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Upcoming MBP 15 refresh - hold off or buy now?

dagamer34 said:
Not really. It's just an evolution of the MacBook Pro line, like from Unibody -> Retina styling. Each iteration will get thinner and lighter but hopefully still have more battery life.

The Air is known for it's taper, the MacBook Pro will unlikely ever have that because it robs it of precious battery life space. I'm merely saying that fewer ports means a smaller motherboard, and a smaller motherboard means more space for battery (or packed or compactly), so the system can get thinner.

Regardless, the transistor substrate for the display is the real power drain here. They need to move onto updated technologies.
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I don't think you understand what the MacBook Pro is then, who its aimed at, what market it's based in. Its not made to be sold in a market that's ruled by thin and light designs above all else.
And its why I don't think, hope, it will ever get much thinner because it needs all those ports. Plus it needs the cooling abilities it does have for the powerful CPU and GPU we want them to have.
 
Interesting thread!

One thing I'm bit skeptical when looking at the possible GPU options is the TDP of anything higher than GTX 950M. Is the 950 worth waiting for and seeing noticeable performance improvements over current 750?

I have a fairly good offer on my unibody MBP 15" 2012 (maxed CPU, LCD, RAM specs) and I'm thinking of going for the 2014 retina model. It runs 4K fine now, I can still save one Thunderbolt port by running my venerable ACD 23" from HDMI, there is an eGPU option for 'better' gaming graphics (if needed), it still runs Mavericks (old school preference) and can boot Windows 7. This 2012 model is my second Mac, my first was a 17" 2.33GHz C2D bought in 2006 (which is still running). That was almost four fold increase in CPU performance which, together with faster SSD was noticeable.

Question is, are CPU and GPU upgrades going to be significantly better than current 2014 model? I do not game on laptop, my primary use is general purpose with few photo/graphic apps (Aperture, Capture One, CS6 Photoshop), plus some Excel modeling via VMware in Windows.
 
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R2FX said:
Question is, are CPU and GPU upgrades going to be significantly better than current 2014 model? I do not game on laptop, my primary use is general purpose with few photo/graphic apps (Aperture, Capture One, CS6 Photoshop), plus some Excel modeling via VMware in Windows.
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Simply, we don't know. Any replacement may only offer an integrated GPU, although I think if that were the case, both 15" models would show long lead times. I think we'll get a speed bump in the form of a Broadwell machine with new GPU. No guarantees it will be nVidia, could well be AMD.
 
apolloa said:
I don't think you understand what the MacBook Pro is then, who its aimed at, what market it's based in. Its not made to be sold in a market that's ruled by thin and light designs above all else.
And its why I don't think, hope, it will ever get much thinner because it needs all those ports. Plus it needs the cooling abilities it does have for the powerful CPU and GPU we want them to have.
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Overall system will get a bit thinner, but the space previously used by ports will instead be used by battery. I'm not talking MacBook Air thin, but certainly lighter from needing less backlight in the screen and such.
 
dagamer34 said:
Overall system will get a bit thinner, but the space previously used by ports will instead be used by battery. I'm not talking MacBook Air thin, but certainly lighter from needing less backlight in the screen and such.
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The top could be thinner if they ditch the backlit logo and use newer tech, but it needs to keep the ports as they are, they can boost the battery by using more efficient components. But as a Pro computer it really should have 2 or more USB ports plus thunderbolt and display port and magsafe.
 
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apolloa said:
The top could be thinner if they ditch the backlit logo and use newer tech, but it needs to keep the ports as they are, they can boost the battery by using more efficient components. But as a Pro computer it really should have 2 or more USB ports plus thunderbolt and display port and magsafe.
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My guess is that in 2016 Apple will replace the USB Type A ports with USB Type C ports and possibly drop the HDMI port but otherwise keep the same set of MBP ports. Of course, Thunderbolt 2 and DisplayPort 1.2 will be upgraded to Thunderbolt 3 and DisplayPort 1.3.

The logic board will become smaller thanks to increased integration, but will remain significantly larger than that of the rMB (to support additional ports and 16GB rather than 8GB of RAM). With a smaller motherboard, thinner keyboard, and the elimination of the backlight, we might expect the 2016 MBPs to be one or two millimeters thinner and still have more battery capacity than current models. I don't expect the 2016 MBP to adopt the wedge shape of the MBA and rMB, but I do expect it to be as thin or a bit thinner than the thickest part of a current MBA.
 
Donka said:
I love how it is a Windows laptop but they video editing screenshot shows Final Cut Pro X or Premiere Prp running on a Mac! :)
Nice specs though - would love to see the upcoming rMBP 15 mirror that.
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If you browse their website, it looks very Apple "inspired".
 
mcarling said:
My guess is that in 2016 Apple will replace the USB Type A ports with USB Type C ports and possibly drop the HDMI port but otherwise keep the same set of MBP ports. Of course, Thunderbolt 2 and DisplayPort 1.2 will be upgraded to Thunderbolt 3 and DisplayPort 1.3.

The logic board will become smaller thanks to increased integration, but will remain significantly larger than that of the rMB (to support additional ports and 16GB rather than 8GB of RAM). With a smaller motherboard, thinner keyboard, and the elimination of the backlight, we might expect the 2016 MBPs to be one or two millimeters thinner and still have more battery capacity than current models. I don't expect the 2016 MBP to adopt the wedge shape of the MBA and rMB, but I do expect it to be as thin or a bit thinner than the thickest part of a current MBA.
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On the 15" model they could ditch the backlit logo, use newer screen and backlight tech to make the top thinner, reduce the bezels a little bit but keep the camera and light sensor on the frame, redesign the speaker system.
Use the new design keyboard and trackpad, use the new layered battery tech. Then ditch the SD card reader and the HDMI port, keep all the other ports you mentioned.
Then offer it with a discrete GPU option, that would be a winner.

Same power, enough ports to keep the majority happy, thinner, smaller and lighter design.
 
apolloa said:
On the 15" model they could ditch the backlit logo, use newer screen and backlight tech to make the top thinner, reduce the bezels a little bit but keep the camera and light sensor on the frame, redesign the speaker system.
Use the new design keyboard and trackpad, use the new layered battery tech. Then ditch the SD card reader and the HDMI port, keep all the other ports you mentioned.
Then offer it with a discrete GPU option, that would be a winner.

Same power, enough ports to keep the majority happy, thinner, smaller and lighter design.
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Each to their own. Personally I want an SD card reader and hdmi port.
 
Donka said:
Each to their own. Personally I want an SD card reader and hdmi port.
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For portability's sake I'd rather see the SD-card reader stay, the HDMI can be forgotten, since a mDP-HDMI is available too. I would only like to see an affordable good-designed USB3.0 or TB card-reader.
 
Donka said:
I love how it is a Windows laptop but they video editing screenshot shows Final Cut Pro X or Premiere Prp running on a Mac! :)
Nice specs though - would love to see the upcoming rMBP 15 mirror that.
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I hope not, at least not the "Next-Generation Wi-Fi - ZenBook Pro includes next-generation dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, with speeds of up to 867Mbit/s - three times as fast as previous-generation 802.11n." :eek:

Wooooo - zippy! :rolleyes:
 
Donka said:
Each to their own. Personally I want an SD card reader and hdmi port.
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I suspect there are far more people who want an SD card reader than a discrete GPU. With the success of DisplayPort, I doubt HDMI has much of a future on Apple laptops. Those who really need HDMI will need to get a dongle, just like those who need a discrete GPU will need to get an eGPU.
 
R2FX said:
Interesting thread!

One thing I'm bit skeptical when looking at the possible GPU options is the TDP of anything higher than GTX 950M. Is the 950 worth waiting for and seeing noticeable performance improvements over current 750?
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It is more than twice as fast. It is rare to get such a huge improvement.
Looking at other notebooks launching currently a 960M is actually fairly likely. The Asus UX501 as well as a couple others in the similar 15" thin category currently launch with the 960M GDDR5 which suggests the card is cool enough to replace 850M or 750M designs.
There never was a GPU upgrade quite this big before. The CPU on the other hand will just be a little better, nothing to be worth upgrading to.
 
mcarling said:
I suspect there are far more people who want an SD card reader than a discrete GPU. With the success of DisplayPort, I doubt HDMI has much of a future on Apple laptops. Those who really need HDMI will need to get a dongle, just like those who need a discrete GPU will need to get an eGPU.
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If Apple would produce or officially support an eGPU solution then I think I and the many many MBP buyers who do care about graphics performance (and the even more potential MBP owners who are waiting for an Apple laptop with a decent GPU) would be more than happy to relinquish that space for an iGPU.

As it stands we have messy hacking and absurdly overpriced adapters, not really a solution for most people.
 
It's not really a portable solution any more when you're carrying around a separate GPU and power supply. To say nothing of what would happen if the thunderbolt cable became disconnected while was in use.
 
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