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

[PickUrPoison]

Yeah it’d stay plugged in most of the time, but you take it with you without shutting down, just like a laptop. And you wouldn’t need a UPS just like a laptop. And you could use it anywhere, just like a laptop.

You could use a monitor that plugs in at home and office, or use a laptop or iphone to control it.

Ok I get what you’re saying, but I think there wouldn’t be sufficient demand for that. Most would probably buy a laptop for that away from home/office use case.

But the new mini may well be powered via a USB-C cable instead of having an internal power supply. If so, you could use one of the battery packs that support USB-PD to use the mini when you’re away from AC power.

 

[HowardEv]

No he’s being serious, he really thinks a battery powered mini would be a great product. I think probably Apple would sell less than 1,000.

I don’t understand the use case; personally when I think battery powered computer, I think laptop. Maybe I just think too much in-the-box.

See, with laptops you have to get the 15” to get the fastest cpu, and then it’s too big and expensive to take to the coffee shop, and gets too hot on your lap, and all the cables and interfaces have to plug right into it so you can’t move it.

If they separated the cpu from the keyboard and display, those problems disappear. You could bring the cpu to coffee shop and keep it in your bag, controlled from a light laptop, or if you don’t need it, just bring the light laptop for browsing.
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Ok I get what you’re saying, but I think there wouldn’t be sufficient demand for that. Most would probably buy a laptop for that away from home/office use case.

But the new mini may well be powered via a USB-C cable instead of having an internal power supply. If so, you could use one of the battery packs that support USB-PD to use the mini when you’re away from AC power.

Yeah good idea. They should make laptops that don’t have a battery, and people could use a battery pack with them. No one would mind.

 

[patent10021]

From the looks of it i9 doesn't seem that beneficial. You can save a ton of money buying the third one down from the list. [15" i7 8750H 6 core]. Plus not spending a laughable $3,400 on a 4TB SSD.

I've learned that all you end up doing with more storage is storing more junk. "data hoarding". I prefer to periodically go through my sh_it and organize my data and purge to external. Any people with real storage needs would be using external anyway.

15" MBP + 32GB DDR4 + 2,2GHz 6 Core + 1TB SSD + Radeon Pro 555X = $3,400
15" MBP + 32GB DDR4 + 2,2GHz 6 Core + 2TB SSD + Radeon Pro 555X = $4,200

I think if you're upgrading 32GB is a no brainer. Everything else is fluff. You can still buy the eGPU for any HD/VR/AR development needs. If anything spend your money on 2TB SSD instead of a meaningless CPU speed bump.

 

[pier]

That’s probably why they’re not called MacBook Game.

You think GPUs are only used for gaming?

I'm sure 3d artists, video editors, vfx, animation artists, graphic designers, and pretty much anyone working with pixels must be laughing at you right now.
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a 1017 gaming laptop can be sold used for peanuts and for good reason, they are either loud, hot, low autonomy, just compromise good for some but definitely not a viable solution. really if GPU performance is what is needed then just go with an external GPU or a desktop.

You are missing a couple of points.

1) MBPs could have that level of performance if Apple wanted. Probably even better since the Pascal chips have been already updated and Volta is around the corner.

2) Those cheap gaming laptops are more powerful than most Mac desktops and the "official" eGPU solution.
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Well heck, I guess my Mac version of Stardew Valley just won’t cut it.

And what about DaVinci Resolve, FCPX, After Effects, Photoshop, and all the pro applications that are GPU powered?

Oh, and pretty much any web browser too.

 

[Count Blah]

Whatever. Zdigital2015’s answer was much more helpful, being an actual technical answer to a technical question.

Whatever. I’m glad you were helped by others.

 

[transpo1]

Would like to hear if the 32GB RAM decreases battery performance at all in the 15 inch. Anyone hear anything?

 

[kjvmartin]

50% depreciation in one year for me is peanut, another 2 years and become unsalable, in fact I can find gaming led plastic with 970m for 550 euros.

P.S. is this the start of a pointless discussion were you try to prove that a gaming laptop keep better value over the year compared to a Macbook pro?

Ok, you started talking about 1070 laptops and have now changed to 970m laptops. I'm just telling you, from my own experience, that gaming laptops hold their value quite well. Maybe not quite as good as a MacBook Pro, but it's certainly not 50% depreciation the first year.

 

[thecombatwombat]

no offense dude, your argument makes no sense. If you don't like the Touch Bar, there is nor requirement to use it, just don't. seems more functional than a row of keys that no one uses. And you really think that the cost of a Touch Bar would change the price of a MBP by? $4, $12, seriously what is your learned estimate?

Plenty of peope use that row of keys. If you code in vim, you use the escape key a _lot_. If you like doing simple things like changing the volume without looking at the touch bar, those keys are a lot more useful than the touch bar.

Just because you don't use them doesn't mean no one does. And that was the whole point of the only argument I made. Those users might be in a minority, but that doesn't make them wrong. We'll just go somewhere else.

Also, from the price gap between the 13 inch models with and without touch bar, Apple seems to place the cost at around $300. The models offered today vary in specs a fair bit more as the 13 inch hasn't been updated, but pretty sure the gap is the same as it was before. It's definitely well over $12.

 

[cmaier]

Plenty of peope use that row of keys. If you code in vim, you use the escape key a _lot_. If you like doing simple things like changing the volume without looking at the touch bar, those keys are a lot more useful than the touch bar.

Just because you don't use there doesn't mean no one does. And that was the whole point of the only argument I made. Those users might be in a minority, but that doesn't make them wrong. We'll just go somewhere else.

Also, from the price gap between the 13 inch models with and without touch bar, Apple seems to place the cost at around $300. The models offered today vary in specs a fair bit more as the 13 inch hasn't been updated, but pretty sure the gap is the same as it was before. It's definitely well over $12.

Plus the infernal touchbar actually gets in the way. Been nearly two years and I still constantly am triggering touchbar keys by accident because they don’t require any pressure to register as presses.

 

[Naimfan]

I bought a mid-level 15", mainly to see if Apple has fixed the keyboard. The keyboard is quieter, but we'll see if it melts like every other 15" 2016/17 I've had.

The new one is definitely significantly faster in multi-core aware applications; graphics are about the same as the 2017 and 2016 models. You can see the 2018 model slow down - mine went from a high of 965 on Cinebench to a low of 627 - as it heats up.

 

[simonmet]

Can someone post the OpenCL scores new vs old?

 

[eatrains]

Plenty of peope use that row of keys. If you code in vim, you use the escape key a _lot_. If you like doing simple things like changing the volume without looking at the touch bar, those keys are a lot more useful than the touch bar.

Just because you don't use them doesn't mean no one does. And that was the whole point of the only argument I made. Those users might be in a minority, but that doesn't make them wrong. We'll just go somewhere else.

Also, from the price gap between the 13 inch models with and without touch bar, Apple seems to place the cost at around $300. The models offered today vary in specs a fair bit more as the 13 inch hasn't been updated, but pretty sure the gap is the same as it was before. It's definitely well over $12.

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

 

[Naimfan]

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

Only problem with that is that when the touch bar goes to sleep you have to tap it twice to get the keys back; with the 2015 function keys you didn't.

 

[falainber]

Maybe older iMacs were laptops-on-a-stand.

But recent iMacs use full desktop-class Intel chips. The 2017 5K iMac uses the 91-watt Core i7-7700K... for instance.

91 watts is laptop territory in PC world For supposedly powerful desktop one would expect something like Intel Core i9-7980XE (165W).

 

[Michael Scrip]

Also, from the price gap between the 13 inch models with and without touch bar, Apple seems to place the cost at around $300.

Don't forget... there was more than just the Touch Bar included in that extra $300.

You got a processor upgrade, two additional Thunderbolt ports, slightly faster RAM, slightly faster graphics, and TouchID with the Touch Bar.

Apple usually offers a "step-up" model like this in many of their product lines.

But this time it also swapped the function keys with the Touch Bar.

 

[simonmet]

I bought a mid-level 15", mainly to see if Apple has fixed the keyboard. The keyboard is quieter, but we'll see if it melts like every other 15" 2016/17 I've had.

The new one is definitely significantly faster in multi-core aware applications; graphics are about the same as the 2017 and 2016 models. You can see the 2018 model slow down - mine went from a high of 965 on Cinebench to a low of 627 - as it heats up.

I feel like there has to be a movement towards new benchmarks, or at least additional ones, to account for this. Most existing benchmarks only show peak performance and don't reflect sustained workloads that stress the cooling system. With Apple pushing their laptops ever thinner this is becoming increasingly relevant.

Problem is, if you want to be really scientific about it, comparisons should be done using the same atmospheric conditions; namely temperature and humidity. It's no good reporting on one cooling system run at 18 ℃ and 40% humidity and another at 32 ℃ and 70% humidity.

 

[Michael Scrip]

91 watts is laptop territory in PC world For supposedly powerful desktop one would expect something like Intel Core i9-7980XE (165W).

My point was... the i7-7700K in the iMac is a socketed DESKTOP processor. No arguments.

So your claim that the iMac is just a "laptop-on-a-stand" is overruled.

 

[BvizioN]

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 .

From my life experience, there is a particular field where people really shine! On the complain department. They have, they do and they always will.

 

[Michael Goff]

This tells me that by the time I upgrade my sister’s MacBook Pro it will be a huge upgrade.

 

[csurfr]

Only problem with that is that when the touch bar goes to sleep you have to tap it twice to get the keys back; with the 2015 function keys you didn't.

Or, you know, touch any single key on the keyboard. Which you do when you are actually using the machine. It seems you are looking for any reason you can come up with to bash the new machines, based on your recent post activity.

 

[teknikal90]

Fantastic upgrade, just too expensive for me

 

[fairuz]

"Apple doesn't need to update their processors. The improvements are always marginal."
"Apple should adopt ARM instead of using Intel."
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And the sky is blue...

Adding more cores is what is going to happen over the next few years and this makes a massive difference in multitasking and threaded applications. Especially important for video/creation apps.

I’m curious how often and bad these chips thermal throttle. I would like to see some testing around that. That’s the biggest problem with going with the top of the line chips in these types of laptops. Sometimes it isn’t worth going to the top of the line because they thermal throttle more often then the processor right under it.

Yeah, I've seen my MBP hit the thermal limits many times. Usually when using that PoS Google Hangouts.

 

[Feenician]

"Apple doesn't need to update their processors. The improvements are always marginal."
"Apple should adopt ARM instead of using Intel."

“I quote things, without quoting anyone in particular, taking into account the core count increase this year is an exception that hasn’t been seen for years, or asking anyone if their opinion on ARM instead of Intel has changed despite it”

You’re normally better than this.

 

[fooyork]

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).

Beautiful.

 

[fairuz]

“I quote things, without quoting anyone in particular, taking into account the core count increase this year is an exception that hasn’t been seen for years, or asking anyone if their opinion on ARM instead of Intel has changed despite it”

You’re normally better than this.

There were plenty of people in previous front-page stories saying specifically that the current latest gen of Intel CPUs should not be adopted, but I don't want to go the effort of being a jerk and quoting them all. The "ARM better than Intel" argument has always been dumb regardless, but it looks even worse now.