Intel's Mobile Processor Roadmap May Force Graphics Changes for Apple's 15-Inch MacBook Pro in 2017

maflynn said:
Yup, I remember, and the transition was going to happen sooner, but IBM approached them and promised them the sky, saying the their "G5" would hit 3Ghz, and they'd have a mobile processor in short order. Neither of which actually occured so they finally dumped the PPC platform
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Funny how jammed up they were about not hitting 3GHz. Apple was buying into the MHz myth they had so long told people to ignore. Fast forward to 2016 and the MacBook lineup caps out at 1.3GHz, MBA is 2.2GHz and even the MBP is under 3GHz.

All that said, the MBP lineup is starting to see updates less frequently than the PowerBooks were back in those days, which is what really drove the CPU switch. Its beginning to feel a lot like 2005 again.
 
I'm seriously considering cutting my losses and getting the current model. My MacBook Pro mid 2010 is ages like 'fine wine' but processor and graphics card in it just don't cut it anymore.
 
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Surely there's a skunkworks division at Apple running Mac OS on some A11 chip with a custom GPU thrown in.
Heck, it might even be Intel compatible.
 
Roobun said:
It already has. Razer has a macbook pro clone. The biggest difference is that it uses windows.
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OMG, that new Razer Blade for 2016 is one awesome looking piece of kit.

looks very similar to the rMPRO, but in all black. with full RGB backlight keyboard (RGB=Speed), 3200x1800 display, Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C port, options of 128gb, 512gb or 1tb PCIe m.2 SSDs, 16gb DDR4 ram, Wireless AC, touch screen display, USB3, HDMI, 3.5mm headphone, Not to mention a full Geforce 1060
just waiting on price. but this machine itself looks to be one hell of a premium laptop

and thats not even including their "Macbook air" competitor.

so yeah, there are lots of companies out there who are providing significant bang for the buck in similar but equal quality in build to Apple using far far newer generation parts.
 
keysofanxiety said:
On paper, maybe. But when you use it, the difference in build quality is immediately apparent.

You are right, though. Razer are a great exception to the rule. :)
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The downside for me is that avid doesn't certify razer.. or any "gaming" laptop for that matter :p
 
keysofanxiety said:
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Plus with all the moaning around here, people still can't find a laptop as thin as a 15" rMBP, with equivalent build quality, same weight, same battery life, and same horsepower. It can't be done.

People have been groaning about Mac laptops being 'underpowered' since I can ever remember. But they last. They work. Plus the 15" rMBP is still a beast of a machine. It's a heck of a workhorse and a damned beauty.
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There are lighter, thinner and more powerful machines like Dell XPS 15. http://www.itpro.co.uk/laptops/21797/macbook-pro-15in-v-dell-xps-15-head-to-head-review-4

And to be honest, Dell build quality is amazing. Trackpad is just lacking behind Macbook.
 
asiga said:
Apple is quite anti-GPU these days. If an Intel CPU doesn't have adequate integrated graphics, it will be skipped, because Apple won't reverse the path taken against discrete GPUs.

I'd really wish that some major Apple customer would request a multimillion dollar shipment of Macs equipped with cutting-edge NVIDIA GPUs, but that kind of customers already moved to Linux. The main Mac user wears a watchie and chats with a phonie... that's the sad reality.
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Linux? Yes, there is a huge Linux base, but I find it hard to believe that those users chose the platform over a Mac simply because of graphics performance. If anything, they chose a Windows computer because they are gamers. Otherwise, Mac graphics performance is adequate for the vast majority of users.

I run 20+ virtual Linux boxes, not because of graphics performance, but because they are the best web servers available. Locally, I do all development on a Mac. There are large numbers of startups and development companies that provide Macs to their teams simply because the tech is just far more compatible with the larger internet-hosting universe.

As for graphics performance, Macs have always had a reputation of "being better for graphics", so it is curious that Apple is letting the Mac platform slide, while continuing to make a huge hardware investment into iOS devices. It's not like Apple *doesn't* provide high-performance graphics — the Mac Pro — but that there is such a huge price gap to acquire it, plus they have let it remain stagnant for far too long. Apple does need to fix this, and I think in-house development of Mac chips is the real solution, rather than relying on other industry partners that have their own agendas.
 
keysofanxiety said:
Pray tell, SirRahikkala... what can't you currently do on your MacBook Pro? What 'Pro' functionality and ability will you suddenly unlock with a slightly faster processor and dGPU?
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You and me know that its never about what we can do with some machine or not. Macbook Pro used to be one of the most powerful laptops there is but now Apple is not running in that race anymore. That was the point.
 
OldSchoolMacGuy said:
While the true pro market folks may cry about the choice, if you were running a business, would you opt for the choice that makes your product a bit cheaper and will result in 100x more sales or a bit more expensive and result in far less sales?
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Like almost every business, I would have multiple offerings, not just one that everyone has to conform to.
 
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Pretty hilarious that Apple moved away from IBM chips to Intel because they didn't want to be held back by IBM's slow development cycle. And now they're hamstrung by Intel's cycle. The sooner Apple can bring the whole CPU and GPU development in-house, the better. Even if it means buying AMD or another fabricator.
 
keysofanxiety said:
Apple have never had the most powerful hardware in their portables. Ever. They go for the balance between the three.

Plus with all the moaning around here, people still can't find a laptop as thin as a 15" rMBP, with equivalent build quality, same weight, same battery life, and same horsepower. It can't be done.

People have been groaning about Mac laptops being 'underpowered' since I can ever remember. But they last. They work. Plus the 15" rMBP is still a beast of a machine. It's a heck of a workhorse and a damned beauty.
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I agree that Apple has created a pretty amazing laptop given the constraints they've given themselves. As with the iPhone, I wish they would back away a bit from the thinness motif in favor of other objectives.
 
Hrududu said:
Funny how jammed up they were about not hitting 3GHz. Apple was buying into the MHz myth
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I think we all were, the thing that really put the nail in the coffin was the fact IBM couldn't deliver the mobile processor. Kind of funny how history repeats itself. Apple finally left PPC because of the lack of mobile processors, and Intel, in all of their might has struggled to rollout processors on time, and right now doesn't have a mobile processor for Apple to use

Hrududu said:
All that said, the MBP lineup is starting to see updates less frequently than the PowerBooks
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I know, but I think this is partly Cook's decision to squeeze as much profits out of the computer line without investing in any improvements - just my $.02
 
maflynn said:
Actually the PPC to Intel was the worst kept secret. I remember how there were so many rumors of Apple running two versions of OS X, PPC and Intel.

If Apple ditches Intel over this, I see no positives coming from this, they'll not sell more laptops (which is their goal), but less. I for one would stop buying Macs, as I need and want an intel based computer
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I don't remember that, myself. I do remember getting the chills when Steve announced that on stage with his fun, creative way of showing the Apple headquarters and the "secret lab" where the Intel builds were being done.
 
Hrududu said:
Funny how jammed up they were about not hitting 3GHz. Apple was buying into the MHz myth they had so long told people to ignore. Fast forward to 2016 and the MacBook lineup caps out at 1.3GHz, MBA is 2.2GHz and even the MBP is under 3GHz.

All that said, the MBP lineup is starting to see updates less frequently than the PowerBooks were back in those days, which is what really drove the CPU switch. Its beginning to feel a lot like 2005 again.
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Different CPU generations and focus. way back in the day, Both intel and PPC though the key to better performance was exclusively clock speed, even AMD was in on this game for the better part of the 90's and early 00s. Intel and IBM ran into issues that once you started going faster and faster, you also needed longer pipelines, and the heat issue was real. Look at Intel's Pentium 4 lineup for the same issues that IBM was hitting.

it was only AMD who finally said "ok, the MHZ war is unwinnable, and if we aim for efficiency we can keep up performance with less clocks". Intel eventually followed suit, threw away their inneficient, hot and highly clocked NetBurst CPU's and went back to their Pentium 3 technologies and advanced on those. that birthed the "Core" lineup that we see today, that was able to bring down the MHz race.

There are still lots of applications though that benefit from faster clocks. but eventually we learned that we could do a far more with parallel processing, with smarter logic, than pure horspower. hence why we can still do as much with 1.3ghz and 2.2ghz CPU's as we did with 3.5ghz Pentium 4s. 2 or 4 cores with properly threaded programs can be far more efficient and accomplish the same things.
 
maflynn said:
Apple needs to do something, doing nothing as not helped them. Just sitting there waiting for Intel is not a good business strategy.
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4/16 interim solution until AMD Fusion chips are ready with their own architecture.
They have shown they can do it .

Plan B: Put in 100 Motorola chips.
 
keysofanxiety said:
Haha, as if that's comparable. 3.5 hours battery life on the XPS 15. Nearly 9 hours on the MacBook Pro. And that was the 2013 model running Mavericks.

Get out of here. :rolleyes:
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I stand corrected, that is another thing where macbook is better. Trackpad and battery life. But battery life comes in expense of form factor, OS and performance.
 
OldSchoolMacGuy said:
I'm not so sure about that. Seems 95% of those that own a MBP have no reason to over a MBA other than Pro sounds better (a status symbol). Most simply browse the web, watch some videos, email, and do some light word processing. For those, there's no need for dedicated graphics.

Very few of those that buy Pros are really pros with any need for the high-end features they offer. Seems the current solution of offering machines with dual graphics cards meet the needs of most.

While the true pro market folks may cry about the choice, if you were running a business, would you opt for the choice that makes your product a bit cheaper and will result in 100x more sales or a bit more expensive and result in far less sales?
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Why not just buy 100s of 'MacBook' then? If all they're doing is browsing the web, watching some videos, reading emails and word processing? Could save the company in question quite a bit of money. Substantially.

Let the pro model be professional with dedicated powerful graphics.
 
LordVic said:
I'm going to wait to see what AMD has in mobile before I make that claim over Nvidia though.

Nvidia's current generation chips for mobile are identical to the desktop. you can get full 1060 power in an ultrabook form factor now. and 1070/1080 in larger laptops.

not the scaled down "mobile" versions of previous GPUs, but the exact same chipsets. thats an impressive feat that I'm not sure AMD can match right now.
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Mobile and desktop dies were always exactly the same. There is no difference between BRANDING of the GPU dies currently in Nvidia lineup, but GPUs are heavily down clocked compared to desktop ones. Thats why you get GTX 1060 currently. GTX 1050 is coming soon with under the 75W thermal envelope, on desktop, and around 40W in Mobile.

AMD offers already RX 470 in laptops, in the same branding manner as Nvidia. You can argue with Apple, but they will not use the Pascal GPUs. Look no further than kexts in macOS Sierra. There is support already for RX 460, 470 and 480. No sign of not only Pascal, but Maxwell GPUs in the system.
 
SirRahikkala said:
I stand corrected, that is another thing where macbook is better. Trackpad and battery life. But battery life comes in expense of form factor, OS and performance.
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Yes, but as stated before, Apple are the best all-round solution. That takes everything into account.

Power, performance, build quality, thinness, lightness, battery life, display. Historically there have always been other non-Apple machines that do one thing in particular better. Not arguing that. But all round? Nah. Apple still have the crown.
 
SirRahikkala said:
I stand corrected, that is another thing where macbook is better. Trackpad and battery life. But battery life comes in expense of form factor, OS and performance.
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I love the mentality

The Dell XPS generally is faster, and hits MORE of the functionality boxes that a Pro might be looking for...

but because it's battery isn't the same as apples, suddenly to the poster you responded to it's crap and not even comparable.

its one sided bias posts without any critical thinking like that, that I wish we had the downvote button back
 
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