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the processor (which includes the memory controller) supports up to 64GB. Intel has had laptop chips that support 32 since at least 2010. Apple has been using those chips. what it ideally requires is 4 RAM slots to keep RAM costs down. and I guess a bigger battery, to make Apple happy. something that is no problem to do on the full sized, port enabled, "professional" laptop that Apple wont make for us any more.
As usual, right to the point, nuff said, BUT, I'd love to USE OSX, on non Apple hardware, until then..........
 
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I don't know what industry you guys are in, but over the last few years companies I've worked for have moved away from "desktops" to mobile devices (luckily, Apple laptops). So these machines ARE the systems we use, not complementary devices. I am afraid these moves by Apple will also make companies think twice before continuing the trend, not just independent developers. For an individual, it's easier to buy two or three additional dongles, but imagine a company having to get dongles for hundreds of employees.

That's why I think they should have a true Pro/Business line with powerful specs, and another line for their touch bar/thinness/etc experimentations.

In the meantime, I am gonna have to shop for a cheaper Ubuntu laptop with more RAM. Hopefully, that works out until a MBP with more power gets released.
 
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Schiller's answer: To put more than 16GB of fast RAM into a notebook design at this time would require a memory system that consumes much more power and wouldn't be efficient enough for a notebook.
That is a nonsense answer.
Modern CPUs have the memory controller built in to the CPU. There is no 'memory system'. What he means to say is that ram consumes significant energy, and additional ram would consume more energy.
You cannot change out the memory subsytem in a Skylake, Xeon or any other modern CPU for anything else.
What is really going on here is that Apple is selling less and less computers each year. People who used to need a desktop or laptop for email and internet are moving to tablets and phones.
They simply do not want to stock an additional SKU with 32gb for the 10-15% of users* who need that much headroom. Developers, Adobe Creative Cloud users and engineers can kvetch and whine, but that is the real motive.
BTW I am a developer, engineer and use CC lots. So I'm pretty peeved.

*statistic arrived at by a random sampling using lasers, magic and room temperature fusion.
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THEN PUT IN A BIGGER BATTERY YOU NUGGET.
but then it couldn't be so thiiiiiinnnn!
Pretty sure in 5 years the macbook pro will be so thin that the Apple event will involve Phil and Tim using the laptop to cut watermelons in half.
But wait theres more! If you buy know we will include a protective cover for your iGinsu so you do not inadvertently disembowel yourself!
 
I don't want to take away from the important of battery life. HOWEVER, is the MacBook Pro not designed for the Pro? Graphics Arts perhaps engineering etc. In those circumstances memory is important. Dell, HP, and others are offering not only 32GB of ram but XEON processors for an engineering grade laptop. While I agree Apple has superior quality if they can't continue to perform in the pro market then they are out. I'm disappointed in the update. I really had high hopes this year for the Macbook Pro.

Apple seems to be in this middle ground between Pro and Consumer. Not really consumer but not really Pro. What gives Apple?

Yes, 32 gb with the option of 64 gb. I was looking at the HP zbook and I wish the Macbook had such options.
 
I've got 14GB of RAM in a 2009 Mac Pro and the best upgrade I've ever made for graphics work is the video card, not the system RAM.

I completely agree with this, a video card upgrade will almost always make a larger difference in performance than increasing the RAM in a system that already has the recommended amount of RAM.

Too bad I can't make a significant GPU upgrade in my 2009 iMac that already has 32GB of RAM.
 
I completely agree with this, a video card upgrade will almost always make a larger difference in performance than increasing the RAM in a system that already has the recommended amount of RAM.

Too bad I can't make a significant GPU upgrade in my 2009 iMac with 32GB of RAM.


And it would be nice if you could have the ability to swap out graphics cards like in some other laptops that are modular. For heaven sakes this is supposed to be a PRO laptop. Give me an 8GB video card option. The MacBook Pro is supposed to be Bad Ass.

HEY APPLE! I'll lay it out for you. Take a look at the Zbook 17 or 15, Dell 7710 or the Lenovo P70 and just copy what they have for internals. That way we have a no compromises REAL pro machine. Add your magic bar thingy or whatever other adornments that will keep your artistic integrity and then ship the damn thing. Let people choose more options and I bet you'll sell many more. Everyone's happy. So you have a few more boxes of components on the assembly line, no big whoop. I'm sure you'll do a great job!

Oh, and if you need to make it a couple mm thicker that's probably fine with anyone using it for power hungry work.

Thanks.
 
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Erm... that's fine if you just use VMs for lightweight tasks or for simple desktop replication. I use mine to replicate whole infrastructures on a micro scale and do specific tasks like troubleshoot bottlenecks, my VMs use their full allocation because that's what I spec the VMs to do...

In a couple years you'll have moved your VMs to the cloud. Not to say I still don't want 32GB, but the need to run local VMs is decreasing.
 
In a couple years you'll have moved your VMs to the cloud. Not to say I still don't want 32GB, but the need to run local VMs is decreasing.
Couple years? I should inform you that cloud virtualization has been around since 2007 or 2008. I was renting VM time on OSX Snow Leopard in those days. The more you add between you and the VM image, the slower things get.
 



Despite featuring more energy efficient Skylake processors, faster SSDs, better GPUs, and new thermal architecture, Apple's revamped MacBook Pros continue to max out at 16GB RAM.

Many customers have been wondering why Apple didn't bump up the maximum RAM to 32GB, including MacRumors reader David, who emailed Apple to ask and got an explanation from marketing chief Phil Schiller. According to Schiller, more than 16GB RAM would consume too much power and have a negative impact on battery life.

macbook_pro_2016_roundup_header.jpg
While most average customers likely couldn't utilize 32GB RAM, the MacBook Pro is aimed at professionals who need more computing power and who may occasionally feel the constraints of being limited to 16GB RAM. There will undoubtedly be customers who are disappointed that Apple has not offered a choice between better performance and battery life.

For the 2016 MacBook Pro, Apple was able to reach "all-day battery life," which equates to 10 hours of wireless web use or iTunes movie playback. That's an hour improvement over the previous generation in the 15-inch machine, and a small step back in the 13-inch machine.

While none of Apple's portable machines offer more than 16GB RAM, 32GB of RAM is a high-end custom upgrade option in the 27-inch iMac.

Article Link: New MacBook Pros Max Out at 16GB RAM Due to Battery Life Concerns
I don't understand, why they are making every time a thinner device? For me as an example, I don't need at this point thin device, if the 2015 MBPR would have a 9 hour battery and 32 gb of RAM, I'll be happy.
 
the new MacBook pros should have had 8 and 16 cores options, 128GB of ram, 2 x SD card slot and 6 USB-C ports including magsafe. And one port to plug the iPhone 7 stupid headphone connector.

Pro users don't care about 2mm thinner, they want POWER & SPEED without compromise

Jony, Timmy, Federighi, Schiller they are always talking to the press about nothing and now they have been in hiding mode since this terrible fiasco release.

they are brunch of idiots, greedy cowards

the press is also guilty of covering them up

mainstream media as well as all these weak ass sniffing bloggers should call them and ask tough questions, instead of keep licking tim crook shoes

Charlie rose should interview Tim Cook now and ask: what the F*** hell are you doing ????
 
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In a couple years you'll have moved your VMs to the cloud. Not to say I still don't want 32GB, but the need to run local VMs is decreasing.

Are you predicting a huge price drop?


Currently the cheapest options are not very robust. And if they need windows vm's, not even an option. I use digital ocean. $10 a month for 1 droplet. One of the fairest deals out there. 512 mb of Ram as recall, 1 core proc and 30gb local storage.

they offer now added storage...at cost ofc. And all it has are *nix droplets. CLI Linux can run in the specs above. Testing purposes it works for my basic needs. Windows server 2012? no......

Not complaining, I like my droplet and a fair price imo. Digital ocean a nice company and would recommend. But putting some of my local vm's on my account not happening. 50+ a month, 600+ a year, say 3 years...1800. This kind of why many run these local.

Same reason why I run NAS and the cloud while nice I avoid. Upfront costs of 8.1 TB nas has in 1.5 year already met ROI vice service fees of around now 5 tb I'd pay if I did that route. And I get synology's DSM and applications it supports to play with. My NAS does more than store files, a lot more.
 
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Despite featuring more energy efficient Skylake processors, faster SSDs, better GPUs, and new thermal architecture, Apple's revamped MacBook Pros continue to max out at 16GB RAM.

Many customers have been wondering why Apple didn't bump up the maximum RAM to 32GB, including MacRumors reader David, who emailed Apple to ask and got an explanation from marketing chief Phil Schiller. According to Schiller, more than 16GB RAM would consume too much power and have a negative impact on battery life.

macbook_pro_2016_roundup_header.jpg
While most average customers likely couldn't utilize 32GB RAM, the MacBook Pro is aimed at professionals who need more computing power and who may occasionally feel the constraints of being limited to 16GB RAM. There will undoubtedly be customers who are disappointed that Apple has not offered a choice between better performance and battery life.

For the 2016 MacBook Pro, Apple was able to reach "all-day battery life," which equates to 10 hours of wireless web use or iTunes movie playback. That's an hour improvement over the previous generation in the 15-inch machine, and a small step back in the 13-inch machine.

While none of Apple's portable machines offer more than 16GB RAM, 32GB of RAM is a high-end custom upgrade option in the 27-inch iMac.

Article Link: New MacBook Pros Max Out at 16GB RAM Due to Battery Life Concerns
[doublepost=1477885208][/doublepost]Would it kill them to offer a model with bigger RAM capability, more battery, shorter run-time that is not paper thin? For crying out loud, give the user community some freaking choice. I'm NOT BUYING A LAPTOP (at the top-end price) that can't go above 16-GB. Don't they realize that the limiting factor on the usefulness+longevity+usability on a laptop is how much RAM is in the blasted thing? They have taken away our ability to add memory as we need, now they FORCE US to only have what they say we can have. Its getting really really old.
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I completely agree with this, a video card upgrade will almost always make a larger difference in performance than increasing the RAM in a system that already has the recommended amount of RAM.

Too bad I can't make a significant GPU upgrade in my 2009 iMac that already has 32GB of RAM.

Sure, for video or graphics rendering, that is fine. But there are some of us that need 2 or maybe 3 different browsers open, Excel, a bloated email too and then some kind of heavy app, like X-Code. The bottom line is, we need HORSEPOWER to run our productivity tools, and with that comes the need for more RAM.
 
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This is about the only major criticism of the new gen MBP that I can unequivocally, without setting hands or eyes on it, get on board with. I can't for the life of me see why they couldn't just see why they didn't just offer 32Gb as a BTO option with the proviso that it affects battery life. Anyone actually using 16Gb is either using VM's or heavy duty image or video editing software and knows that it affects battery life. I often run two VM's at 4Gb+, 3 at 4Gb or even 4 at 3Gb, leaving my 16Gb 2015 15" with 4Gb at all times. The Haswell processor still rips through that for the most part and, in any case, neither Skylake or Kaby Lake or anything else Intel has pre-announced will significantly change that for the next 2 or 3 years. Efficiency? Battery Life? If you're running that kind of workload that uses that kind of RAM you'll know that nothing can make it work for even half a working da, not Skylake, not Kaby Lake and not anything coming down Intel's pipeline. Efficiency and battery life are bigger concerns for PowerPoint warriors (which I sometimes double as)

IPC has flatlined for Intel at this point. I can see that having a bit more RAM would increase my headroom for seriously memory intensive work and Apple should have offered that imo.
 
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There are 16Gig mobile chip format, memory modules?

That's the issue, they don't exist.

Two 8GB sticks of 1600 MHz DDR3 is what's in the 2012 Mini's now. So I'm hosed?
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The BMD MultiDock II looks amazing. But I hesitate to spend that much on anything I can't take on the road. I'd really like to have something like the Drobo Mini, for SSD's, and not made by Drobo. But the BMD is very compelling. I probably need both :(


Not sure I'd go for a Drobo for critical work. IDK if they ever got their R/QOS up to the level of what they're charging. Also, I'm inherently suspicious of proprietary RAID formats. Speaking of my hatred of consumer/prosumer NAS; Interested in my 4-bay QNAP? Learned a big lesson there. :eek:o_O
By On the Road, do you mean out in the field w/o any juice? Because DITs use those MultiDocks on set all the time. So here is what I'd do if you can get by with one bus-powered SSD solution that supports TRIM, USB-3 and USB-C: http://www.angelbird.com/en/prod/ssd2go-pkt-1031/
It's simpler than tearing apart a plastic-cased Thunderbolt G-Drive Mobile just to jam in an SSD.
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What hinders you to order a machine with as little RAM as they offer if you truly believe some extra RAM would severely suck the battery? 99% percent of Mac Book Pro users I know would appreciate 32 / 64 / 128 you name it GB of RAM for the work they do. Let people have choice. The fact that you don't care about something means nothing.
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Just try to diagonalize a 2^16 by 2^16 matrix and I'll watch your memory compression techniques at work ;-). 16GB RAM max for a (wannabe) Pro laptop in 2016 is a bad joke. Moore's law, anyone?

Moore's Law has been replaced by Tim's Law: Every year, everything gets thinner.
http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html
http://www.techrepublic.com/article...ne-surveillance-cracked-our-trust-in-the-web/
 
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I didn't read the entire thread but RAM (whether it be on a GPU or system memory) actually uses quite a bit of power.

Here are some examples of power usage (under load):
• 32GB 1866 DDR3 1.5V: 24W
• 32GB 2133 DDR4 1.2V: 12W
• 4GB GDDR5 Video Card: 31W
• 4GB HBM1 Video Card: 15W

Now sure DDR3L (1.35V) and DDR4L (1.05V) use less power, but the reality still exists that doubling memory doubles its power usage.
 
I didn't read the entire thread but RAM (whether it be on a GPU or system memory) actually uses quite a bit of power.

Here are some examples of power usage (under load):
• 32GB 1866 DDR3 1.5V: 24W
• 32GB 2133 DDR4 1.2V: 12W
• 4GB GDDR5 Video Card: 31W
• 4GB HBM1 Video Card: 15W

Now sure DDR3L (1.35V) and DDR4L (1.05V) use less power, but the reality still exists that doubling memory doubles its power usage.

Do you have the figure for 16GB of LPDDR3 @ 2133?
 
This actually makes great sense. RAM causes a constant drain on the battery and the power usages of RAM is rather high when you compare it to CPU and GPU, especially in notebooks like this with very power efficient CPU's and integrated graphics.

But how come Apple uses battery life as the excuse, while they still insists on going with LP DDR3 memory on a machine supporting LP DDR4? DDR3 vs DDR4 isn't really about performance, it's all about power efficiency. DDR4 at the same frequencies and timings as DDR3 will use about half the power. So if battery life is Apple's concern, why not opt for LP DDR4 as Skylake features full support for both DDR3 and DDR4? It doesn't make much sense.
 
Oh, sure, you gotta go spoiling everything with "facts" ;)

Thaaaat said, do your figures assume fully loaded? Does 4GB under load of a 16GB module use more power than a fully utilized 4GB module??? Because I think we've mostly agreed that maximum battery time isn't a primary concern for heavy tasks where one expects to plugin anywho.

RAM is non-volatile, it requires constant power to function. There isn't any difference in power usage when you utilise 2% compared to 100% of the RAM. But you will notice higher power usage when you hit 100% as a result of the system needing to engage swapping / page filing so it engages the hard drive / SSD as well.
 
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