Intel's Upcoming Coffee Lake Processors Up to 30% Faster Than Kaby Lake Chips Coming to Mac Notebooks

[UltimaKilo]

As you have so astutely noted, Intel has done horribly with regard to being able to meet their own release schedules, but hasn't seemed to learn. The Broadwell Fiasco is still the absolute worst example (2 shipping CPUs, WTF?) and I am sure that's why we ended up with Haswell for three generations of 15" MacBook Pros.

We can all complain about the time it took to get Skylake CPUs into MacBook Pros, but I would suggest that everyone Google "Skylake Microsoft Surface 4 Pro issues" and read on from there. MS adopted Skylake earlier than anyone else in the industry to get a jump on Apple and other PC makers and I would bet that they regret it to this day.

Kaby Lake is the latest and greatest until Coffee Lake ships (whenever that may be) and that's that. People on this forum suggesting that Kaby Lake is already outdated are not living in the same reality as the rest of us.

I think people should stop complaining. KabyLake will finally make the MacBook Pro worth purchasing for those who absolutely need it now. However, CoffeeLake will be a beast and if you can hold out until next year, do so.

If Apple releases the updated MB and MBP on August/September we could get
Coffee Lake instead of Kaby Laby. Waiting two months to release them means new processors vs outdated processors.

Come Apple. Improve your timing! Stop releasing computers with 10+ months old processors!

Who the heck told you CoffeeLake will be released in August/September? You won't see CoffeeLake on any MBP equivalent machines until 2018. Also, KabyLake is not 10+ months old. For those that work in high-end video editing, KabyLake will be a big deal. CoffeeLake is going to be a monster, but most people won't really ever use it to its full potential.

Also, those looking to make a MBP a gaming machine should look elsewhere.

 

[lysingur]

I fail to see how "there are phones with it" is a response to "are there even laptops with it?".

I couldn't quickly find one. (I also don't see why it's worth bickering about, but that's another matter.)



So I tried to research this, too, and found a comparison by brightness.

The top three spots are Apple. The MacBook Pros offer 564 (13-inch) and 532 (15-inch) nits, respectively. No other laptop even appears to reach 400 nits. Most seem to however between 250 and 400 nits.



It seems to do quite well.

Apple's laptop display isn't even OLED. Surely you know brightness isn't the only measure of a great display. And the link you gave has Apple only at 2nd and 3rd. How did you get Apple being the top 3 (Unless Apple acquired Razer as we're talking)?

The fact that there are phones with Bluetooth 5 is significant because not only is it a significant update to the Bluetooth standard but also has been implemented to great effect. In other words, it's not some standard that's just been introduced and lacks hardware support as some would like to have us believe.

 

[chucker23n1]

Apple's laptop display isn't even OLED. Surely you know brightness isn't the only measure of a great display.

Seems to me you like to change goalposts. You complained that someone asserted Apple had the brightest laptop displays in the market. It does indeed look like they do. Now you're discussing something else. Enjoy?

OLED is interesting. It wasn't the topic, though.

And the link you gave has Apple only at 2nd and 3rd. How did you get Apple being the top 3?

Um, what? I sorted by brightness. That was the topic, wasn't it?

The fact that there are phones with Bluetooth 5 is significant because not only is it a significant update to the Bluetooth standard but also has been implemented to great effect. In other words, it's not some standard that's just been introduced and lacks hardware support.

It is, in fact, "some standard that's just been introduced and lacks hardware support".

That doesn't mean Bluetooth 5.0 is good or bad. It isn't even relevant, because you so far haven't been able to show either a single laptop with Bluetooth 5.0, or the huge benefits the oh-so-terrible Apple is missing out on.

 

[lysingur]

Seems to me you like to change goalposts. You complained that someone asserted Apple had the brightest laptop displays in the market. It does indeed look like they do. Now you're discussing something else. Enjoy?

OLED is interesting. It wasn't the topic, though.



Um, what? I sorted by brightness. That was the topic, wasn't it?



It is, in fact, "some standard that's just been introduced and lacks hardware support".

That doesn't mean Bluetooth 5.0 is good or bad. It isn't even relevant, because you so far haven't been able to show either a single laptop with Bluetooth 5.0, or the huge benefits the oh-so-terrible Apple is missing out on.

You should go back and read what people actually said and then started replying. It's "leman" who brought up the issue of brightness and read my reply, I never said Apple's display isn't one of the brightest. I said it's not the BEST.

http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/oled-screen-laptops-brightness

Read this link then we can talk. People worth their salt know brightness isn't everything, especially when it comes to measuring how great the viewing experience is vis-à-vis a display. But you keep up your good work while evading the real issue.

 

[LordVic]

This is where Apple could show some "courage" by taking the spinning hard drives out of the 27" iMac, moving to all flash storage, creating a slightly thicker chassis with usable vents that can actually dissipate heat quickly enough along with creating some sort of compact closed loop liquid cooling setup...OR just give us a new tower called the "Mac" that starts with the Kaby Lake X CPUs and let's us BTO up to, let's say, the 10-Core i9-7900X. Anything 12-core or more ( or go straight to dual CPU Xeons) is reserved for the Mac Pro.

The challenge for Apple is now going to be whether or not they recognize where the market is going (more cores...finally), for better or worse, and give their Pro and Prosumer users the options they crave. Me? I don't NEED a Xeon, but I need more than 4 cores and I need/want PCIe slots to update the GPU and add PCIe cards in the future. My desk is a mess with external Thunderbolt "solutions". I can live just fine 3 slots, one x16 for the GPU, one x8 and one x4 should be sufficient for any video or mass storage interfaces I might want or need.

A Mac Pro should have 5-6 PCIe slots and single or dual CPU options, like the 2006-2012 Mac Pros.

That said, I am fairly psyched about the new X-series...12 cores for $1200.00!!! Wow!!! Last year's Broadwell-E 10-core i7-6950X is $1559.78 at Amazon...exciting times. Thank you AMD Ryzen.

the 8c/16t "X" CPU for $599 had me do an about face on my potential upgrade. Intel's single core performance is still unmatched, and if they can make an 8core that has the fastest single core, that is also 8+ threads, i might hold off from ryzen.

 

[lysingur]

That doesn't mean Bluetooth 5.0 is good or bad. It isn't even relevant, because you so far haven't been able to show either a single laptop with Bluetooth 5.0, or the huge benefits the oh-so-terrible Apple is missing out on.

Since when does Apple start waiting till competitors introduce a laptop with the latest standard then follow suit?

So you know nothing about Bluetooth and probably hasn't even tried a phone with Bluetooth 5.0 to be able to know what a huge difference it makes compared to 4.2. Well, I guess there are always those pesky few who like to argue for the sake of arguing, aren't there?

 

[RickInHouston]

[doublepost=1496160161][/doublepost]
I'm still using mid 2015 15" with 2.8 Ghz i7,1 tb HD and ****ing love it .Not planing to upgrade it to this new touch bar jokes

You make it sound like using a 2 year old computer is some sort of 'hardship'. You should be able to keep loving it for another six years, easy.

 

[jiggad369]

Exactly.

Seems many don't understand what pro means. Those making money with their machines will gladly pay a few extra dollars for upgraded hardware to get their job done. Maxed the specs on my MBP and it paid for itself in less than a week. In the time it would take to open a MBP up and upgrade the RAM, I paid for the difference in price savings a couple times over.

The vast majority of those that complain about specs and prices to BTO aren't pros at all. They're normal consumers who won't use their machine for much more than web browsing, email, and maybe a pirated copy of Photoshop they'll use once every couple months for work that could be done with free alternatives. Their only need for a pro machine is to brag about specs to others and make themselves feel good because they have a top of the line machine (even if they have no need for such things).

Working in a community of thousands of video, audio, and other pros, there's almost no complaining coming from them. Certainly nowhere near what you see on MR coming from non-pros.

QFT

 

[leman]

I don't even want to waste time replying to this badly reasoned and factually deficient comment

Friend, if you have issues with factual contents of my post, please be so kind to point them out in a constructive manner. Since all you do is inventing straw hat arguments to back up your polemics, your position is at best awkward.

There are already phones that you can buy that are equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 so I don't know if you're just too lazy to do your own research before posting or "arguing for the sake of arguing"?

I am very well aware of the S8, as should be fairly clear from the post you quote. I am asking you which actual computer is currently shipping with BT5.0 and what are the chips with BT5.0 support that could be potentially used in such a computer. The fact is that Apple is a leader in BT support in the computer marker, by supporting BT4.2 where most others are still using BT4.0 or BT4.1.

So you agree with me: "Let's just call all of them outdated, no?" (FYI, all of them outdated logically means MacBook Pro is outdated since it's one of them) It doesn't at all excuse Apple charging its users a premium for an outdated product.

Sure, if that makes you happy lets just say that Apple's laptops are least outdated of all the outdated laptops (which are basically all of them) on the market

"Apple has literally the brightest laptop displays on the market": you must be joking.

Maybe you are right and I am behind with my information. So what other laptop manufacturer offers a 500+ nit wide-gamut display?

 

[lysingur]

Maybe you are right and I am behind with my information. So what other laptop manufacturer offers a 500+ nit wide-gamut display?

Oh, not arguing that Apple's display isn't bright. I was just amused that you think brightness is an actual argument when OLED is already out there.

Straw man? "The fact is that Apple is a leader in BT support in the computer marker, by supporting BT4.2 where most others are still using BT4.0 or BT4.1."
Now that's a straw man. Outdated means it's not up-to-date with current technology. Your straw man is "those other computers". So according to you, so long as MacBook Pro's specs are slightly better than the rest, it's NOT outdated. Your measure of being up-to-date is not vis-à-vis current technology, which is how it should be, but rather vis-à-vis the laptops that are currently on the market. This is beyond funny since at MacBook Pro's price, which is more expensive than most, of course its specs should be better than most, no?

Sure, if that makes you happy lets just say that Apple's laptops are least outdated of all the outdated laptops (which are basically all of them) on the market

This is just to point out that you're in fact arguing for the sake of arguing. Sorry I didn't make my sarcasm more apparent.

 

[chucker23n1]

Oh, not arguing that Apple's display isn't bright. I was just amused that you think brightest is an actual argument when OLED is already out there.

Contrast and black levels aren't everything, and OLED still has problems retaining color accuracy after years of use.

For what MacBook Pros are typically used for (hint: not watching movies), TFT may be the more appropriate technology. There's no easy "OLED is better, period" answer here.

Or, I suppose, you're right and Apple is either too stupid to choose OLED (even though they do use it on the Watch), or doesn't have the financial resources. Or they're cheaping out (even though they just increased the gamut). Something like that. In fact, I'm baffled — what's your argument here?

 

[lysingur]

Contrast and black levels aren't everything, and OLED still has problems retaining color accuracy after years of use.

For what MacBook Pros are typically used for (hint: not watching movies), TFT may be the more appropriate technology. There's no easy "OLED is better, period" answer here.

Or, I suppose, you're right and Apple is either too stupid to choose OLED (even though they do use it on the Watch), or doesn't have the financial resources. Or they're cheaping out (even though they just increased the gamut). Something like that. In fact, I'm baffled — what's your argument here?

OLED technology has already improved and it's constantly improving. http://www.anandtech.com/show/10697/the-lenovo-thinkpad-x1-yoga-review/11

I actually don't know what you're talking about in your last paragraph. My argument is simple: a MacBook Pro that doesn't have an OLED display should be considered outdated. And please, it's not like Retina display was free of major issues when it was first introduced. By comparison, OLED is a much more mature technology. On the one hand, diehards are saying most people who are complaining about specs are non-pros (who probably couldn't care less about colour accuracy) and on the other, slightly less accurate colour is somehow an impediment to implementing OLED technology. So, what's your argument here?

 

[gnasher729]

They'll be outdated the day they're released;

Gimped GPU, soldered components, limited ports, insulting price tag, etc.

You know where to buy a Windows PC, right? Don't let the door hit you when you leave the building.
[doublepost=1496182823][/doublepost]

The new Intel chip notwithstanding, actually. If you look at HDMI, Bluetooth, DDR, and display technology, MacBook Pro mid-2017 will most likely be outdated in all of these areas.

You can plug in four 4K monitors into a new MBP. Show me a PC that let's you do that. Ok, show me a PC that you can then turn on and the four displays work

 

[lysingur]

You can plug in four 4K monitors into a new MBP. Show me a PC that let's you do that. Ok, show me a PC that you can then turn on and the four displays work

And that's an argument that the latest MBP isn't outdated how?

 

[gnasher729]

Sadly Apple will use chips from 5 years ago and charge $2000 for the privilege, mac laptops will forever remain underpowered and overpriced, devoid of intelligent useful chips, ports, graphics.

I appreciate your sarcasm, but unfortunately some people thought you meant it.

 

[bladerunner2000]

You know where to buy a Windows PC, right? Don't let the door hit you when you leave the building.

Do you know of a PC with proper hardware that comes with OS X?

 

[sublunar]

Iris Graphics variants of the Coffee Lake mobile chips may push adoption in Macbook Pro models until 2018 unless Intel really push the boat out, I would say that this is the time for Apple to launch a Revision B Macbook Pro while Coffee Lake will become Revision C in early 2018.

I'm also concerned about how Apple will adopt Coffee Lake because of the apparent cascade of cores down the line which could cause uncertainty amongst potential buyers of Macbook Pros later this year in the event that Dell/HP/Microsoft beat Apple to the punch in releasing machines with multi-core Coffee Lake CPUs within.

The average consumer won't be aware of some some mobile i5 CPUs potentially gaining hyper threading like current i7 CPUs, while the i7 CPUs gain an extra two cores and 4 threads to become 6 core 12 thread machines. It's not known if Intel will raise subsequently raise prices or if Apple will re-arrange their product lines but along with the potential advent of AMD Vega GPUs it might put damage existing sales if pro Mac users start to hold out for Coffee Lake and sales suffer later this year.

 

[DesterWallaboo]

i9 with 18 cores should fly.

Cores ≠ speed in every case. For instance... our 12-core Mac Pros and nMP's are slower than the current version of the iMac by about 4x when rendering under After Effects. Only in 3D does the MP and nMP outperform the iMac, but by less than you would hope. The clock speeds on the iMacs make them very attractive for After Effects use, as AE needs clock speed more than multiple cores.

 

[imnotthewalrus]

That's the reality of technology -- the clock is ticking towards obsolescence before the product even ships and there's always something 'better' just over the horizon.

The fact is, if you need a laptop now, the one you can hold in your hand today/tomorrow is much better than the one you might be able to hold in 6 months.

Well put; nice to see/hear the voice of reason here for a change. Hardware is no different than software when it comes to ongoing development (as it should be); so you can't ever expect to have the "latest and greatest" for more than 6 months.

 

[FasterQuieter]

Impressive gains for the 4th iteration of the same process.

 

[Daniel Reed]

I guess I'll have to wait for the 2018 Mac Pro...

...announcement! Expect it to start shipping in 2019

 

[gadgetfreaky]

I think people should stop complaining. KabyLake will finally make the MacBook Pro worth purchasing for those who absolutely need it now. However, CoffeeLake will be a beast and if you can hold out until next year, do so.



Who the heck told you CoffeeLake will be released in August/September? You won't see CoffeeLake on any MBP equivalent machines until 2018. Also, KabyLake is not 10+ months old. For those that work in high-end video editing, KabyLake will be a big deal. CoffeeLake is going to be a monster, but most people won't really ever use it to its full potential.

Also, those looking to make a MBP a gaming machine should look elsewhere.

VR and NVIDIA reducing gaming laptops from 10 pounds to 5 pounds means you can have power in a small package. I think the next year will prove you incorrect- not just unpleasant in tone.

 

[Zaqfalcon]

'New chip faster than old chip'

 

[Ethosik]

I bristle when I see talk of a "pro" iMac. What horse manure. More of Apple telling customers what it needs rather than supply what is wanted. This isn't a ding on the iMac, but a Mini is so much more ideal as a lower end "pro" box. Personally, I like to customize my monitor set up and an AIO doesn't lend itself to that. Plus the Mini is easy to crack open -- though they kind of neutered that last gen. But I'd pay $1800 for a mini Pro with solid processor, GPU, and RAM capability. That is essentially what the entry level cheese grater MP was, just more customizable.




That is true of all tech. If it weren't it would stagnate. It's been a long time since I've bought any expensive tech assured it would not be superseded, or even obsoleted, in 6-18 months. We aren't talking about clothes irons here. Also I wouldn't say a 1 year old computer is "outdated" any more than a 1 year old car.

Agreed. I spent a good chunk of change on the GTX 1080 at launch. Now there is the GTX 1080 Ti

 

[monokakata]

Not if you're sticking with the cantilever design. Then a complete redesign would be required internally, which of course is possible and well within Apple's means...but why?

I honestly can't comprehend the level of hatred people have for the horror of having to plug the ****ing mouse in for 2 hours at some point when not in use once a month.

Yes. I've been using one of these for more than a year, and the plugging-in doesn't bother me at all. It would, though, if they hadn't built in that quick-charge business. Battery dead? Plug in, go somewhere else for 5 minutes, and you've got enough juice for several hours.

All my earlier Magic Mice had battery problems, even with Apple batteries. You want unreliable? They were unreliable for me. This one's not.

Port in the bottom would be ridiculous if you had to use it very often. But you don't.