That Z840 has some options. 44 cores with 1TB ram is expensive though. Apple would have to charge over 100k if they sold something like a loaded Z840.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
New MacBook Pros Max Out at 16GB RAM Due to Battery Life Concerns
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That Z840 has some options. 44 cores with 1TB ram is expensive though. Apple would have to charge over 100k if they sold something like a loaded Z840.
That's being parroted a lot on these forums but I'm not so sure it's true. People are conflating voltage with power consumption. Similar to how it's being reported, even in tech circles, that the 13" MacBook Pro is slower than last years because it's 2.0GHz instead of 2.5GHz. When in actuality; the 2.0GHz chip is slightly faster than last years 2.5GHz chip. The numbers can be confusing; because they don't tell the whole storage.
DDR4 has the ability to run at lower voltages but not necessarily lower power consumption. In fact, in a handful of tests (just use Google) DDR4 only represents marginal efficiency improvements over DDR3, despite the ability to run at lower voltages. LPDDR3 remains more efficient, significantly so, than DDR4. There's more to energy consumption than voltage.
DDR4 uses ~35% less power than DDR3. LPDDR3 uses ~30% less power than DDR4.
16GB of DDR4 2133 consumes ~ 6watts. 32GB of DDR4 2133 consumes ~12watts.
If you want, I'll do the arithmetic for you and demonstrate how the battery life would change if the MBP had 32GB of DDR4.
Glad I could be a resource. I'm going to use the RGS software that you can order with it for like $1.00 extra and use my MBP to control the z840. So that way I can still stay OSX but get more work done faster and do more creatively.
If anyone else is interested call HP and talk to Rick Jordan (the number is on the HP workstation site). He is one of the HP Direct people who work with the techs who assemble your machine. He has some discounts and suggestions if you aren't really sure to begin. You can also order smaller boxes such as the z440 and z640 that are slightly less expensive but hold less cards and drive but are all quality made. My research revealed that HP has really great quality workstation hardware and the prices are really reasonable and there a million ways you can customize them. They are also very focused on helping MAC users and are all about helping you integrate what you already have with the Z series.
Thanks for that info! What are you running as a DAW on this? I like the Mini because it's silent. But that Xeon grunt could really help with Pro Tools. It'd be nice to stick everything in the machine room down stairs and run the KVM up through the floor. Does Windows have better cable extension options than Mac? (As in not an $800 KVM extender) Then, I could run Pro Tools on the HP and use the two Mini's as VEP6 slaves.
Did you get the rackmount version?
Did you get the rackmount version?
I just got the regular tower. I'm not really an audio guy I mostly do video production and effects. So having a BUNCH of video card options and OPEN GL will really make Adobe CC hum along and I can control it all from OSX. Loving it. I'm not happy about some of Apple's decisions of late but at least it gave me the motivation to look around and see if there was another solution.
I see. So what defines "PRO" is only what YOU want. Nice....
"PRO" used to mean a flexible, expanable machine that could suit almost ANY need. The fact that so many people are unhappy with this machine suggests it's not hitting that mark, don't you say?
I see your point however it's easy to comment on something rather than live with something. I didn't understand it either at first, but I do now. My brand new MBP TB 15", 2.9 GHz, 16 GB, Radeon Pro 460, 1 TB eats battery faster than I eat bacon...and I eat bacon really fast yum!! At 32 GB I think the computer would start up and immediately give the low power warning lol.
I'm border-line convinced I'm having a hardware issue because I run the display at 40% max, bluetooth off, lit keyboard off and I still burn 12-15% every 35-40 min. If I was pushing the machine I could understand, but I'm tinkering around on Safari/Chrome and listening to music on iTunes in the background. I plan on using Adobe CC and other various applications however I'm not confident I would get any "real-world" time on it using these apps considering the battery burn ratio mentioned above.
I'm dissapointed in Apple for not making this machine really be able to push the limits of being cord free, yes its super sleek and cool looking, but I'd rather have BATTERY LIFE!!!
I really do hope something is wrong with my computer because that seems really unreasonable to me. I have to charge this multiple times a day (does charge extremely fast, wow!) but something advertised to run 9-10 hours should at the very least be able to handle Safari and iTunes for more than 4.5 hours...come on!
If anything serious comes up/etc after I take it to the Genius bar tomorrow I'll let ya'll know.
Wish me luck!
It's almost like removing battery to make it thinner and lighter was a bad idea.
What did the Genius bar say? I wonder how much the new touchstrip kills the battery?
Nothing they can do, machine is built to order and is 3-4 weeks backed up. They recommended I order a new one and return this one when it arrives...not a happy camper
You want to be LESS happy? Follow that advice.
Apple's return policy is, AFAIK, 30 days. Now, we're in holiday time, so they might have pushed that out, maybe. But I got burned exactly –ONE– time listening to advice from Apple like this, now I know better. ("Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!") You need to talk to the manager of the Apple Store; get his name, phone number, etc. Make sure you ask ALL the questions, and have the manager detail to you how this is going to go down. Better yet, call Apple Support and see if they can't open a case and ask for it to be escalated to the Executive Support team. Because I have seen far too many times (including my "burn" time), where Apple people instruct users to do something, but then when the bottom falls out, they take and enforce zero personal/corporate responsibility for it.
(From a support standpoint, Apple is somewhat of an enigma. They get FANTASTIC grades on "support", from like J.D.Powers, etc. But the truth is, MOST customers grade "great" because they just never have problems. Many customers come from the Windows world, and not HAVING problems is a miracle in and of itself to them. When you do need Apple support, they tend to do great on basic stuff, obvious stuff. But when things go south, really REALLY south, they tend to fall flat on their faces. Search around the internet, you'll find the horror stories. In just my humble empirical experiences, companies like Dell suck, and their support sucks… but in a "dynamic range" audio compression sense, they suck at average volumes, but tend tend to suck disproportionately less at really bad problems, the LOUD stuff: they just replace the kit. And they'll handhold through the process. Apple, OTOH, has a much higher "failure" rate on the worst problems. They stall, they lie, they act as if they have no recourse to help. All when usually merely shipping a new product out would solve the problem. I do often read about Apple store managers just handing users new equipment, but I think those stories happen less than the horror stories. Granted, in this case, Apple doesn't have the kit to just ship out to you; but they certainly should bump you in the queue. The long story short, I suppose, is "Be Prepared." Just make sure you are covered, make sure you are clear on how the process will go… because you have a lot of money tied up in that 2016 rMBP, and I wouldn't recommend relying on Apple as a corporation to have your back.)
This is not my experience at all.
I have had frontline response members both promise something and fail to deliver but I have never had Apple as a corporation fail to rectify the situation.
Hopefully this helps someone else:
The first thing is to make sure you've done what is recommended here in terms of notating the expectation being set by an Apple rep.
If something goes south I always lead of with, I'm having an issue but I'm certain it can be resolved because it always has in the past (acknowledging that me and the support team member are on the same side and share the same goal of resolving my issue)
Lastly, escalate the situation and explain that Apple is not meeting an expectation that had been set both by your history with the company and with their representatives.
That enables management to code it in the computer as a customer service issue rather than something that might otherwise fall outside their policies. That most recent example I experienced was a manager at a store replaced my broken screen for free after she literally coded it into the computer (and on my receipt) as: "meeting expectation set by Apple Corp."
I think I first learned this particular strange way of dealing with customer complaints when I had a Dell laptop over 20 years ago. I sent it in, they couldn't reproduce the problem and sent it back to me. I sent it in again and this time it went to the next level response who called me and explained to me that the problem I was experiencing was a problem that the hardware team couldn't address given the constraints of the warranty term. I lost my cool because we were a couple months into the process now but he kept repeating himself while stressing certain words, which then led me to ask him if I was hearing him correctly. What I mean is that he kept saying, this isn't a *hardware* issue, this sounds more like a "customer service" issue, is that what you're telling me? Are you telling me that you're unhappy as a customer? I eventually figured it out and said, oh yeah, I mean whatever the computer is or isn't doing is not really the issue here. The real issue is how I'm experiencing this as a customer. That experience is the problem. Then he responded, now *that's* something I can address. I'm going to send you a new laptop that will hopefully resolve any customer service issues you've experienced and I'm sorry about your negative experience with us.
I'm assuming they have to follow specific flow charts and key phrases but that conversation gave me insight that has helped me resolve complaints with all sorts of corporations since.