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Can we declare Broadwell processors a flop on MacBooks yet?

S

saintforlife

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 25, 2011
1,046
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The Broadwell processor upgrade hasn't gone well so far for this year's new Mac laptops to say the least.

It didn't provide any tangible performance (infact it may be slower than last year's models in certain benchmarks) or battery life improvement on the MacBook Airs. Now there are reports of the 2015 MacBook Pros lagging and stuttering.

Is anybody else holding out for Skylake?
 
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I wasn't impressed with the new rMBP 13, returned it the next day. Sub par performance when doing heavy lifting in CS6 and it didn't even play 1080p video in iMovie without lagging in the preview window while trying to edit it. What kind of lagging and stuttering are you talking about?
 
The Hardware is fine

saintforlife said:
The Boardwell processor upgrade hasn't gone well so far for this year's new Mac laptops to say the least.

It didn't provide any tangible performance (infact it may be slower than last year's models in certain benchmarks) or battery life improvement on the MacBook Airs. Now there are reports of the 2015 MacBook Pros lagging and stuttering.

Is anybody else holding out for Skylake?
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Broadwell processors run 4K screens without issues, they can run the retina with ease. It seems to be just poor coding in OSX to be honest which is disappointing. Apple need to concentrate on tidying up and stability for all it's software this year.
 
saintforlife said:
The Boardwell processor upgrade hasn't gone well so far for this year's new Mac laptops to say the least...Is anybody else holding out for Skylake?
Click to expand...

Not exactly sure why you would think this. Basing it on MacRumors posts are we?

Broadwell rocks. Runs great. Great battery life, no lag, awesome machines.
 
Once again, people are taking the results of a few and assuming everyone is having them.

It's definitely true that some people re having lagging issues, but quite a few others (myself included) aren't. Maybe it is software, but it's not universal. And it's definitely not universal to the hardware, or everyone would experience the lag.
 
For me personally the biggest improvment was in the noise departement. the 2015 rMBP is very silent pretty much all the time, I only hear it when gaming. iStat even shows me the fan stays at 0 rpm during light work.
My sister's 2014 rMBP is much noisier.

Graphics and battery are better but not by much.
 
Its a flop in my book, based on Intel's delay of Broadwell and committing to the original and unaltered Skylake schedule. That means, Broadwell will have a brief lifespan of a few months.
 
charea said:
For me personally the biggest improvment was in the noise departement. the 2015 rMBP is very silent pretty much all the time, I only hear it when gaming. iStat even shows me the fan stays at 0 rpm during light work.
My sister's 2014 rMBP is much noisier.
Click to expand...

iStat probably shows it wrong before the next update; however:

The fan is so quiet below 2500 rpm that our measuring device cannot determine an increased system noise.
Click to expand...

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-Retina-13-Early-2015-Notebook-Review.139621.0.html
 
saintforlife said:
The Boardwell processor upgrade hasn't gone well so far for this year's new Mac laptops to say the least.
Click to expand...

Broadwell models are just as big a flop as the Haswell models, Ivy Bridge models, Sandy Bridge models, Core 2 Duo models and basically every other personal computer every released in the history of PCs :rolleyes:
 
charea said:
iStat even shows me the fan stays at 0 rpm during light work.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that's because iStat isn't finding the fan sensor on your mac. Try updating your iStat to the beta version they released last week. Pretty sure they added support for your mac if the release notes are correct.
 
Because of the many delays for Broadwell, people who bought computers with these processors will feel cheated with Skylake begins to come out in a couple of months. When the Skylake rMBPs come out I will sell my current rMBP 13" 2015 and buy a Skylake one.
 
maflynn said:
Its a flop in my book, based on Intel's delay of Broadwell and committing to the original and unaltered Skylake schedule. That means, Broadwell will have a brief lifespan of a few months.
Click to expand...

Probably flop externally, but a die shrink in the manufacturing process is no small undertaking. They most likely ran into issues related to that (and hopefully learned a lot from it to help prevent similar things for the next die shrink.) The extra time taken by them to resolve those issues would most likely help keep the Skylake project on track, but unfortunately puts Broadwell right into the waste basket from the perspective of a lot of their customers.

Admittedly, I haven't done any reading on the "why's" of the delays, so this is mere speculation on my part, but it makes the most sense to me.
 
i have a broadwell rMBP. I think you just wanna complain. This computer is awesome. No lag and I run it at 1680x1050. Handles my adobe cc tasks with ease...take a breath an step back.
 
Samuelsan2001 said:
It seems to be just poor coding in OSX to be honest which is disappointing. Apple need to concentrate on tidying up and stability for all it's software this year.
Click to expand...

I agree. Tbh, even the 1st generation rMBP with HD 4000 should be able to handle the retina resolution easily, spec-wise. I mean, we're talking about desktop compositing here, not 3D graphics. We really shouldn't be pointing fingers at the GPU whenever there's UI lag, but rather at the poor coding.
 
nanogirl21 said:
I love the Early-2015 rMBP. I am coming from a 2007 MB, so it was time for an upgrade. I am happy with the performance and my decision to buy now.
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I'm happy with my purchase as well, no regrets. Flawless performance over here for me in CC. Also no stuttering running 4K 60Hz display via Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort 1.2.

I'm coming from a mid 2011 1.7 MBA, however, if that makes any difference.
 
To be fair, it was known far in advance Broadwell would not bring any significant performance gains. The focus from the off would be the switch to 14nm, which depending on the view has either succeeded or failed.

I'm having a hard time believing though that Broadwell, with an improved version of Quick Sync over Haswell, has trouble playing back footage in iMovie.
 
DavidBlack said:
...people who bought computers with these processors will feel cheated with Skylake begins to come out in a couple of months. When the Skylake rMBPs come out I will sell my current rMBP 13" 2015 and buy a Skylake one.
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yeah. And when Cannonlake comes out, all those people who decided to wait for Skylake are just going to feel terrrrrrrrrible... :apple:
 
ZBoater said:
yeah. And when Cannonlake comes out, all those people who decided to wait for Skylake are just going to feel terrrrrrrrrible... :apple:
Click to expand...

Basically, theres no getting around becoming outdated. Can't always wait for the next thing or you'll end up waiting your entire life. Broadwell right now isn't bad at all and is better than the last, same will be for Skylake & all future versions.

If you need/want it now, you won't be disappointed if you get one.
If you don't need it now and don't mind waiting, wait for Skylake.
 
ZBoater said:
yeah. And when Cannonlake comes out, all those people who decided to wait for Skylake are just going to feel terrrrrrrrrible... :apple:
Click to expand...

Meh ... Cannonlake is just another die shrink. If it turns into another Broadwell, then it will be the one after that that makes people feel bad.

I suspect that Intel will begin moving to new materials with CPUs around that time or the next die shrink after that (if they even bother with selling 5nm CPUs to customers.) Possibly selling them in tandem with the "legacy" silicon-based processors for a while until everyone has been weened onto the new stuff. There was an article several years ago (5 or so years ago, I think) by Intel's CEO at the time where he was quoted as saying that we were within the last ten years of silicon-based CPU's.

If he was right, then that leaves just 5 years before we find ourselves having something else drive our systems. Things should get very interesting.
 
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