Waiting for Skylake MBP thread

[GubbyMan]

Guys, is the difference in performance between a 2.5 GHz and max 2.8 GHz (15") very noticeable?

I want to make this Macbook my daily driver for next 4-ish years to come, not having to worry about performance and stuff and that's why I want to max it out as much as possible.

Do you think that 2.8 GHz is worth the extra money, provided I do my videos in Premiere Pro? And that's pretty much the only high demanding task I do on a laptop (video editing)

There is no 2.5GHz Skylake processor with Iris Pro 580. The 3 options will be 2.6GHz, 2.7GHz and 2.8GHz. The 2.6 will have 6MB L3 cache while the other two have 8MB. The price difference between the 2.7 and 2.8 will probably be $200. Not worth it for 0.1GHz in my opinion.

If you want good video editing performance, be sure to get the dGPU. That's the most important component.
[doublepost=1477229897][/doublepost]

100 - 32 = 68 Hours

Sleeping hours don't count

Sleep? We don't need sleep. WE NEED MACBOOK PRO!!

 

[KirekkusuPT]

Yeah the sweet spot in terms of cpu will be that 2.7ghz one with 8Mb of cache.

Spend rest of money on dgpu, storage and ram.

 

[Tensakun]

Cadigit usb-c dock is out there. And works like a charm. With windows laptops, and with rMB. They even supply the usb-c tb3 cable.

This unit looks rock solid, and they seem to stress their "safety" for power supply. I'm guessing THIS is the unit you meant. Would be great for desktop use. But I gotta carry, by train, bus, and a lot of walking, very portable adapters for power, video, conventional USB drives. But I appreciate the warnings about not settling for cheapo and potentially computer-killing adapters.

 

[dixonrand]

Do you guys think that it would be a good idea to get the Anker PowerCore+ 20100 USB-C External Battery/Portable Charger? It says that it charges the rMB one full charge, so how much of a charge do you think it could give a 15" rMBP?
https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerCore-Ultra-High-Capacity-External-VoltageBoost/dp/B014ZO46LK

 

[Rob_2811]

Do you guys think that it would be a good idea to get the Anker PowerCore+ 20100 USB-C External Battery/Portable Charger? It says that it charges the rMB one full charge, so how much of a charge do you think it could give a 15" rMBP?
https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerCore-Ultra-High-Capacity-External-VoltageBoost/dp/B014ZO46LK

It would hardly touch a 15 inch MacBook Pro

 

[fisherman188]

Sorry, but doing this on a touchpad would be awful.

What would work really nicely would be if there was a way of using the iPad Pro as an input device, so you could see what you were working on (mirror the portion of the display where you were drawing). Perhaps an app for this already exists, but I haven't seen it yet.

It's called Astropad www.astropad.com

 

[c0ppo]

This unit looks rock solid, and they seem to stress their "safety" for power supply. I'm guessing THIS is the unit you meant. Would be great for desktop use. But I gotta carry, by train, bus, and a lot of walking, very portable adapters for power, video, conventional USB drives. But I appreciate the warnings about not settling for cheapo and potentially computer-killing adapters.

Yup, that's the one. And it rocks. Works like a charm. For the travel part, I use anker usb-c hub. It is pretty good, but a lot of times it won't mount usb drives until you restart your computer. But that's not ankers fault, it's apple that is the problem.

And one year on with rMB they still haven't fixed the issues. USB-c is gonna be a problem for 1-2 years at least

You can find alternative USB-C docks on Amazon for half the price (and usually half the size).

Sure you can. Then go and buy those 'half the price' products, enjoy using them on your 2000$+ machine

 

[a_coorn]

Guys, is the difference in performance between a 2.5 GHz and max 2.8 GHz (15") very noticeable?

I want to make this Macbook my daily driver for next 4-ish years to come, not having to worry about performance and stuff and that's why I want to max it out as much as possible.

Do you think that 2.8 GHz is worth the extra money, provided I do my videos in Premiere Pro? And that's pretty much the only high demanding task I do on a laptop (video editing)

The temps on the 2.8 GHz part are absolutely insane, unless they improve cooling, don't go for it, RAM is more important these days for multitasking than a 300MHz bump in clock speed.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

Any gate issues are remedied even outside of your warranty period. This has happened several times in the past, though it takes a few years to discover. I wouldn't worry about it. Welcome to the club.

"Gate" issues are for the OCD iPhone crowd (and the iPhone forum is full of them). Here in the MacBook Pro forum, we're much more level-headed.

Problems with new laptops are fairly rare and I've found that Apple does a really good job of standing behind their products.

 

[Thebeat07]

That's really only something you can answer. If you can financially afford it, then why not? To me, if you gotta ask then the money can be spent on something more worthwhile for you.

I agree.. I am not going to bother maxing out because i will use the extra money to buy those new sonos speakers

 

[2457248]

"Gate" issues are for the OCD iPhone crowd (and the iPhone forum is full of them). Here in the MacBook Pro forum, we're much more level-headed.

Problems with new laptops are fairly rare and I've found that Apple does a really good job of standing behind their products.

Macbooks have issues too, the main difference compared to iPhones is that most people use their computers to get work done and have less time to worry about minor cosmetic issues (which account for a large majority of iphone complaints).

 

[satchmo]

Looking to do some video editing in the future.

I know iMacs use laptop parts and the latest 5K iMacs seem to be pretty good.

But given I already have an external 24"(but not 5k), I'm thinking MBP. How are MBP's for video?

 

[Bryan Bowler]

Macbooks have issues too, the main difference compared to iPhones is that most people use their computers to get work done and have less time to worry about minor cosmetic issues (which account for a large majority of iphone complaints).

I know what you mean...just pointing out how ridiculous the iPhone forum gets in Oct and Nov of each year. It's nice to be over here now where the folks are mentally stable.

 

[2457248]

I know what you mean...just pointing out how ridiculous the iPhone forum gets in Oct and Nov of each year. It's nice to be over here now where the folks are mentally stable.

what strikes me is that apple stores do replace those iphones with minor MINOR flaws. i know, it's all for the brand image, but damn... how many iphones get recycled, refurbished due to paranoid owners?

 

[satchmo]

Hey there,

So I would be buying my first macbook pro once Apple makes it available. Is it wise to wait first for reviews before buying the product? Have there been any "gate" issues with the mac in previous generations?

The keynote on Thursday will be slick and with the pent up demand, people will be ordering the second it goes online.

Personally I would make my way to an Apple store first to see the product in person.
Why? There are some things you can't change. For example, if you're picky about keyboards or screen quality.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

There is no 2.5GHz Skylake processor with Iris Pro 580. The 3 options will be 2.6GHz, 2.7GHz and 2.8GHz. The 2.6 will have 6MB L3 cache while the other two have 8MB. The price difference between the 2.7 and 2.8 will probably be $200. Not worth it for 0.1GHz in my opinion.

Thanks for the great info. I'm glad we're having these discussions so we can be ready to pull the trigger the moment they become available.

I'm a heavy-duty user that needs the fastest and best MBP, but within reason. For example, if this is how things play out and the only thing you get for a $200 upgrade is .1 in clock speed, I just can't see any reason to justify it...or am I missing something?

I am a full-time photographer that is becoming more assignment-based (currently traveling around 140-150 days a year) and I'm also doing an increased amount of full-frame 4K 60 FPS video editing in the field as well. Of course the 2.8 will be faster than the 2.7...but I need someone to show me that it would be worth the extra $200 for that type of upgrade. Any thoughts?

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

Yeah the sweet spot in terms of cpu will be that 2.7ghz one with 8Mb of cache.

Spend rest of money on dgpu, storage and ram.

Exactly. I just hope that the 2.7 GHz version will be the one in the top MBP 15 version with dGPU and 512 GB storage, so I don't have to mess about with a BTO which could take a lot longer to get initially.

 

[KirekkusuPT]

Of course the 2.8 will be faster than the 2.7...but I need someone to show me that it would be worth the extra $200 for that type of upgrade. Any thoughts?

You are not getting the full picture here. Clock speed isn't the only thing that affects your computers speed. Ram quantity, ram speed, cpu clock speed, cpu IPC, architecture, and so on and so forth contribute to the overall performance.

0.1Ghz will not be noticable, not when the architecture is the same, the IPC is the same, the ram is the same. On a 4K video export, what diference would it make? Instead of taking 1 minute and 52 seconds to render, it would take 1 minute and 50 seconds to render. Is that 2 seconds a 200$ worth upgrade?

Also, the more clock speed you have, the more heat you have. The more heat you have, the more the fans will go up. If they can't go higher, the cpu will automaticaly clock down until temperatures are within reasonable values. In a desktop, this rarely happens (this "phenomenon" is known as throttling), but on a laptop, specialy a thin one like the Mac, this happens a lot.

That's why the other user told you that the 2.7Ghz Haswell cpu wasn't worth compared to the 2.5 Ghz one, because due to throttling both would go down and end up performing the same.

Skylakes produce less heat and thus throttle less, but still a 0.1 Ghz upgrade is not worth. Consider investing your money in more RAM or a dGPU if you are not alreaddy thinking on that.

Personaly I indend to code on my laptop. Use virtual machines. And game ocasionaly. So whatever succeeds the current 15'' with 512 gb of storage, 16 of ram, and a dGPU, I will buy. If I have spare money, I will put it on RAM, not cpu.

 

[Mkondrak]

I am a full-time photographer that is becoming more assignment-based (currently traveling around 140-150 days a year) and I'm also doing an increased amount of full-frame 4K 60 FPS video editing in the field as well. Of course the 2.8 will be faster than the 2.7...but I need someone to show me that it would be worth the extra $200 for that type of upgrade. Any thoughts?

I know this is off topic but since your a full time photographer, I have to ask. when do you think will the iphone and other smartphones get 60fps 4K video recording? does it require a lot of more processing power to do something like that? I know the footage from an iPhone won't be comparable to a DSLR.

 

[Wreckus]

You are not getting the full picture here. Clock speed isn't the only thing that affects your computers speed. Ram quantity, ram speed, cpu clock speed, cpu IPC, architecture, and so on and so forth contribute to the overall performance.

0.1Ghz will not be noticable, not when the architecture is the same, the IPC is the same, the ram is the same. On a 4K video export, what diference would it make? Instead of taking 1 minute and 52 seconds to render, it would take 1 minute and 50 seconds to render. Is that 2 seconds a 200$ worth upgrade?

Also, the more clock speed you have, the more heat you have. The more heat you have, the more the fans will go up. If they can't go higher, the cpu will automaticaly clock down until temperatures are within reasonable values. In a desktop, this rarely happens (this "phenomenon" is known as throttling), but on a laptop, specialy a thin one like the Mac, this happens a lot.

That's why the other user told you that the 2.7Ghz Haswell cpu wasn't worth compared to the 2.5 Ghz one, because due to throttling both would go down and end up performing the same.

Skylakes produce less heat and thus throttle less, but still a 0.1 Ghz upgrade is not worth. Consider investing your money in more RAM or a dGPU if you are not alreaddy thinking on that.

Personaly I indend to code on my laptop. Use virtual machines. And game ocasionaly. So whatever succeeds the current 15'' with 512 gb of storage, 16 of ram, and a dGPU, I will buy. If I have spare money, I will put it on RAM, not cpu.

100% agreed. Actually, this should be stickied on top as others may be thinking of going higher on the processor but staying at 8GB of RAM.

 

[KirekkusuPT]

I know this is off topic but since your a full time photographer, I have to ask. when do you think will the iphone and other smartphones get 60fps 4K video recording? does it require a lot of more processing power to do something like that? I know the footage from an iPhone won't be comparable to a DSLR.

They will. Eventually.

In simple terms think of this. Not factoring in compressions used by the various video formats avaiable, 60 FPS is 2x the frames of 30FPS, thus twice the processing power required to process them. 4K is 4x the pixels of 1080p.

So a smartphone capable of delivering 4K at 60 FPS could theoreticaly manage 1080p at 240 fps, and 720p ad 480 FPS.

Current smartphones do 4K at 30, 1080p at 120 and 720p at 240. And have been doing for some years now.

To achieve more, it's needed more in both sensor side and processing side of things. Omnivision has made a sensor capable of 4K at 60 FPS. Check here: http://www.ovt.com/products/sensor.php?id=217

So in my opinion probably in 2017 we will see smartphones capable of this.

 

[viper4011]

 

[powertoold]

They will. Eventually.

In simple terms think of this. Not factoring in compressions used by the various video formats avaiable, 60 FPS is 2x the frames of 30FPS, thus twice the processing power required to process them. 4K is 4x the pixels of 1080p.

So a smartphone capable of delivering 4K at 60 FPS could theoreticaly manage 1080p at 240 fps, and 720p ad 480 FPS.

Current smartphones do 4K at 30, 1080p at 120 and 720p at 240. And have been doing for some years now.

To achieve more, it's needed more in both sensor side and processing side of things. Omnivision has made a sensor capable of 4K at 60 FPS. Check here: http://www.ovt.com/products/sensor.php?id=217

So in my opinion probably in 2017 we will see smartphones capable of this.

I don't think the processing is an issue. It's probably more of a disk space issue.

 

[Grolubao]

I'm actually pretty excited for the fact that at this point we don't know 100% how it will look like in the end opposed to the iPhone. I miss being woed by Apple

 

[maclaw21]

Yesterday I was at an Apple Store for an issue with my iPhone. The Genius Bar guy said that a colleague just got back from a 6-month career immersion thing at Apple in Cupertino and said he was under an NDA but he said that everyone is going to be "really, really happy" with the new MBPs.