To make sure their product is working properly? Ok, maybe not advice but maybe suggestions?
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Intel is to Blame... It's True.
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To make sure their product is working properly? Ok, maybe not advice but maybe suggestions?
It is Apple's fault. They did not test the machines enough...
... and even more importantly: They did not improve the cooling solution!!!
... and even more importantly: They did not improve the cooling solution!!!
Honestly, no manufacturer is going to really want or listen to Intel’s suggestions. Intel makes chips, they aren’t in the business of selling premium laptops.
They are also not impartial as they have interest in selling chips, not put people off or admit to them that their chips run too hot.
here you go apple i9 cooling solution 
. you are welcome.
. you are welcome. 
TBH that's what you need to get the best out of the i9. I expected the MBP not to be capable of running at 100% equally disappointed that the reduction in performance is so aggressive.
That said things are looking clearer with some solutions on had at least to mitigate throttling.
Q-6
Definitely, though the heating issue on the i9 is more pronounced then on the i7 and more so on he base 2.2. those mitigation steps will help, until such time that we'll get a firmware update with Apple which I fully believe we'll see
Yep
. That is the only way to cool an i9 properly. That is exactly the reason why 
should not have put in this:
you can trust that intel give all techical documentations about the chips for manufacturers they need to use chips correctly. it is manufacturers choice to where they put those chips and how they handle them. designing a case and a cooling system hasnt anything to do with a chip maker.
apple has always been proud how well they design e.g. the air flow in their laptops. have you already forgot all these images like this one?
But sure, intel could have said ”Hey Tim, apple needs to get rid of the morbid obsession of paper sharp laptops.” but you know, a suggestion that apple would have refused to listen anyway...
Seriously, how an earth are you expecting that intel could suggest anything at all? they should know about the chassis and the final product, they should have knowledge to build a cooling system inside a laptop, they should use their own time to investigate and made proposals for a company that has their own engineers who have been doing it already for years and testing prototypes, and should probably know which works and which doesnt. so, what excatly intel could offer more than technical data and documentations?
The documentation is available in public domain. It states that the laptop only needs to provide 45W of cooling power in order for the CPU to work properly. The MBP cooling design certainly provides that since it works great on Skylake and Kaby Lake, which are said by Intel to have exact same requirements in regards to cooling. If it is the case that Intel CPUs greatly surpass the advertised 45W limit, then Intel should probably recall all of them, because they are clearly defective (just to make clear, I don't think its the case).
But frankly, looking at all the evidence, I am starting to have some doubts about this entire throttling story. In the notebookcheck test, the CPU runs above the base frequency on average — so its strictly within the specs (the frequency shows wild fluctuations though, which is very strange and should be investigated further). In the repeated geekbench test, the CPU was constantly running 0.5Ghz above its base frequency. These suggest that Apple cooling solution is within the spec. Not as good as dedicated gaming laptops of course, but within the spec.
@leman - have you seen the results people are getting by limiting the power the chip is drawing using the volta tool? Example here where @maflynn got a 25% improvment in his CB score: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/cooling-solution-for-the-2018-mbp.2128656/ I'm interpreting this as the imposed power limit preventing excessive draw and resultant overheating -> thus preventing the feedback loop that is causing the unstable runs people are getting. Thus cpu runs more smoothly under load and more work done on average over time. Its starting to look to me like apple just didn't put enough effort into tuning these things under load
How so?
I run cinebench, (without under volting or limiting the wattage) and the temps spike to 100c, are you saying I'll see any throttling with the CPU temperates hitting 100c?
Between the keyboard issues and this throttling, it really is pushing me towards waiting to upgrade until Apple redesigns the chassis.
Hopefully I can get:
- better cooling
- functional keyboard
- cpu: AV1 hardware decoding? (maybe not until 2020)
- cpu: Maybe the new 10nm chips will run cooler/lower power
- 802.11ax
There's not much else more I'm waiting for unless there are some cool accessory technologies I'm not thinking about (better bluetooth/etc). Or if there's some massive technological leap in battery life.
Hopefully I can get:
- better cooling
- functional keyboard
- cpu: AV1 hardware decoding? (maybe not until 2020)
- cpu: Maybe the new 10nm chips will run cooler/lower power
- 802.11ax
There's not much else more I'm waiting for unless there are some cool accessory technologies I'm not thinking about (better bluetooth/etc). Or if there's some massive technological leap in battery life.
Apple either:
One is ignorance bordering on negligence, the other is belligerence bordering on malice.
I mean, who am I kidding? It's 99% the latter. Apple does not respect you. Do you respect yourself?
- Didn't know about this issue, because they didn't thoroughly test or QC their own design (i.e. they essentially slapped a processor rated to the same TDP and called it a day)
- Or they knew about it and still released it
One is ignorance bordering on negligence, the other is belligerence bordering on malice.
I mean, who am I kidding? It's 99% the latter. Apple does not respect you. Do you respect yourself?
It's very simple the CPU's are not performing as expected. This generation of processors depends ever more on the ability to Turbo Boost.
Let's drop all the throttling definitions as the game has clearly changed. A CPU running tasks at 2.2GHz or 3.9GHz is very significant difference in real world performance, blatantly obvious to all.
Suggesting that just maintaining base frequency is acceptable and or Intel did not divulge full specification of the 8th Gen H series CPU's to Apple is staggeringly naive at best. Technically in spec yes, helpful absolutely not on any level.
Bottom line is the MBP is struggling to maintain higher clock speeds in the face of the competition due to the thermal & power limits imposed by Apple. All the uploaded charts are indicative of throttling be it above or below the base frequency threshold.
Members have clearly illustrated that reducing CPU voltage and or power limits results in improved performance another classic indicator of the CPU thermal throttling.
Far as I'm aware Intel's publicly released data sheets presently only cover 8th Gen U & Y series CPU’s, if you have links for the new i7/i9 H series please provide.
The 8th Gen H series CPU's require adequate cooling & power to deliver maximum performance. If not in place you will see the same results as the XPS 15, ZenBook Pro & 2018 MBP.
If your hung up on the word and technical definition of throttling we can rephrase to "CPU frequency rollback" ultimately it all adds up to less performance than one would typically expect...
Q-6
100c is a normal temperature for an MBP under full load. I can reproduce it in a 2013 and a 2015. Neither are damaged by it 5 and 3 years later. It’s right around that temp that MBPs throttle.
I'm not saying its getting damaged, I'm asking @leman if my MBP hits 100c will it throttle, as he's disbelieving the throttling story. I can easily duplicate the issue of my MBP hitting 100c.
Sorry. Totally misread that.
100c is right where Apple’s (now seemingly shockingly naive) CPU throttling occurs.
You're right, Intel is to blame for the increase in heat generated by these new CPUs. But that doesn't completely excuse Apple (or other manufacturers) from testing and making improvements to the cooling system as needed.
Thats cool, thanks for info! Its also what notebookcheck guys are saying. If performance can be improved by imposing a power limit, then I hope that Apple will tweak their power management.
Of course it will throttle
But throttling does not equal throttling. I mean, if we had perfect cooling, these chips will just happily run on their max frequency any time of the day. But its simply not realistic. If one defines throttling as "not running max frequency", well, then basically every machine on the market is throttling. I think it makes more sense to rephrase the question and actually look at the design specs. The design is that they should run their base frequency on all cores while generating 45Watt of power, on average. Therefore, we can and should expect the laptop to meet these requirements. If it can't maintain the base clock under such conditions, then it makes sense to talk about throttling. And from what I've seen so far, the MBP manages to maintain it.
Yes, the power management does some weird stuff and Apple's usual tactics of pushing the CPU to the limits seems to misfire here, as it tries to go as fast as it can and then has to cool down; and there seems to be issues when also running GPU work, but it seems more and more that this can be fixed by changing the power management unit's behaviour.
Bottomline: with "I doubt the throttling story" means that I don't believe the "MBP's cooling system is not enough to make Coffee Lake perform as they should" rhetorics that you find. At any rate, I am looking forward to getting my machine and putting it through some tests as well as to what other people will find out.
And where do you want to put the limit? Strictly speaking, running 6 cores at 2.7 Ghz average is a healthy performance increase over running 4 cores at 3.4Ghz. Yes, if you have more thermal headroom, you could get even better performance. So lets drop the 45Watt sustained limit and go for 60W? Or maybe 90W? I think this kind of thinking quickly becomes impractical in mobile space. In the ends, its the same as using desktop-class CPUs in a laptop. Which can be (and has been) done, but is situational.
But its as you say, we have more flexibility now and laptop makers have more freedom in adjusting performance increases by tweaking their cooling system.
And by the way, on the point that Apple should have put more emphasis on the cooling system we can totally agree. It always makes sense to improve thermals, under any circumstances. If there are newer, better technologies available, then they probably should be using them.
no, it doesnt state that laptop only needs... you are referring only to the TDP value and it is for a base clock speed (2.9ghz) of the cpu when all cores are active. When the cpu jumps to turbo boost, it start generating heat much more. also if the cooling system needs to maintain not only the more powerful cpu but also the gpu, it going to be a problem if it wasnt designed to match them. you just cant put more powerful parts into the same chassis/design you used for slower specced parts.
this is not either apples first computer with intel chips. apple has manufactured many years laptops with intel chips and for sure apples engineers know what the tdp is and have tested differend scenarios with differend clockspeeds.
I really think apple should have created a thicker 17 inch mbp. The return of the monster. Core i9 as standard. 16-64gb ecc. 17 would give it a lot of breathing room.