a timeline.

So those (like me) who work with text etc - the touchbar is not really useful for me. But with the specs of apple’s machines with the TB, I obviously don’t need that power either.

For those that are Mac gamers (I’m one) it’s clear that the answer is if you want to participate in this pretty niche activity, buy a TB3 machine that you can afford (hint: entry level 13 MBP without TB) and get an egpu.

As I’ve said in a few other posts in this thread, I think a big big issue with the MBP is that Apple not updating the Air, Mac Pro and Mac Mini is pushing a lot of people who would probably be customers of those other computers to the MBP and understandably, they’re finding the MBP wanting for their needs.

In fact I think that there are way more people now invested in the MBP than there should be due to Apple’s inaction on updating the MP and MBA.

Mac gaming I remember always being about the Mac Pro - it was easier to upstage its components to be a gaming rig.

These people are now mad about the MBP being a less than great gaming rig, when it’s designed to be a machine that you might take to a client’s premises to work on an advertising job, or on the road/at a gig, or to provide rough cut edits if you’re filming on the road, or to edit photos if you’re on a remote shoot etc etc.

The MBP is obviously a professional machine meant for professionals and not ‘prosumer/hobbyists’ (like many of us on this forum probably are).

Again, it’s not their fault - it’s that Apple hasn’t catered for them.

 

[Oraichu]

It's good to see an update.... however the GPU wasn't updated. This is a huge disappointment. The CPU in general tends to be good on MBP, as it looks to be now as well. But why not even have an upgrade options for the GPU?

It also seems the price has gone up a lot in the past years. I bought the 2016 MBP with upgraded SSD (imagine the top capacity was just 512GB then) and upgraded GPU for the same price as the base top end MBP now. Which also just have 512GB, 16GB RAM etc... same as my current model. 4GB GPU RAM - same as my current model, and just barely newer GPU (460 vs 560). The CPU is better of course.. but much seems to be the same when comparing the base vs maxed out from 2016.

 

[maflynn]

Why did you return yours?

One big reason is that didn't want to beyond the return period and apple releases an update, which is precisely what they did. Returning it then, offered me more options. In all honesty, while not perfect, I really liked the razer, and I may buy it again. As the dust settles with the new MBP, I'm left with mixture of feelings. I'm not sure they addressed the defective keyboard.

My guess is that they did fix/improve it, the reduced noise being a side effect, but going in to court battles over the last two generations they can’t explicitly say, “Oh that keyboard that sucked? Yeah, we fixed that” as it’d be an admission of guilt.

Perhaps, I'm no lawyer, but we'll find out in the coming weeks as people like iFixit will tear open the laptop and we'll get a first hand look at the keyboard.

 

[macintoshmac]

I'm genuinely not sure if you're serious.

I was not. I personally think to buy at max one generation less, for some depreciation benefits, but definitely not 2018 notebooks in 2022. At max, in early 2020 when the prices are down somewhat. If it is middle of 2020, I would buy 2019 notebooks AFTER the new 2020 refresh comes.

Point being, I would buy at max one refresh less.

 

[jgbr]

That’s not a chip Apple can use. It has no iGPU, performs worse than Intel’s 14nm++ node and is not available in volume in any case. Intel has already said volume shipments of 10nm won’t happen until sometime next year:


www.macrumors.com/2018/05/07/intel-foundry-and-vulnerability-issues

Missing the point that it’s a start of a new deployment of CPU’s whereas Apple has got into a habit of being well behind. If the PC industry can do it for thousands of PC models so can Apple.

 

[bigpoppamac31]

I was not. I personally think to buy at max one generation less, for some depreciation benefits, but definitely not 2018 notebooks in 2022. At max, in early 2020 when the prices are down somewhat. If it is middle of 2020, I would buy 2019 notebooks AFTER the new 2020 refresh comes.

Point being, I would buy at max one refresh less.

Well when I win the lottery I’ll buy a new Mac. My dad still has a 2010 MBP cause they’re too expensive to buy a new one. In any case I’ve had this discussion on here before and it amazes me how people can justify the prices of goods and services these days. I don’t want to get into it again.

 

[mdgm]

The one upgrade I needed: 512GB SSD standard on base 15” MBP is still missing. I guess I’ll have to wait at least another year.

My nearly 4 year old base 15” MBP has a 256GB SSD. Was hoping Apple would have increased the storage available on base models by now.

 

[PickUrPoison]

Missing the point that it’s a start of a new deployment of CPU’s whereas Apple has got into a habit of being well behind. If the PC industry can do it for thousands of PC models so can Apple.

No, you’re missing the point. There are no 10nm CPUs shipping in volume. They won’t be shipping until sometime next year. Many in the industry doubt Intel’s ability to ship 10nm in volume anytime at all in 2019, and expect yet another slip into 2020.

Until then, Apple, HP, Dell, Lenovo and many others will have to use the processors that are currently available. If you don’t like Apple, those other manufacturers have also begun to ship, or will begin to ship shortly, the same CPUs.

 

[cocoua]

The one upgrade I needed: 512GB SSD standard on base 15” MBP is still missing. I guess I’ll have to wait at least another year.

My nearly 4 year old base 15” MBP has a 256GB SSD. Was hoping Apple would have increased the storage available on base models by now.

same thinking here, 256GB for a Pro is a joke, working with AE and Ph at once needs at least 50GB of free disk, Apps are now 1,5GB to 3GB... 32GB of RAM needs up to 32GB of disk space, there you have at least 80GB of free disk always available.

This is not a super pro user level scenario, is a standard secretario for anyone who wants to do create anything

 

[jgbr]

No, you’re missing the point. There are no 10nm CPUs shipping in volume. They won’t be shipping until sometime next year. Many in the industry doubt Intel’s ability to ship 10nm in volume anytime at all in 2019, and expect yet another slip into 2020.

Until then, Apple, HP, Dell, Lenovo and many others will have to use the processors that are currently available. If you don’t like Apple, those other manufacturers have also begun to ship, or will begin to ship shortly, the same CPUs.

No you are missing the point that Apple is always late in upgrading CPU's where the PC market as a GENERAL rule of thumb have moved on to a new architecture within months of an intel arch release.

 

[DNichter]

Lies, updated specs and it's the same prices as the 2017 base models.

It’s still too expensive to me. A personal opinion can’t be a lie, by the way.

 

[Omega Mac]

€8,059 ($9,374.72 USD) - 15" max'd to the Moon!

Nice

 

[Ethosik]

Decent upgrades, but for that price Apple needs to do better, I'll be holding off for another year. My 2015 MBP still going strong. Hopefully next year will bring thinner bezels, variable refresh rate display, 1080p camera, and a good GPU. Offer an NVIDIA variant, there's a reason why all 'gaming' windows laptops use their GPU's.

Yes because no matter what game, just having it as an AMD graphics cards will only give you 1FPS. Even Terraria or Prison Architect.

Come on people. Where is Apple claiming that these products are gaming focused? I am really sick of non stop comments about NVIDIA this and NVIDIA that. NVIDIA cards suck with macOS. My GTX 980 in my 2010 Mac Pro sucks because the drivers are horrible.

Guess what, my 2017 iMac with AMD graphics with Windows 10 plays games JUST FINE. It is not the same as my dedicated gaming computer which has a GTX 1080. But it is not OMG HORRIBLE 1FPS OMG OMG OMG OMG! like some people here make it out to be.

These kind of comments and complaints are just like complaining that when the Xbox One X launched, it did not include a GTX 1080Ti graphics card. And my iMac with Windows 10 and AMD does play some games better than my Xbox One X does. It all comes down to optimization.
[doublepost=1531481253][/doublepost]

I was hoping they would bump the physical resolution up to something a little more ‘modern’.

I used the ‘Looks like 1920x1080’ psuedo-resolution (i.e. 3840x2160 frame buffer scaled down to the physical 2880x1880 pixels on the display) and I’d ideally like a 1:1 pixel mapping to stop text and images from being blurry.

But no, I guess not. Not this year, again.

The 2012-esque 2880x1800 resolution isn’t acceptable in 2018.

It’s a bit of a joke, really.

Oh well.

Ca$h saved.

....Why? What possible benefit would there be with increasing the resolution in these? I need to put my nose to the monitor to see the pixels. I have seen those 4K laptops and they are not that much better. I cannot use the laptops with the More Space option selected. So increasing the resolution would not do anything but waste GPU power as it would look the same amount of retina as it does now.

My 2017 iMac looks like 2560x1440 and that is fine with me. It is retina so everything is crisp. Making it from 5K to 8K would really not change anything.

Nobody would ever be happy. I remember there were a lot of complaints about the Nintendo Switch not having a 4K display while in handheld mode. Really?
[doublepost=1531481474][/doublepost]

Variable refresh rate display will not happen. IT's a battery killer. That's why most laptops dont' have this technology. My understanding is that G-SYnc and Free-Sync does not support optimus-like technologies.

Last time on the Nvidia/AMD talk. NAME ME the Nvidia variant GPU that has 35W TDP. Than we can talk.

Not if they can do what they did on the iPad and make it operate at 24-30 Hz when barely any motion is going on. It does change the refresh rate depending on what is going on, and it would be fine if only 120Hz was available only while on power.

 

[bluecoast]

same thinking here, 256GB for a Pro is a joke, working with AE and Ph at once needs at least 50GB of free disk, Apps are now 1,5GB to 3GB... 32GB of RAM needs up to 32GB of disk space, there you have at least 80GB of free disk always available.

This is not a super pro user level scenario, is a standard secretario for anyone who wants to do create anything

Really good points. I think that this could be a good machine for those who are saving their work onto an external drive though and who aren’t working on scenarios where extremely low latency are key.

Apple’s approach now seems to be providing a gpu and SSD sizes that are ‘good’ - and those who absolutely need the power can get

Yes because no matter what game, just having it as an AMD graphics cards will only give you 1FPS. Even Terraria or Prison Architect.

Come on people. Where is Apple claiming that these products are gaming focused? I am really sick of non stop comments about NVIDIA this and NVIDIA that. NVIDIA cards suck with macOS. My GTX 980 in my 2010 Mac Pro sucks because the drivers are horrible.

Guess what, my 2017 iMac with AMD graphics with Windows 10 plays games JUST FINE. It is not the same as my dedicated gaming computer which has a GTX 1080. But it is not OMG HORRIBLE 1FPS OMG OMG OMG OMG! like some people here make it out to be.

Whether we like it or not, Apple simply isn’t interested in making machines for dedicated PC gaming ie by this I mean machines where you can play games from the last 18 months on ultra settings. That’s just a fact.

If they cared, they would’ve partnered with someone like Razer to make an eGPU - instead they partnered with a company that provides digital film/tv/broadcasting production equipment.

I suspect that going forward, Apple’s focus for Mac gaming is going to be on game companies moving their games to iPad and then to the Mac via marzipan using metal 2 or engines that support metal 2.

We can gnash our teeth at this, or we can just take a look where things are going and buy a proper Windows gaming pc/laptop.

Then, if we all want new Macs, as well, wait to the fall and see what comes out & hopefully pick up the rumoured 13 MBA successor, (relatively) cheaply.

I’m not defending Apple here. I’m just resigned to the fact that with yesterday’s update these are absolutely machines aimed at professional use where large complex visual and audio projects need to be worked on on a machine that needs to be mobile.

 

[Ethosik]

Yikes $4k for 32gb RAM and 1TB SSD and that is with the educational discount. The keyboard is the unknown quantity here.

May the keyboard be more than just quieter (i.e. fixed).

One thing that bothered me in the the educational discount for the MBPs was the language for the AC discount (for a limited time only get 20% off AC).

Glad to see a Mac refresh during Back to School.

May everyone who buys this or the 13” have no trouble with the keyboard or anything else.

Waiting on the desktops.

It is actually cheaper. $3,899.00 for the following:

• 2.9GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i9 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz
• Retina display with True Tone
• Touch Bar and Touch ID
• Radeon Pro 560X with 4GB of GDDR5 memory
• 32GB 2400MHz DDR4 memory
• 1TB SSD storage

When I got my 2016 MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, best GPU available, highest CPU, it was $4,500. So the new laptop is actually much cheaper
[doublepost=1531482479][/doublepost]

Whether we like it or not, Apple simply isn’t interested in making machines for dedicated PC gaming ie by this I mean machines where you can play games from the last 18 months on ultra settings. That’s just a fact.

If they cared, they would’ve partnered with someone like Razer to make an eGPU - instead they partnered with a company that provides digital film/tv/broadcasting production equipment.

I suspect that going forward, Apple’s focus for Mac gaming is going to be on game companies moving their games to iPad and then to the Mac via marzipan using metal 2 or engines that support metal 2.

We can gnash our teeth at this, or we can just take a look where things are going and buy a proper Windows gaming pc/laptop.

Then, if we all want new Macs, as well, wait to the fall and see what comes out & hopefully pick up the rumoured 13 MBA successor, (relatively) cheaply.

I’m not defending Apple here. I’m just resigned to the fact that with yesterday’s update these are absolutely machines aimed at professional use where large complex visual and audio projects need to be worked on on a machine that needs to be mobile.

When has Apple said they are focusing on a gaming system? This is what I find so irritating. This is like complaining that the NVIDIA Quadro series are horrible for gaming when they are built for other purposes.

Gaming is certainly mentioned, but it is not a primary purpose to what these computers are created for. All these people comparing these computers to "gaming first" laptops are missing the point.

Let me ask you something, is gaming on a GTX 1050 card possible? How about a GTX 970 still? YES. It will not play games at 4K at 60+ FPS solidly.

These AMD GPUs do just fine with gaming. Not max settings and 4K 60 FPS, but not 1FPS maximum like the way some people here go on and on make it seem. Again, it all comes down to optimization. Heck, even my GTX 1080 in my dedicated gaming Windows PC struggles at 2560x1440 to even get 60fps on some games. There are STILL places in WoW that bring my FPS down to 10.

Look, we probably will not be playing 4K 60fps Doom 2016 on Mac systems. But these systems certainly can play a lot of games very well - some games might require medium settings and a lower resolution. Companies just need to take the time to optimize. If the Nintendo Switch can optimize pretty well to get Doom 2016 to play in Handheld mode, these Macs should be fine if companies just spent a bit of time optimizing.

Still to this day I have not run into a recent game that is so well optimized other than GTA 5 on Windows. That game is so buttery smooth, even doing super sampling at 5K on my GTX 1080 I am able to get around 50-60 FPS on average. Bayonetta is a close second in terms of optimization. Other games are so badly optimized even my GTX 1080 struggles at 2560x1440 to get a constant 60fps.

 

[manu chao]

What would they update with the 12" MB? Intel hasn't released an updated ~5W TDP CPU so the 2017 Macbook is still using the latest CPU available from Intel.

And there I thought Apple not updating the 12" MB in over 13 months could only be Apple's fault since the 8th-gen Intel chips were already released last fall. /s