Geekbench Shows 2018 MacBook Pro Has Biggest Yearly Performance Gain Since 2011

[Bacillus]

So set the Touch Bar to always show the expanded Control Strip, and you've got the usual brightness/playback/volume buttons back.

Now that really is a teriffic idea. Function keys ! And lighten them up for $400.
Next: $400 for electro-shock feedback (with rubberized membranes to limit sound effects)
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That guy will have a battery and UIperformance complaints if Apple increase the resolution like he wanted. Some people never feel happy.

Talk with Phil. Trashcan-man always finds a reason not to develop something useful.

 

[simonmet]

What? Mine from 2016 looks fine.

Some have reported wearing issues, especially around the ports. See this video from the 3:40 mark. I never saw that after years of MagSafe:

 

[Bacillus]

Who really cares though? Its a crap computer for pros (and for consumers too, I have a 2017 and had a 2016 so I have experience in the matter) and you sure don't need this sort of cpu power to browse facebook.

You underestimate the importance of speed.
The modern Pro (in Tim’s definition) is a freelancer residing in a cappuchino bar, because he can’t afford an office, in need of the fastest Apple gear to react 10 milliseconds faster than his neighbour to call an Uber (because he can’t afford a car) to gain his new temp. contract that helps him paying next month’s rent (as he can’t afford a house)
Every millisecond counts.

 

[manu chao]

I think the dust thing has been overblown. We really don't know exactly why there's an elevated failure risk with the keyboards. I'm pretty sure a lot of perfectly fine functioning keyboards belong to people in dustier offices and to messier eaters than some of the ones being returned for repair.

Given that many people have been able to 'repair' their keyboard many times with compressed air, I'd say that dust is a major participant in the keyboard failures.

 

[canhaz]

Hmm but what will all those “professionals” complain about now that their word processors start up quicker? I’m sure the majority of professionals were really struggling without the 32gb ram and six cores .

"I don't need 32GB, therefore everyone else is delusional"

 

[Bacillus]

How about this one... just back from London where neither my Anker or Apple USB-C dongles would work with the HDMI monitor... screwing around for a over 30min with reboots, etc to no avail... ended up showing stuff on an HP Envy (oh and the Dell XPSs and Lenovos in the room had no issue).

It was embarrassing and if Timmy is going to have us live in dongle hell with no recourse, then get those dongles implemented solidly (and if you say "well you can't for all those different models" then don't send us to dongle hell then)... but I guess "it just works" is as dead as disco

Similar experience here. Maddening - I was ready to thrush my MBP through the nearest AppleStore window

 

[0837990]

Macbook Pro 2017 with a i7 2.9 here... Don't really need a faster CPU... But a faster GPU would be nice. The Radeon Pro 560 is 1.9 tflops, the 560X in the 2018's are 2.1 tflops... That's basically not noticeable. Yet there are Windows laptops that packs GTX 1060's and 1070's with Max-Q that almost perform triple of this, and they aren't dedicated "gaming laptops" either. And their price of entry is equivalent or lower!

CPU performance has been more than good enough for quite a while now. GPU performance is where a lot of tasks stagnate: Image editing, product design, video editing and exporting, 3D, VR and AI, blockchain, and of course - gaming. All of these tasks rely much more on GPU power than CPU power.

Until Apple integrates a much faster GPU (5 tflops and higher) I see no reason to upgrade. I've tried eGPU enclosures with Radeon Vega 56 cards and it isn't a good option.

 

[[AUT] Thomas]

All I'm asking for now on the MBPr line is:

• 4k screen
• DisplayPort Support in OSX (MST!)

SmartCard Slot + NFC be great too as every modern government issues eID's these days. Although, an external reader is 15 bucks, so I can live without it.

 

[avkills]

lol a gaming laptop, you mean those things that are as thick as my 1990's VCR? Don't get me wrong I hate the new thin macbook pro's but please ... I'm quite sure my 2017 watercooled ITX build would smoke your gaming laptop and prob be smaller

You need to get out of the house more...

MSI Gaming Laptop with nVidia 1060

We have some similar models at work for show laptops....they are about twice as thick as the 1st gen 15" touchbar MBPs.

Sure they have a bunch of "gimmick" looking crap; but I have been in the live production business a long time and these MSIs are by far the best ****ing windows laptops I have ever worked with. And until 4k starts becoming affordable, native 1080p displays are actually better than some weird ass Retina display resolution.
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Macbook Pro 2017 with a i7 2.9 here... Don't really need a faster CPU... But a faster GPU would be nice. The Radeon Pro 560 is 1.9 tflops, the 560X in the 2018's are 2.1 tflops... That's basically not noticeable. Yet there are Windows laptops that packs GTX 1060's and 1070's with Max-Q that almost perform triple of this, and they aren't dedicated "gaming laptops" either. And their price of entry is equivalent or lower!

CPU performance has been more than good enough for quite a while now. GPU performance is where a lot of tasks stagnate: Image editing, product design, video editing and exporting, 3D, VR and AI, blockchain, and of course - gaming. All of these tasks rely much more on GPU power than CPU power.

Until Apple integrates a much faster GPU (5 tflops and higher) I see no reason to upgrade. I've tried eGPU enclosures with Radeon Vega 56 cards and it isn't a good option.

This could easily be done if Jonny wasn't so hell bent on making them paper thin.

I am going to add that the MSIs we bought were less than $1500; 16GB RAM, SDD + 1 conventional drive. 4GB GPU.

 

[geromi912]

Let’s face it. The MacBook Pro lineup got a great update with very little to complain about...though, people still will (and have).

You can’t deny they’re using 3 year old low end graphics card and still charges extra for the “upgrade”. Go ahead, try and defend that.
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Well those people aren't going to care so much about FLOPS, as far as I know. I think cryptocurrency miners are the only ones who can rely on that as a measurement of GPU performance. Way too many variables with GPUs.

You're right about the 1070 mobile being faster than the rMBP's graphics in any task, though. IDK about being faster than RX580. I think the aim of the rMBP is to let those few people who need the power use an RX580 as an eGPU.

A max q 1070 in many $2000 thin laptops will still easily outperform the rx580 as an eGPU. Remember the 1070 is the superior chip and egpu takes a 15% performance hit minimum.
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View attachment 770839
Beautiful.

GTX 1080. Graphic power of upgraded iMac Pro. Except being nvidia with wider 3rd party support. Massively more powerful than the MBP EVEN with the stupid blackmagic eGPU. Care to defend it, fanboy?

 

[smirking]

Given that many people have been able to 'repair' their keyboard many times with compressed air, I'd say that dust is a major participant in the keyboard failures.

Indeed, but we're not hearing people say that "dust appears to be a contributing factors to keyboard failures." Instead we're hearing "OMG, a single grain of dust will cause your keyboard to fail."

100% of keyboards will have dust in them, but not 100% of them are going to fail. That is why I'm saying the dust story is overblown. Dust alone is probably not the issue. Also, it's awfully curious that there appears to be a predisposition for certain keys to fail. Geez, dust must really be attracted to the "B" key. Whoda thunk it?
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I've tried eGPU enclosures with Radeon Vega 56 cards and it isn't a good option.

Why do you say eGPU isn't a good option? I'm curious because I'm tempted to get an eGPU to accelerate all the image editing that I need to do.

 

[avkills]

You can’t deny they’re using 3 year old low end graphics card and still charges extra for the “upgrade”. Go ahead, try and defend that.
[doublepost=1531739063][/doublepost]
A max q 1070 in many $2000 thin laptops will still easily outperform the rx580 as an eGPU. Remember the 1070 is the superior chip and egpu takes a 15% performance hit minimum.
[doublepost=1531739457][/doublepost]

GTX 1080. Graphic power of upgraded iMac Pro. Except being nvidia with wider 3rd party support. Massively more powerful than the MBP EVEN with the stupid blackmagic eGPU. Care to defend it, fanboy?

Yup, plenty of nice looking Win10 laptops with real GPU power built in. People who need this type of graphics power don't care if it is 1" thick or that it needs to be plugged in 90% of the time.

 

[smirking]

Care to defend it, fanboy?

Dude, relax. Nobody insulted your mother.

 

[Bacillus]

I think the dust thing has been overblown. We really don't know exactly why there's an elevated failure risk with the keyboards. I'm pretty sure a lot of perfectly fine functioning keyboards belong to people in dustier offices and to messier eaters than some of the ones being returned for repair.
I have a 2016 MBP. The finish is fine. I've even dropped it over a couple of feet onto a carpeted floor by accident. I thought I had a visit to the Apple Store for repairs in my near future, but it was fine. It appeared none worse for the wear and didn't even get a dent or scratch that I could see.
Computers are gear to me. They're the tools of my trade and I run them hard and I don't believe in treating them like jewelry. Mine never get babied and so far I've been fairly impressed at the hardiness of my 2016 MBP. I don't think most regular laptops would have fared as well getting dropped like that.

You may be confused by the dust spread in you eyes by Cupertino PR ploys

 

[avkills]

Indeed, but we're not hearing people say that "dust appears to be a contributing factors to keyboard failures." Instead we're hearing "OMG, a single grain of dust will cause your keyboard to fail."

100% of keyboards will have dust in them, but not 100% of them are going to fail. That is why I'm saying the dust story is overblown. Dust alone is probably not the issue. Also, it's awfully curious that there appears to be a predisposition for certain keys to fail. Geez, dust must really be attracted to the "B" key. Whoda thunk it?
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Why do you say eGPU isn't a good option? I'm curious because I'm tempted to get an eGPU to accelerate all the image editing that I need to do.

TB3 is fast, but isn't fast enough yet IMO to make it a worthwhile investment. Wait until the interconnect goes to fiber.
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You may be confused by the dust spread in you eyes by Cupertino PR ploys

Meh! We have 12 rental touchbar Macs and none of the keyboards have gone wonky. And trust me they get plenty of exposure to harsh environments.

One co-worker had her keyboard wonk out on the spacebar; but I can't verify that there wasn't any crumbly chips or food being eaten over it.

 

[Bacillus]

Funny you should say that. I'm a die hard mechanical keyboard user and I like the butterfly switches better than most laptop switches. I also absolutely hated them at first. I hated them so much I carried an external Bluetooth Keyboard around with me so I didn't have to use the butterfly keys while I was on the go with my laptop.

Then I started using it bit by bit and you know what? I got used to it and I started to rather like it.

It definitely takes a little getting used to. Don't judge it until you've used it for a month. If you still hate it after a month, it's not for you and there's nothing wrong with that. Lots of different factors go into whether a keyboard is right for one person or another.

I own over three dozen keyboards (yes, that's excessive and I plan to thin the herd soon). I have keyboards of all types (mostly mechanicals). I loved some of the boards from the second I started using it. Others took some time for me to warm up to and some fell out of favor. You can't always tell if you like something as "initimate" as a keyboard by just tapping on it for a while. You have to get used to it before you can really know if it'll be ok for you or not.

I'm not going to rank my MBP keyboard above any of my favorite mechanicals anytime soon, but I would rank it higher than most laptop keyboards I've used. I'm actually not a fan of the Apple scissor switches when installed in their laptops, but I like them when they're used in their external keyboards.

Yeah, go figure, right? The only reason I found out not all Apple scissor switches are bad was because I gave them a second chance in a new form factor.

“it just works” => “it sometimes works, under further consideration, in favorable circumstances, for those who believe in it and are willing to compromise for the sake of anorexia”

 

[2ilent8cho]

That's all well and good, now take the machine and plug an HDMI cable into it.

Are you serious? You AirPlay . At work every room since 2013 has had an Apple TV connected it to it, every TV in my house has an Apple TV connected to it. If you are a fringe case you can get an adaptor but you simply AirPlay.

 

[Bacillus]

......
Meh! We have 12 rental touchbar Macs and none of the keyboards have gone wonky. And trust me they get plenty of exposure to harsh environments.

One co-worker had her keyboard wonk out on the spacebar; but I can't verify that there wasn't any crumbly chips or food being eaten over it.

While I am happy for your 12 coworkers, they aren’t helping the thousands of other less lucky ones
(unless the wellbeing of the 12 colleagues of a meh-guy is enough to stop their grievance)

 

[smirking]

You may be confused by the dust spread in you eyes by Cupertino PR ploys

“it just works” => “it sometimes works, under further consideration, in favorable circumstances, for those who believe in it and are willing to compromise for the sake of anorexia”

While I am happy for your 12 coworkers, they aren’t helping the thousands of other less lucky ones
Unless the wellbeing of the 12 colleagues of a meh-guy is a reason to drop their grievance.

TB3 is fast, but isn't fast enough yet IMO to make it a worthwhile investment. Wait until the interconnect goes to fiber.

Wow, @avkills, the dude we were replying to above is kinda cray. I guess that's what the ignore list is for.

 

[avkills]

While I am happy for your 12 coworkers, they aren’t helping the thousands of other less lucky ones
Unless the wellbeing of the 12 colleagues of a meh-guy is a reason to drop their grievance.

Apparently you don't understand what a "rental" laptop is. They get re-imaged all the time and are used by many different people in many different situations. In other words they are some what abused.

Apple isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination and I would not doubt there are keyboards that have issues; it is just something that is hard to pin down because people are all different in how they "take care" of the stuff they own. I am sure some are legitimate, but I bet a lot of them are because of less than ideal surroundings and foreign stuff being near and on the keyboard.
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Wow, @avkills, the dude we were replying to above is kinda cray. I guess that's what the ignore list is for.

Maybe. All I know is that my hackintosh with a nVidia 1080ti card does GPU related stuff really fast. I am going to wait the year out to see what Apple does on the Mac Pro, maybe even the Mac mini front. I no longer game at all on OS X, boot into Win10 for that on the hack. If Apple disappoints then I will probably end up making another Hack using a 10-core i9; I will put the nVidia 760 back in my current hack and use the 1080ti on the new one.

 

[geromi912]

Yup, plenty of nice looking Win10 laptops with real GPU power built in. People who need this type of graphics power don't care if it is 1" thick or that it needs to be plugged in 90% of the time.

Oh, Max Q laptops these days can actually be less than 0.75” thick and have good battery life because it’s just on integrated graphics on battery and the dGPU is dormant and have actual power when needed and plugged in

 

[vamp07]

Most people don't do anything computationally intensive. It's a great upgrade but for most users it will make no.diference.

 

[avkills]

Oh, Max Q laptops these days can actually be less than 0.75” thick and have good battery life because it’s just on integrated graphics on battery and the dGPU is dormant and have actual power when needed and plugged in

Of course; I was just entertaining the fact that most professional who need that power are not going to cry over the fact that it isn't paper thin.
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Most people don't do anything computationally intensive. It's a great upgrade but for most users it will make no.diference.

Very true, but it would be nice if Apple made a true workstation style laptop that did not compromise on any front. Hell come back with the 17", with a true 4k display (4096x2160).

 

[geromi912]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-1070-Laptop.169549.0.html 10% slower in average if not the max-Q still think it's slower as all of them throttle, plus none of the 1070 is cheap, an MSI GS65 cost 3200 with slightly slower CPU and 1080p monitor, those cheap gaming laptop with 1050ti/1060 are indeed much slower than desktop and not much faster if any than a macbook pro

What are you on about dude? 1050ti and 1060 are immensely faster than the AMD junk in any MacBook.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/GeFor...-Radeon-RX-560-Laptop_7346_7682.247598.0.html
Don’t forget the 560 in the MacBook is also underclocked and is only at like 85% of the full card. 1060? 80% faster than 1050 Ti and nearly three times the MBP. THREE.
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Yeah that what I said, that is why I used the "still think".

I would be happy to switch to nvidia especially for the iMac who would benefit in a greater way then the Macbook Pro, I'm simply saying that the difference considering TDP constrain is not as big as the people make it, a 1060 would not transform the MacBook Pro into a 3d powerhouse, not even barely enough to render games at native resolution, just few percent margin better than what it currently have.

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1060-6GB-vs-AMD-RX-560/3639vs3926
Ladies and gentlemen, @PJivan has defined >132%+ as “a few perfect margin”. Let’s welcome our well-informed member.

 

[Bacillus]

Apparently you don't understand what a "rental" laptop is. They get re-imaged all the time and are used by many different people in many different situations. In other words they are some what abused.

Apple isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination and I would not doubt...blapedi blapedi

Whether lease, rental, gift and MacBooks being touched, hammered, slaughtered, or charged upside down by your staff doen’t help a design flaw that essentially is a design flaw.
Aside that, as much as I am interested in all your colleagues’ experiences they have little relevance in getting the case solved. On the contrary.