Macbook Pro 2019 Benchmarks and First Impressions! Post yours!

[richinaus]

True, but the competition is catching up. The new workstation laptops announced at Computex look great. For almost a decade, Apple had the best display, but now, other premium laptops are more then worthy rivals. And while Apple had a brief GPU edge with Vega Pro, XPS and others will be now shipping with GTX 1650, which will offer around 20-25% more performance at the same power consumption, for a lower price. Lets hope that mobile Navi with decent improvements will become standard in late 2019 MBP

I have just had a look at Computex more. The Nvidia RTX studio laptops have amazing specs, and I would be surprised to be honest if Navi comes close. It is a great time to be choosing a new machine as the current tech does look great. As we all know Apple don't tend to play the specs game that much but hopefully they do manage to get a new GPU in the MBP which is closer to the RTX Quadro's.

This thread is about first impressions though, and feel it has gone a little awry. So if anybody has some new impressions to add on these current MBP's it would be great to hear your experiences.

 

[MacRS4]

Well, I've changed my mind about the keyboard now since I first used the machine - initially I was a bit 'meh, it's the same'. Now, having gone back yesterday to my 2018 unit I realise it absolutely isn't. It's hard to quantify but it does feel more solid with less lateral movement in the keys, so they've obviously done something.

Is it preferable? Erm.....I don't think either feels 'better', they just feel slightly different. I've not had problems with any of my keyboards however so obviously the opinion of others may vary.

 

[maflynn]

and I would be surprised to be honest if Navi comes close

AMD has been hitting it out of the park with CPUs, but yet their GPUs have always seem to lag behind. I don't see them approaching what Nvidia does. From what I see the serious gaming machines all of Nvidia and the Quadra GPU is highly regarded as well.

I think apple made a mistake by dropping Nvidia, but that's neither here or there.

 

[cube]

AMD has been hitting it out of the park with CPUs, but yet their GPUs have always seem to lag behind. I don't see them approaching what Nvidia does. From what I see the serious gaming machines all of Nvidia and the Quadra GPU is highly regarded as well.

I think apple made a mistake by dropping Nvidia, but that's neither here or there.

AMD was sometimes ahead of NVIDIA.

 

[Bob1985]

Intel power gadget output for 2018 6-core i9 vs. 2019 8-core i9 running a multi-threaded ray-tracing application. The 2019 can run the 8 cores at the same clock rate which is good.

See attached.

 

[Thysanoptera]

Intel power gadget output for 2018 6-core i9 vs. 2019 8-core i9 running a multi-threaded ray-tracing application. The 2019 can run the 8 cores at the same clock rate which is good.

See attached.

You see, the 2018 is at 41W, the 2019 at 51. The 2018 should be able to easy match this, the coiling is the same. 10 W difference is a lot, it could be because you've run the 2018 for a longer period of time, or the 2018 has messed up cooling assembly.

 

[RumorConsumer]

Well, I've changed my mind about the keyboard now since I first used the machine - initially I was a bit 'meh, it's the same'. Now, having gone back yesterday to my 2018 unit I realise it absolutely isn't. It's hard to quantify but it does feel more solid with less lateral movement in the keys, so they've obviously done something.

Is it preferable? Erm.....I don't think either feels 'better', they just feel slightly different. I've not had problems with any of my keyboards however so obviously the opinion of others may vary.

You prefer the 2019 KB now?

 

[MacRS4]

Not particularly, neither bother me at all. The newer one does seem slightly less squishy however.

 

[RumorConsumer]

Not particularly, neither bother me at all. The newer one does seem slightly less squishy however.

I have the 2017 and have used the 2016 extensively. The 2016 feels clacky and a bit wobbly to me, the 2017 is an improvement and is a bit more solid, the 2018 feels increasingly so. 2019 another cut in that direction?

 

[Bob1985]

You see, the 2018 is at 41W, the 2019 at 51. The 2018 should be able to easy match this, the coiling is the same. 10 W difference is a lot, it could be because you've run the 2018 for a longer period of time, or the 2018 has messed up cooling assembly.

Sorry, I'm not seeing your point. The bottom line for me is clock rate and temperature (which determines clock rate). I don't really care if the 2019 uses more power.

 

[Thysanoptera]

Sorry, I'm not seeing your point. The bottom line for me is clock rate and temperature (which determines clock rate). I don't really care if the 2019 uses more power.

But the temperature is determined by the power dissipated through its heatsink. This is the limiting point, the 2019 can get rid of more heat, but this is because the 2018 sample was bad - it doesn't even reach rated TDP.

 

[MrGunnyPT]

AMD has been hitting it out of the park with CPUs, but yet their GPUs have always seem to lag behind. I don't see them approaching what Nvidia does. From what I see the serious gaming machines all of Nvidia and the Quadra GPU is highly regarded as well.

I think apple made a mistake by dropping Nvidia, but that's neither here or there.

Well.. problem is... Nvidia doesn't have a good enough chip in terms of watts for the MacBook Pro.. they do the MX line but they are even less powerful than the RX ones we got on the 15"

 

[maflynn]

Well.. problem is... Nvidia doesn't have a good enough chip in terms of watts for the MacBook Pro.

What do you mean?

 

[MrGunnyPT]

What do you mean?

They don't have good enough low powered chips to fit in the MB Pro chassis.. Isn't that one of the reasons they went with AMD for the GPU solutions back in 2015?

 

[Thysanoptera]

They don't have good enough low powered chips to fit in the MB Pro chassis.. Isn't that one of the reasons they went with AMD for the GPU solutions back in 2015?

They have 1050, Ti, MaxQ whatever combination, and now the 1650 with similar TDP to Vega and MX similar to RX. In 2015 there were also 940m etc, only Apple could answer why they got offended, picked up their toys and left Nvidia sandbox for good.

 

[MacRS4]

I have the 2017 and have used the 2016 extensively. The 2016 feels clacky and a bit wobbly to me, the 2017 is an improvement and is a bit more solid, the 2018 feels increasingly so. 2019 another cut in that direction?

Yes, I'd agree with that. I've had all of those too - the 2016 unit was by far the noisiest too.

 

[maflynn]

Isn't that one of the reasons they went with AMD for the GPU solutions back in 2015?

Tbh, I had no idea why they dropped Nvidia and adopted AMD.

 

[RumorConsumer]

Tbh, I had no idea why they dropped Nvidia and adopted AMD.

Uh and the Nvidia chips had been noting but problems and cost millions of dollars in quality programs.

 

[09872738]

Uh and the Nvidia chips had been noting but problems and cost millions of dollars in quality programs.

Also AMD chips suffered from failures back then, so not only Nvidia is guilty in that regard. These days, though, there does not seem to be a problem with either GPU manufacturer, so this argument is hardly valid.
Even more so as Nvidia seems to be so far ahead performance wise (interesting to see the mobile RTXs unveiled last week) there must be a good reason (other than tech) for this. I take that as hint that something undisclosed went seriously wrong between Nvidia and Apple.

Rumors have it that a couple of years ago Nvidia threatened Apple to sue them over some intellectual property thingy. Anyway, it is unknown what the cause for all the fuzz is. All we know their relationship went southwards and tbh I doubt we'll see Nvidia drivers for Mojave and later systems.
As it stands, Apple seems to be done with Nvidia

 

[Bob1985]

But the temperature is determined by the power dissipated through its heatsink. This is the limiting point, the 2019 can get rid of more heat, but this is because the 2018 sample was bad - it doesn't even reach rated TDP.

Agreed. The 2019 must have better heat dissipation.

If we could only get some 10nm CPUs next year.

 

[keithop]

I know it's early days but I'd be really interested in the fan noise of the 2019 models v the 2018s.

My 2018 i9 is still dreadful. I've rpm'd the fans down and turned off turbo boost and it's still more noisy than any macbook I've had before (I know I know, i9 what did I expect).

Main use is just lots of web, word, vnc, ssh, bit of dev work. I'm in no way pushing it but when I do need some power I'd like to be have a machine capable enough.

So, if the 2019 i9 is quiet under normal circumstances then I'll get that :/ if not, then I guess I need to ponder one of the i7 models

 

[MacRS4]

My 2018 ramps up quicker and maintains fans more than the 2019. You're looking between 45-48dB measured at the middle of the front of the screen which seems to be the loudest point.

I'm sat here on the 2019 unit with Windows running in Parallels - fans are about 2.2k. My i9 would be fully fanning (for want of a better term!) doing the same thing pretty much.

 

[keithop]

Thanks for that.... sounds like the 2019 would be much better for me, I wonder how it would compare to a 2019 i7 though

 

[MacRS4]

You may find this interesting.

I'm sat here running repeated R20 Cinebench tests and I tend to agree with the above fella. Apple just wants the fans quieter. If I manually stick them on full I get way better benchmarks. Wouldn't you expect the fans to ramp up more when under load?

it's not thermal throttling as such, but performance is certainly constrained by the thermals. Which are kinda different things I guess.

 

[RumorConsumer]

You may find this interesting.

I'm sat here running repeated R20 Cinebench tests and I tend to agree with the above fella. Apple just wants the fans quieter. If I manually stick them on full I get way better benchmarks. Wouldn't you expect the fans to ramp up more when under load?

it's not thermal throttling as such, but performance is certainly constrained by the thermals. Which are kinda different things I guess.

Have you played with the sweet spot on how much more juice to give the fans before its too irritating to be on all the time? Like if you boost em by 500rpm or something. Theres prob a best bang for buck spot thats above apples stringent guidelines.