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Thought on 2016, 15" MBP performance possibilities?

A

April Knight

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Original poster
Jul 24, 2011
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Olympia, WA
I am kinda-sorta shopping for a 15" MBP at the moment. Right now, I have an iMac that I do some photography and CAD work on (just 2D CAD), but I want to be able to do some work on the go as well. I was thinking about adding a 15" MBP to the line up, but, of course, with the rumors, I have been hesitant to pull the trigger. In short: I'm not dying for a MBP at the moment, but having one would be nice.

That being said, I know there are all sorts of rumors about port changes and OLED action bars for the new MBPs, and honestly I don't really care much about all of that. The current ports on the MBP are just fine for my needs, and the OLED bar is probably something I'd use a few times and then but forget about most of the time (like 3D Touch on iPhone).

What I'm concerned about is performance increase. I'm not too familiar with mobile components (CPU, GPU, etc.), so I'm not entirely sure if there's expected to be a big performance increase between the 2015 and 2016 models. If so, I don't mind holding off. But if the performance increase is just going to be "meh," and the 2016 model is just going to be about the redesign/ports/OLED bar, then I'm thinking I'll just get the 2015 model.

Tl;dr : Does anybody know if we are expecting a big performance bump between 2015-2016 models, or is it just going to be a redesign year? I'm not up to snuff on the rumors.
 
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We'll find out the answer once Apple actually updates the rMBP. Making a WAG based on no information is an exercise futility.
 
April Knight said:
Tl;dr : Does anybody know if we are expecting a big performance bump between 2015-2016 models, or is it just going to be a redesign year? I'm not up to snuff on the rumors.
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Nobody knows.

My guess? Skylake is 5-8% faster than currently available options in the rMBP. Battery life will be 10-15% better but if Apple makes it thinner, then it'll be the same.
 
April Knight said:
Argh. Not sounding like enough of an increase to hold out for.
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I've had my 2015 13" rMBP since April of last year. It's one of the best Macs I've ever owned. I considered waiting for the 15" models, but in reality I don't need a quad core CPU in my laptop and the smaller size and lighter weight are great when it comes to travel.
 
The CPU in the 2015 rMBP was two generations behind when it came out so it is nearing three now. Each new generation of CPU tends to be about 10% faster than the one before. So I'm betting the new rMBP will be about 20-30% faster than the current one.

I would personally wait if I were you, especially if you aren't in need of a new computer right now. If when the new rMBP comes out and it doesn't impress you then you can pick up a 2015 model for even cheaper. I picked up a 2015 rMBP last fall because I needed a new computer for school and I love it but I wouldn't buy a new Mac when a redesign is right around the corner. Especially considering it has an almost three year old CPU in it now.
 
Fairly faster CPU, but it would not dramatic. You can expect it to have higher sustained clock speed though.

Fairly faster integrated GPU, but again it would not be dramatic due to its nature.

If you are looking for models with discrete GPU though, the gain is expected to be dramatic since GPUs based on advanced process tech are gradually rolling out this year, with generally a leap in performance per watt. Though it matters only if Apple would still cater for a discrete GPU in their new 15" design (appears to be the case, not dropping dGPU yet).
 
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Trahearne said:
Performance is a function of the clock and the IPC. IPC might have a marginal gain, but the power savings may allow higher clocks, especially for the low-power SKUs for notebooks.
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Which is why I said "clock for clock." I addressed the benefits of the power savings in my first reply to the OP.

When is the last time a new CPU had more than 100-200MHz clock speed bump over its predecessors? Note: I'm specifically asking about the processors that Apple users in their portables.
 
T5BRICK said:
Which is why I said "clock for clock." I addressed the benefits of the power savings in my first reply to the OP.

When is the last time a new CPU had more than 100-200MHz clock speed bump over its predecessors?
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AMD's Bristol Ridge. *cough*

Just checked the current Skylake stack. Well perhaps all the extra power headroom has been thrown to the doubled-in-scale integrated GPU, though the power management unit nowadays should be smart enough to allow the boost of CPU cores when the GPU is idle.
 
T5BRICK said:
Clock for clock, Skylake is about 9% faster than Haswell. 10% per generation is a strech.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/intel-skylake-core-i7-6700k-reviewed/
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You are comparing high performance desktop chips with liquid coolers to mobile chips. While the architecture is similar the comparison is not. I would be willing to bet the performance gained from the smaller mobile chips with limited cooling is a little more substantial. Plus Kaby Lake is right around the corner, everybody is just assuming that Skylake will be going into the new rMBP.
 
Trahearne said:
AMD's Bristol Ridge. *cough*
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AMD certainly has a lot of room for improvement, don't they?

Just checked the current Skylake stack. Well perhaps all the extra power headroom has been thrown to the doubled-in-scale integrated GPU, though the power management unit nowadays should be smart enough to allow the boost of CPU cores when the GPU is idle.
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Perhaps, I guess we'll wait and see. Although, for a 15" rMBP, the OP my be mostly interested in discreet graphics.
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Brandon0448 said:
You are comparing high performance desktop chips with liquid coolers to mobile chips. While the architecture is similar the comparison is not. I would be willing to bet the performance gained from the smaller mobile chips with limited cooling is a little more substantial. Plus Kaby Lake is right around the corner, everybody is just assuming that Skylake will be going into the new rMBP.
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The jump from Sandy bridge to ivy bridge was not 10%. There jump from ivy bridge to Haswell wasn't 10% either.
 
T5BRICK said:
The jump from Sandy bridge to ivy bridge was not 10%. There jump from ivy bridge to Haswell wasn't 10% either.
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Depends what kind of performance we are talking about. If we are talking about purely processing power then yes you are correct and 10% is a high figure. If we are talking about processing power and integrated graphics power combined then 10% is a low figure.
 
Recent tests on an HP portable workstation with very similar chips indicate that the performance jump in pure CPU power is tiny (the HP with Skylake actually benchmarked just under the MacBook Pro with Haswell at the same clock speed). There are enough variables in system design (plus Mac vs. Windows) that this is absolutely not evidence that the new chip is slower. What it does say is that the difference is very small. I wouldn't choose based on CPU performance.

GPU performance could be significant - Haswell's integrated GPU is not great, and the Skylake chips Apple is likely to use have much better integrated GPUs. The most likely discrete GPU also has a big performance jump.

Remember that the rumors are pointing at an all USB-C machine - no standard ports at all. This is almost confirmed about the 13" by a leaked image of the chassis. Nobody knows for sure about the 15". I just bought a refurb 15" after quite a bit of consideration- did I really want to deal with the inconvenience of adapters to connect everything for the small performance jump?

There is some chance of new performance-oriented features - maybe a maximum of 32 GB of RAM (instead of 16), maybe a new screen (the existing one is nice, but a small number of laptops have wide-gamut 4K screens that are better).
 
Will be a quad core skylake with option for Polaris 11 AMD GPU.

Power consumption will be a little better, processing power on CPU will be within 10-15%, GPU performance will be 2-3x (for the discrete GPU option, maybe 1.5-2x for the integrated).

There has been little real world Quad Core notebook CPU performance increase since sandy bridge (hence, I have to have a chuckle at people whining so much about haswell/broadwell in the current lineup - sure, skylake would be nice but it's not the end of the world), just gains in power efficiency.

But that's still nice to have.


For 2d cad and photography work, the GPU performance the 2016 model may bring will make approximately zero difference to your life. The CPU power won't make a huge difference either as most of the time your machine will be close to idle on CPU apart from brief spikes to do an operation as you work.

The big thing you may appreciate though is the battery life.
 
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April Knight said:
Argh. Not sounding like enough of an increase to hold out for.
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Graphics will be the biggest performance increase. However thinner lighter with USB c and thunderbolt 3 allowing one cable 5k screen connection could well be worth the wait, as would an oled screen.
 
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