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

[Feenician]

I wasn't making an equivalence. Apple products tend to lack in graphical TFLOPS power despite being pro devices. That's a fact.

Compared to gaming machines, and some other business/pro machines and in the aggregate, yes they do. It is indeed a fact. Saying they can’t render advanced graphics isn’t. I’m pretty sure people have been doing graphical work of all sorts of natures on Macs this year, last year, the year before that, and so on.

 

[vipergts2207]

I wasn't making an equivalence. Apple products tend to lack in graphical TFLOPS power despite being pro devices. That's a fact.

They’ve always used upper mid-range graphics chips. For more than a decade now in fact, so this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Anyone waiting around for Apple to drop in a GeForce 1080 clearly can’t put 2 and 2 together. Though with eGPU support now, it matters less now than it ever has.

 

[chucker23n1]

I still think Apple would do well to update to the new 8th gen 15W CPUs with Intel UHD (or God forbid NVidia MX150) GPU.

They could, but those are Kaby Lake Refresh. They're probably waiting for Coffee Lake or Cannonlake parts.

 

[HowardEv]

Any reason this processor couldn’t be in a new Mini? I mean, if it’s power-miserly enough to live in a laptop, it could certainly be in a desktop computer.

And by same logic, if i9 can be powered by a battery in a laptop, it can be powered by a battery in the new Mini!

It seems really strange we put up with the CPU being built in to the laptop, with so many compromises. Why can’t we have separate Mac mini and keyboard/display?

 

[MauiPa]

Compare the price of the current Touch Bar MacBook Pro to a 15" MacBook Pro from 2011 or 2015, even accounting for inflation, and you'll see what I mean. The price of a 2011 15" MacBook Pro plus inflation is still almost $400 cheaper.

It matters not what the inflation adjusted price of a MBP is, it matters about what the competition is delivering for a comparable price and comparable performance. and that price being full life-cycle including replacement, maintenance, support. No-one should be surprised at this point that Apple positions itself in the premium sector of the market. And you can argue the merits of that all you want, it remains.

 

[rjtyork]

I still desperately want MagSafe.

 

[MalcolmTucker]

What do you think the chances are that this device will be non-repairable by Apple?

 

[FrozenDarkness]

Compare the price of the current Touch Bar MacBook Pro to a 15" MacBook Pro from 2011 or 2015, even accounting for inflation, and you'll see what I mean. The price of a 2011 15" MacBook Pro plus inflation is still almost $400 cheaper.

you have to compare it with a discrete graphics card.

Fact of the matter is nobody is entitled to a macbook pro. On the other end, if you don't like it, don't buy it. Just don't hate the player when they sell enough even at their elevated price point to remain competitive.

 

[T-R-S]

Awesome. Now update the non touchbar version please Apple.

They have it just put some black tape over it

 

[EightyTwenty]

Price...give me a break. They are always on the higher end, but you get what you pay for and you don’t have to use Windows. Software is something people don’t consider enough in price.

There was a massive price increase with the introduction of the useless gimmick touchbar.

The price on these machines is outrageous.

 

[AJ5790]

Graphics on a pro machine, don't be silly


That's generous, an ultrabook with a maxq 1060 will out perform the 560x and probably throttle less.


Sounds like you live in the same deluded world as Ive and other Apple designers, I bet you think the iPad Pro is a laptop replacement

It replaced mine. You must live in the same deluded world as everyone else who thinks only their use case is important enough to be called real computing.

 

[FrozenDarkness]

i'd be willing to bet that if apple ever decides to remove the touch bar, you won't see a price drop.

 

[AJ5790]

There was a massive price increase with the introduction of the useless gimmick touchbar.

The price on these machines is outrageous.

Inflation adjusted, these laptops aren’t as expensive as many, many, many Mac laptops of the past.

 

[zombierunner]

Is a redesign expected next year? I'd like to get the 13 inch MBP but hoping it gets a iPhone X style bezel and Face ID and maybe 4k screen.

 

[citysnaps]

not everything is about performance gain. They highly lowered usability in 2016 and there is no difference in 2018.

Speaking from personal experience, actually owning and using one?

My 2017 MBP is a far more useable laptop. It's a joy using it. Everyday.

A few things: Better keyboard on which I can type much faster and more accurately. Much better and larger trackpad. Lighter weight and more compact; great for traveling. More flexible and faster ports. USB-C connectors can be plugged in either orientation. I can charge my laptop from either the left or right sides. My laptop can charge my phone (haven't needed to do that yet). Sound quality out of the speakers is much better. The display is much nicer supporting the DCI-P3 color gamut.

 

[droog]

You can thank AMD's ryzen team for this.

 

[redheeler]

I looked into it and the mid-cycle unibodies are the odd ones out, starting at $1800 baseline in 2011, even the first unibodies in 2008 started at $2000. Why mid-cycle ones were cheaper than the original MBPs ($2000 in 2007 = $2430 now) and the retina MBPs ($2200 in 2012 = $2415 now), I couldn’t tell you. Lower prices for the recession perhaps? Considering that the current MBPs are actually cheaper (relatively) than two of the past three iterations, I think $2400 is a very fair price of entry for the 15”. Storage really is what causes these prices to start looking crazy.

We're now into the second year of the 2016 design, therefore:

• For the Retina design, it makes sense to compare it to the 2014 models. $1,999 = $2,127.80 adjusted for inflation.
• For the Unibody design, it makes sense to compare it to the 2010 models. $1,799 = $2,078.95 adjusted for inflation.
• For the pre-Unibody design, it makes sense to compare it to the 2008 models. $1,999 = $2,310.08 adjusted for inflation.

Conclusion: You have to go all the way back to 2008 or 2009 to get close to the 2018 base price for the 15" MacBook Pro. A $300 price drop across the lineup would bring the Touch Bar MacBook Pro up to the same value-for-money as previous models sold from 2010 to 2015.

 

[atmc]

They haven't updated them for ages, so yes, they better have a big performance improvement. This is like putting a Thread.Sleep() inside your code, then remove it, and say the performance gains are huge. Sure they are

 

[Miha_v]

Nice to see a spec bump like that. Premium performance for premium price, fair enough.

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 .

It's not just about the absolute performance, but more about the relative performance - what you get, for what you pay. With a Mac, you have to pay CRAZY amount to get enough RAM (or cores) if your needs are high. I'm working on a 32GB ram max i7 spec 2017 iMac and still, additional performance would be very welcome. I know professionals, that are still satisfied with a 5 year old MBP, but professions can vary A LOT. If you are doing heavy processing work, believe me, every core and additional piece of memory (or a spec bump) will help tremendosuly.

 

[MRrainer]

Very impressive. I find myself in search of excuses to buy one (there are none, of course).

I would assume the GPU-power is what is needed by the most common use-cases for this device. Most probably use it to run VMs , FXP, Photoshop, programming. So anything in excess would have been no use for most buyers.

I think these are really worthwhile machines that could last a very long time, should the keyboard-fix do what it is supposed to do. A new "classic", so to speak.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

What do you think the chances are that this device will be non-repairable by Apple?

Zero. They come with standard warranties, and Apple sells AppleCare for them. That means Apple has a choice - swap out every machine that requires repair, or repair them at much lower cost.

Now, if you mean something more limited, like, "Will the Apple Stores have to ship these out to repair centers, or will they be able to repair on site?" Whenever a new model comes out, repair manuals must be issued and staff trained on the specifics of repairing that model. Parts must be shipped to the stores, etc. It's the same story with every new model. There's nearly always a gap between shipping the first units to customers and equipping the shops to repair them. Some repairs may always require a trip to the repair center, others may be sent there if the store is not yet ready to perform the repair on site.

Considering how few units are likely to fail during that initial period, it's hardly worth considering in the big scheme. But of course, there will be a handful of units that will have a near-immediate failure, the owners will post about it on the web, and commentators will spin the stories to match their particular bias.

 

[vipergts2207]

We're now into the second year of the 2016 design, therefore:

• For the Retina design, it makes sense to compare it to the 2014 models. $1,999 = $2,127.80 adjusted for inflation.
• For the Unibody design, it makes sense to compare it to the 2010 models. $1,799 = $2,078.95 adjusted for inflation.
• For the pre-Unibody design, it makes sense to compare it to the 2008 models. $1,999 = $2,310.08 adjusted for inflation.

Conclusion: You have to go all the way back to 2008 or 2009 to get close to the 2018 base price for the 15" MacBook Pro. A $300 price drop across the lineup would bring the Touch Bar MacBook Pro up to the same value-for-money as previous models sold from 2010 to 2015.

Your comparison with the 2014 retina model is apples and oranges though. The baseline model that year only had integrated graphics, which is far inferior to most other baseline MBPs which have usually had dedicated graphics. I already conceded on the inexplicably lower priced (on an absolute scale even) mid-cycle unibodies, but the latest MBPs are still very much in line with the pre-unibody and rMBP prices, as long as you stick with apples to apples hardware.

 

[FrozenDarkness]

the real answer is if you don't like it don't buy it. clearly the majority of apple fans don't agree which is why Apple is emboldened.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/

compared with:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263393/global-pc-shipments-since-1st-quarter-2009-by-vendor/
[doublepost=1531688540][/doublepost]Another point, iPhone X sales weren't up to snuff with a lot of news outlets attributing it to price. Guess what, all the rumors point to a price drop next generation. It's that simple.

 

[newdeal]

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.

 

[Kaibelf]

Indeed.

A gaming laptop from 2017 with a mobile GTX 1070 and 5.9 TFLOPS smokes the most expensive 2018 MBP with a 560X and 2.6 TFLOPS. Heck, even the most powerful iMac with a 580 has 5.5 TFLOPS (and the BlackMagic eGPU).

Well heck, I guess my Mac version of Stardew Valley just won’t cut it.