Bad timing for upgrading Mac line

[skaertus]

Looking back at the timing for Apple upgrading the Mac line, it seems to me that they may have the wrong timing.

Apple introduced the new MacBook and iMac lines in June 2017. Now, in October, only 4 months later, Intel releases a new line of processors, which are faster and will be inside most PC laptops and desktops by the holiday season. While PCs will get the brand new six core Coffee Lake processors, the expensive Macs will remain with last year's quad-core Kaby Lakes.

If we are lucky, we will be able to see a new line of Macs with Coffee Lake processors being released in June next year, right in time for them becoming outdated again, since Intel is set to launch a new line of processors by the end of 2018.

This is not the first time this sort of things happen. And this is quite disappointing. I can understand if Intel cannot supply enough processors for an October Mac release. Why not November, then? Why does Apple have to wait some eight months to release Macs based on not-so-new processors?

 

[MBX]

Looking back at the timing for Apple upgrading the Mac line, it seems to me that they may have the wrong timing.

Apple introduced the new MacBook and iMac lines in June 2017. Now, in October, only 4 months later, Intel releases a new line of processors, which are faster and will be inside most PC laptops and desktops by the holiday season. While PCs will get the brand new six core Coffee Lake processors, the expensive Macs will remain with last year's quad-core Kaby Lakes.

If we are lucky, we will be able to see a new line of Macs with Coffee Lake processors being released in June next year, right in time for them becoming outdated again, since Intel is set to launch a new line of processors by the end of 2018.

This is not the first time this sort of things happen. And this is quite disappointing. I can understand if Intel cannot supply enough processors for an October Mac release. Why not November, then? Why does Apple have to wait some eight months to release Macs based on not-so-new processors?

Who knows maybe they'll do another specs bump in December for MBP's along the iMac Pro release. Or maybe in January.

If I'm not mistaken they used to release MBP's updates in January in the past during good ol' Macworld Expo.

 

[leman]

Apple introduced the new MacBook and iMac lines in June 2017. Now, in October, only 4 months later, Intel releases a new line of processors, which are faster and will be inside most PC laptops and desktops by the holiday season. While PCs will get the brand new six core Coffee Lake processors, the expensive Macs will remain with last year's quad-core Kaby Lakes.

Except this is not entirely true. Please don't fall victim to marketing. What intel released on the mobile side are low-powered (15W) parts with low-end graphical chip. Yes, this chip is incredible and its the burstiest CPU around, and it also brings quad-core computing to the low-end. And its a great upgrade for Dells and Microsoft Surfaces which were using previous generations of similar low-powered CPUs with low-end graphical chips. However, MacBook Pros are using upper tier CPUs which come with eDRAM cache and twice as much GPU cores. Intel has not released corresponding CPUs yet and probably won't for some time. So yes, Apple could replace the CPU in the 13" by these new quad-core parts, boosting burst performance by a healthy margin, but that would mean a 50% or so sacrifice of raw GPU performance. Not to mention that I doubt that these CPUs will perform that much better than the dual-core 28W CPUs currently in use in the 13" MBP under prolonged load (haven't seen any tests on sustained performance by any reviewer, so that remains my speculation of course). For short workloads (few seconds), these 15W CPUs will rival the quad-cores in the 15" MBP, simply because they can operate outside their thermal spec for short time. But push them hard for longer, and the 15W limit will kick in. Its an amazing "casual" CPU for modern everyday workflows, offering both burst performance and efficiency. But its not that interesting for users with more demanding computational needs.

As to desktops, I'm sure that there will be a iMac upgrade with Coffee Lake accompanying the iMac Pro release.

 

[Valkyrie743]

Except this is not entirely true. Please don't fall victim to marketing. What intel released on the mobile side are low-powered (15W) parts with low-end graphical chip. Yes, this chip is incredible and its the burstiest CPU around, and it also brings quad-core computing to the low-end. And its a great upgrade for Dells and Microsoft Surfaces which were using previous generations of similar low-powered CPUs with low-end graphical chips. However, MacBook Pros are using upper tier CPUs which come with eDRAM cache and twice as much GPU cores. Intel has not released corresponding CPUs yet and probably won't for some time. So yes, Apple could replace the CPU in the 13" by these new quad-core parts, boosting burst performance by a healthy margin, but that would mean a 50% or so sacrifice of raw GPU performance. Not to mention that I doubt that these CPUs will perform that much better than the dual-core 28W CPUs currently in use in the 13" MBP under prolonged load (haven't seen any tests on sustained performance by any reviewer, so that remains my speculation of course). For short workloads (few seconds), these 15W CPUs will rival the quad-cores in the 15" MBP, simply because they can operate outside their thermal spec for short time. But push them hard for longer, and the 15W limit will kick in. Its an amazing "casual" CPU for modern everyday workflows, offering both burst performance and efficiency. But its not that interesting for users with more demanding computational needs.

As to desktops, I'm sure that there will be a iMac upgrade with Coffee Lake accompanying the iMac Pro release.

nTB 13" pros use 15W intel parts. so I bet we'll see a MacBook 13" refresh in November. which will enrage myself and anyone else that bought a 2017 MBP 13" nTB

 

[leman]

nTB 13" pros use 15W intel parts. so I bet we'll see a MacBook 13" refresh in November. which will enrage myself and anyone else that bought a 2017 MBP 13" nTB

I don't believe this for a number of reasons. First, agains, is the GPU. Sure, the nTB 13" uses a 15W part, but it has a full GPU + eDRAM, while the Kaby Lake R has half the GPU without eDRAM. So this would mean halving GPU performance, as mentioned. Second, using Kaby Lake R at this point would put Apple at a very weird position where the nonTB MBP would outperform the TB MBP CPU-wise...

 

[Samuelsan2001]

nTB 13" pros use 15W intel parts. so I bet we'll see a MacBook 13" refresh in November. which will enrage myself and anyone else that bought a 2017 MBP 13" nTB

They'll wait for the GT3 Iris graphics.