Tests Confirm Apple's Throttling Fix Improves Performance for 2018 MacBook Pro Models [Updated]

[Petetastic]

<rant>

Why is there all this complaining about criticism of Apple?

Apple is one of the richest companies in the world. They charge an exacting premium for their products. So yes, when things go wrong, we get upset. When it costs $500 to replace broken glass on a phone; when keyboards malfunction; when things go wrong we are going to be upset. Just like a Saks 5th Ave customer would be upset if a new $4k suit had a tear or a stain. Or if a $4000 camera had heating/memory/light capturing issues. If Apple can’t take the heat, they should get out of the kitchen (or the laptop). Considering they’re still making money hand over fist, and they come through every PR crisis just fine, they will clearly do just fine in the future and they can respond to and handle the criticism thrown to them.

Apple is not your mother or father. It is not your friend. It is a corporation. It will not be any more or less butthurt when people have legitimate complaints or when people maliciously beat on them for sport. That’s why they have PR. And when people complain and have legitimate concerns, guess what? Things get fixed. We now have a functioning laptop with an i9 and butterfly keys that will (hopefully) be more resilient to specks of dust. It even has a headphone jack.

<end rant>

 

[Feenician]

yep.. no one with one of these computers at hand seem to be running or showing these types of tests though.

oh well.

The test itself, ambient conditions, silicon lottery etc. There are all sorts of factors involved.

 

[BeforeTheMeds]

It is not a Windows machine so no, it wasn't a "stupid" response. Get over it! Be happy Apple even allows such a crappy OS to run at all on their machines.

Actually, since bootcamp is a factory built in function it was a ridiculous reply at best. It’s one of the features of mac’s, it should work right.

 

[AJ5790]

It's sad that I'm this cynical about Apple now, but 'missing key in the firmware' as the excuse, which no one else has the cryptographic ability to verify themselves, sounds like covering up a blatant hardware blunder here.

But my comment may be premature and not well informed, does anyone have a comment?

Is there a way to inspect Apple's fix to see if it did hardware instruction kernel changes like the one posted on Reddit, or will we never know as it's all closed source?

Missing key in the firmware my ass...

That’s because you’re allowing trolls to inform your opinion. There is 0, zero, zip, no reason to disbelieve Apples explanation except for those who live and breathe conspiracy theories. Blatant hardware blunders don’t get fixed by a firmware patch.

 

[falainber]

Yet Dell still has yet to fix their i9 throttling issues. But no one is going to talk about that, right?

As the update says, Dell is on par with MBP. What fix does it need? Unlike Apple, Dell did not screw up in a first place. Apparently they employ real QA engineers instead of relying on YouTube gurus.

 

[Feenician]

yep.. no one with one of these computers at hand seem to be running or showing these types of tests though.

oh well.

—-maybe there aren’t any benchmark tests to do it?
if not, i have about a hundred different ways to test for it in real world usage scenarios.. so if someone could kindly let me borrow theirs for a bit...

(but really, i think at this point, i’ll get one myself in another week or two.. i’ll show it then.. i’m pretty confident the listed turbo spec is real)

I’m sure they can hit those speeds, even in the MBP. Extended runs at those speeds, probably not. That’s just the engineering trade off made for noise, size, weight etc. It’s a trade off I’m plenty happy with

(Please buy and return your MBP quickly so refurbs hit the store soon )

 

[smetvid]

Nice work Apple on the quick fix.

Suggestion for your post Morten: how could you customers find this bug so quickly and easily, and you miss it internally?

The same way any software bug makes it into the wild even though a large team of QA combs through the applications before delivery. It happens and sometimes testing cannot account for the millions of combinations that one random user may discover on their own. The more complex the software/hardware the more complicated it is to test for everything. This is far from the first bug to make to to production and it certainly will not be the last. It is what it is and what makes apple a great company is that they fixed it right away vs other companies that would have ignored it, cough Dell cough.

 

[Geezy2]

Should we be worried about these MBPs not lasting as long due to the heat? More so than previous generations?

 

[flat five]

(Please buy and return your MBP quickly so refurbs hit the store soon )

lol.
ok
: )

 

[Feenician]

lol.
ok
: )

32Gb, 512Gb, 2.6Ghz i7 please. Thanks!

 

[bigtomato]

I just don't see the need for 6 cores nowadays !!

I think there is nothing more to do with laptops in terms of innovation and just adding 6 cores is a marketing gimmick, who really makes use of them?

If you need 6 cores go for a desktop.

 

[Dammit Cubs]

This needs to be clear. Customers didn't find the bug. Customers noticed an issue. Apple was able to reproduce the issue and then Apple found the root cause which is why they were able to address it so quickly.

 

[Feenician]

I just don't see the need for 6 cores nowadays !!

I think there is nothing more to do with laptops in terms of innovation and just adding 6 cores is a marketing gimmick, who really makes use of them?

If you need 6 cores go for a desktop.

I run a lot of VMs and a desktop is an inconvenience to others on the plane I feel.

 

[flat five]

32Gb, 512Gb, 2.6Ghz i7 please. Thanks!

that’s the config i’m getting.
except with the i9 most likely.

 

[Feenician]

that’s the config i’m getting.
except with the i9 most likely.

I may end up going i9. I’ll see how things look when the dust settles. Enjoy your new Mac

 

[mi7chy]

This is mostly Apple's fault and also Intel's fault for being complacent and stuck on 14nm.

If you think otherwise...

 

[PickUrPoison]

I run a lot of VMs and a desktop is an inconvenience to others on the plane I feel.

VMs? Well the new MBP is going to be great for you then... the 16 vs. 32GB upgrade will probably make the biggest difference but going from 4 to 6 cores will definitely improve things as well.

Nice upgrade; I don’t suppose you agree with that Marco character who called the 2018 refresh “a very minor update” lol.

 

[djnigelchung]

David Lee is the real MVP.. keeping apple honest.. subscribed, will not buy his merch tho (like every other youtuber lol)

 

[Feenician]

VMs? Well the new MBP is going to be great for you then... the 16 vs. 32GB upgrade will probably make the biggest difference but going from 4 to 6 cores will definitely improve things as well.

Nice upgrade; I don’t suppose you agree with that Marco character who called the 2018 refresh “a very minor update” lol.

Yep. It’s the first time since my 2015 that the spec changes have moved the needle significantly for me. All those lovely threads and the extra RAM are really going to lift the headroom for that particular use case.

 

[crw]

It's sad that I'm this cynical about Apple now, but 'missing key in the firmware' as the excuse, which no one else has the cryptographic ability to verify themselves, sounds like covering up a blatant hardware blunder here.

But my comment may be premature and not well informed, does anyone have a comment?

Is there a way to inspect Apple's fix to see if it did hardware instruction kernel changes like the one posted on Reddit, or will we never know as it's all closed source?

Missing key in the firmware my ass...

My guess is this is a reference to a plist type dictionary and not an encryption key. In other words the “key” was a missing key-value pair that defined a preference for how power management worked for the new systems. With that key missing, the power control management system dropped back to some default behavior which resulted in the throttling.

 

[flat five]

Nice work Apple on the quick fix.

Suggestion for your post Morten: how could you customers find this bug so quickly and easily, and you miss it internally?

not sure but i think it’s now fair to assume they don’t test Premier on the systems prior to release

 

[heov]

I just don't see the need for 6 cores nowadays !!

I think there is nothing more to do with laptops in terms of innovation and just adding 6 cores is a marketing gimmick, who really makes use of them?

If you need 6 cores go for a desktop.

Uh, cause a desktop isn't portable? In this day an age, portability is key- people work remotely all the time. Places like Wework, etc are everywhere because people are working remotely.

I for one hate going into the office.

 

[cmaier]

I run a lot of VMs and a desktop is an inconvenience to others on the plane I feel.

I told you before, get a private jet and quit slumming it.

 

[PickUrPoison]

not sure but i think it’s now fair to assume they don’t test Premier on the systems prior to release

It’s likely part of the applications compatibility suite but apparently not used in benchmarking. Or maybe the “key” breakage happened later/towards the end of the process, after benchmarks that would have detected the problem had already been run. Shouldn’t be possible but something happened, and will hopefully result in some lessons learned that will improve the process going forward.

 

[-BigMac-]

But ThrottleGate was a feature!!!