Waiting for Skylake MBP thread

[sentential]

Every release is different because the number and severity of issues is different each time. It's difficult to say what par is. We don't have a statistically significant data set, especially because it's difficult to discern trends from variation.


That's difficult to evaluate because I don't know when the September 2015 date was current. Leaked documents are sometimes (often?) out-of-date at the time they are leaked. I just received my mid-2015 15" rMBP yesterday. That is probably the best indicator of my expectations regarding the timing of the Skylake MBP release. For me, March 2016 would be the least surprising release date, but I cannot rule out an October 2015 release. Anytime from a few weeks before Thanksgiving to Chinese New Year makes no sense for releasing new Apple hardware.


I would agree that Broadwell's delays shouldn't impact the timing of the initial Skylake release. However, Intel seem to have considerably less 14nm production capacity on-line now than they would usually have before a Tock release, so the duration over which different Skylake parts will be released will probably be longer than usual for a Tock, perhaps stretched out more like a typical Tick.

Finally someone is speaking some sense in here. I really don't understand why the idea is being pushed that just because OEMs are getting Skylake in August means they'll be ready for mass market at the same time. Hell you can't even find the good low power Broadwells and they released months ago.

I'm supposed to get my MBP today, how's yours been with bootcamp so far?

 

[wct097]

Finally someone is speaking some sense in here. I really don't understand why the idea is being pushed that just because OEMs are getting Skylake in August means they'll be ready for mass market at the same time. Hell you can't even find the good low power Broadwells and they released months ago.

Two things.

First, he didn't post anything about the lead time between the release of a chip and when OEMs release their products.

Second, I'm the one saying that Apple will release their updated MBP (refresh or redesign, whatever they choose) within a month or two of the chips being released, based on historical details. If you want to take issue with that opinion, feel free to pick apart my logic where I detailed the correlation between the update history of the MBP and the processors they use. Note that I said several times that I believe Apple will refresh the MBP when Skylake is released, and that the timing depends on Intel. Nothing in the post you quoted contradicts what I've been saying.

The 5257U proc in 13" came out in Q1 2015. The 13" update came out in Q1 2015.

The 4278U proc in the Mid 2014 (July 29) 13" came out in Q3 2014.

The 4258U and 4750HQ in the Late 2013 13" and 15" (Oct 22) came out in Q3 2014.

Clearly, Apple will be releasing the Skylake update within a month of the Skylake procs becoming available. Both their historical release cycle and basic logic would support this.

Everything really depends on Intel. The speculation should be limited to (a) when will Intel be shipping the Skylake chips, and (b) which of those chips will Apple be selecting for the 13" and 15" models. The current roadmap shows the majority of mobile "H" i7's being released in September and one in Oct-Nov, while only showing two "H" i5's, one each with the September or Oct-Nov release date.

If Intel meets their goals and if Apple chooses the i5-6300HQ and i7-6820HQ for the 13" and 15" respectfully, we'll probably see an update in September or October depending on how early in the month Intel gets the goods out.

 

[wct097]

You also keep harping on Broadwell as a barometer of what to expect with Skylake. I don't think that's really reasonable since Intel has stated that they won't be doing a full offering of Broadwell procs and will be concentrating on Skylake.

If you look back historically, Apple has not waited long after a chip became available to use it in the MBP, especially since Retina came out.

Early 2011 - 2635QM - Released January 2011
Late 2011 - 2675QM - Released October 2011
Mid 2012 - 3615QM - Released April 2012
Early 2013 - 3630QM - Released Sept 2012 * mid-cycle spec bump
Late 2013 - 4750HQ - Released June 2013
Mid 2014 - 4770HQ - Released July 2014
Early 2015 - 5257U - Released Q1 2015 (13", not 15" since procs aren't out)

Only two times in the last 5 years have the released an updated 15" MBP that used a proc older than a couple months. Once was a mid-cycle spec bump. If Skylake procs that ultimately get used in the 15" come out in September, it would be very surprising given the release history, to see Apple wait until Early/Mid 2016 to adopt the chip. Could it happen? Sure... they waited 4 months to release the Haswell update in Late 2013, but given the 15" MBP hasn't seen a proc update since July 2014, I'd think the likelihood of Apple pushing 2 years on the same proc without an update would be very odd.

 

[harync]

Lots of great stuff on here related to Intel Tick-tock and macbook pro releases.

I think that apple will release a skylake macbook pro in October 2015, or else wait until March 2016 (avoiding the Thanksgiving to Chinese New Year period), depending on Intel's production.

Question for Mcarling and/or Sentential:

What is the probability that Cannonlake actually stands a chance of not being substantially delayed, given that the broadwell die-shrink ran into such problems? I would guess that 10nm would be even more difficult? Also, as I understand it, any die shrink beyond 10nm is going to require a move away from silicon. Will that slow down the tick-tock cycle even more?

 

[sentential]

What is the probability that Cannonlake actually stands a chance of not being substantially delayed, given that the broadwell die-shrink ran into such problems? I would guess that 10nm would be even more difficult? Also, as I understand it, any die shrink beyond 10nm is going to require a move away from silicon. Will that slow down the tick-tock cycle even more?

It's to early to tell GlobalFoundries (AMD/IBM) and TSMC are typically a good barometer of how things are going. Both had pretty serious issues with the 14nm mode and TSMC's mass production has already been pushed into 2016.

Cannonlake is supposed to be on 10nm and TSMC is supposed to start qualifying/sampling production runs Q4 of this year. If it goes well then Cannonlake is more likely to be early or on time. If it goes badly and then guys like GloFlo and Samsung's samples also look bad it'll probably be early 2017 before it launches. It really all depends

 

[Kulfon]

Another reason to wait for Skylake and skip the current refresh:

"Dell's dual-cable 5K display requires more bandwidth than is currently supported over a current single DisplayPort cable, so it uses a dual-cable solution that takes up two Thunderbolt ports on a Mac. The availability of Intel's Skylake platform with DisplayPort 1.3 support later this year will enable Apple to update Macs with support for external 5K displays that function over a single cable, at which point the company could theoretically release a 5K Thunderbolt Display. "

 

[Hackintosh Sr.]

nevermind

 

[dagamer34]

The point of waiting for Skylake isn't for the CPU, it's for the accompanying features that go along with a re-design. And every time a new form factor Mac has been announced, we hear leaks about it for *months*.

No rumors = no redesign any time soon = no Skylake.

Lead time for these rumors is such that we won't see an update until 2016. I mean, think about how long we new about the 12" MacBook (since last summer) and how long the iPad Pro has been rumored (since last year).

 

[johngwheeler]

Skylake-H 6820HQ & 6920HK - November?

The point of waiting for Skylake isn't for the CPU, it's for the accompanying features that go along with a re-design. And every time a new form factor Mac has been announced, we hear leaks about it for *months*.

No rumors = no redesign any time soon = no Skylake.

Lead time for these rumors is such that we won't see an update until 2016. I mean, think about how long we new about the 12" MacBook (since last summer) and how long the iPad Pro has been rumored (since last year).

I think the leaked Intel Skylake roadmap (if accurate) showed Skylake-H i7-6820HQ and 6820HK (no-one really knows what this is!) as being released in September and the 6920HQ as October/November. Assuming that these are two likely CPUs for the rMBP 15, I would guess that Apple would wait until they are both available in quantity before upgrading the rMBP.

Let's assume sufficient availability of these chips in November 2015. It is conceivable to have a pre-Christmas release, but given the recent "upgrade", I don't think Apple would feel the need to refresh within 7 months. It's more likely to be Feb-June 2016. We also have no idea whether Skylake-H fabrication will be slow due to manufacturing difficulties - I hear the yields on these things can be quite bad at first.

If we're into northern Spring 2016 for a new rMBP, I think we could see a re-design, but my feeling is that this will be modest - maybe a USB-C port or two, Thunderbolt 3, and maybe an increase in screen DPI or screen size (less bevel)

 

[cookies!]

I would love for the 13" rMBP to have reduced bevel and 1440x900 native resolution. That would be a massive upgrade in my eyes Likewise for the 15" to move up in resolution.

 

[dagamer34]

I think the leaked Intel Skylake roadmap (if accurate) showed Skylake-H i7-6820HQ and 6820HK (no-one really knows what this is!) as being released in September and the 6920HQ as October/November. Assuming that these are two likely CPUs for the rMBP 15, I would guess that Apple would wait until they are both available in quantity before upgrading the rMBP.

Let's assume sufficient availability of these chips in November 2015. It is conceivable to have a pre-Christmas release, but given the recent "upgrade", I don't think Apple would feel the need to refresh within 7 months. It's more likely to be Feb-June 2016. We also have no idea whether Skylake-H fabrication will be slow due to manufacturing difficulties - I hear the yields on these things can be quite bad at first.

If we're into northern Spring 2016 for a new rMBP, I think we could see a re-design, but my feeling is that this will be modest - maybe a USB-C port or two, Thunderbolt 3, and maybe an increase in screen DPI or screen size (less bevel)

That's not modest. That's pretty significant. And in the last 4 years, there have been plenty of advancements to make the MacBook Pro a lot more power efficient. Perhaps most important is the stuff rarely talked about, the actual board itself. There's ton of chip consolidation that could probably be made to make the logic board smaller, like how the new MacBook got shrunk by 2/3, but it's only worthwhile to do every redesign and not much more than that (and it's not a cost of engineering, but time to market thing really).

I predict a spring event with Apple Watch 2 and next-gen MacBooks Pros.

 

[mcarling]

Finally someone is speaking some sense in here.

Thank you for the kind words.

I'm supposed to get my MBP today, how's yours been with bootcamp so far?

I don't use bootcamp.

he didn't post anything about the lead time between the release of a chip and when OEMs release their products.

Apple, Dell, HP, etc. get samples from Intel about a year before new products ship, so time for development of new Mac models is not an issue. The main issue is the time needed to ramp up production. That depends on all suppliers, including Intel, being able to supply about a million parts per month.

It takes Intel a long time to convert most of their fabs to a new process, whereas the conversion of a line in a fab to produce a new micro-architecture is measurable in hours. That means that a Tick takes a long time (several months) to introduce across the whole product line and a Tock can normally be introduced across the product line much faster.

Because the Tick was delayed this time, the Tock (Skylake) is coming while Intel still have relatively few 14nm fabs. So ramping up Skylake production will probably take longer than usual for a Tock but probably not as long as a Tick.

If I were Apple, I would be extra cautious this time about ensuring adequate stocks (about a million) before releasing, especially before the holiday shopping season.

Question for Mcarling and/or Sentential:

What is the probability that Cannonlake actually stands a chance of not being substantially delayed, given that the broadwell die-shrink ran into such problems?

Too early to say. It's a bit like trying to predict how much time it will take to solve a crossword puzzle.

I would guess that 10nm would be even more difficult?

Not necessarily. I think there is more variation here than trend. We don't have anything approaching a statistically significant data set.

Also, as I understand it, any die shrink beyond 10nm is going to require a move away from silicon. Will that slow down the tick-tock cycle even more?

7nm will probably be the last one on a silicon substrate. Teams are already working on 7nm and 5nm on other substrates. It's way, way, way, too early to guess how fast they will make progress.

The point of waiting for Skylake isn't for the CPU, it's for the accompanying features that go along with a re-design.

There is no guarantee that the Skylake MBP will feature a substantial redesign.

It is conceivable to have a pre-Christmas release....

Only if Apple have about a million in stock and ready to ship on release day. There is no way Apple will risk losing out on the holiday sales the way they did a few years ago when they released a new iMac too late before the holidays.

 

[sentential]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1557000/cpu-monkey-some-benchmarks-of-i7-6700k

Well here are some early Skylake numbers..... and they're so-so.

 

[Cindori]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1557000/cpu-monkey-some-benchmarks-of-i7-6700k

Well here are some early Skylake numbers..... and they're so-so.

It's been mentioned before, but Skylake isn't really about the CPU power.

A quote from /r/hardware:

The big deal with Skylake is the peripherals, not the CPU itself.

• DDR4
• 20 PCIe lanes for LGA1151
• PCIe 4.0 for Skylake-E/EP/EX
• M.2 support
• NVMe support
• Hardware encode/decode for VP8 and VP9
• DX12 (unfortunately no Vulkan support from the looks of it)
• Widespread wireless charging for laptops (unfortunately it's looking like it's Rezence, not Qi)
• USB Type-C support
• Charging over USB Type-C
• Video out over USB Type-C (DisplayPort)
• Reduced power usage
• DMI 3.0
• Official retirement of VGA

etc.

Granted, some of those are desktop PC things and don't apply for MBP.
But the biggest thing for portable computers is definitely the lower power usage.
There's already some sleek reference design Skylake notebooks out there showing what you can expect in terms of form factor.

You can see that Intel is really pushing "hybrids", notebooks that also work as a tablet.
That is kind of interesting considering the new framework hinting a merge of OS X and iOS API's...

 

[t0mat0]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9325/computex-2015-intel-keynote-live-blog

So TB3 is going to have a Type C connector like the Macbook. So Apple gets to have TB3 capacities behind the Type C ports, which can also do USB 3 etc. Cuts down on ports.

Puts the 13 and now recently 15" MBP refresh in new light. Apple are free to make a new MBA lineup using Skylake and these TB3 connectors, or update the MBP and have them as the higher end line of MBP. Or just wait then replace the current MBP with them.

Ah wel - good news from Intel, we just wait for their Skylake CPUs...

 

[Cindori]

That picture really looks like a MBP...

 

[Gildarts]

I've been saying this for so long..

Macbook Pro redesign coming with Skylake!

 

[Kendo]

Like many of us here waiting for Skylake, more often than not, people generally list "redesign" as one of the pros of skipping Broadwell (along with the other enhancements like wireless charging and a more powerful chipset).

If you have been painfully waiting for Skylake and it finally comes out but the MacBook Pro does not have a redesign, will you wait one more generation? Will you buy a refurbished or brand new 2015 model for cheaper?

For me it is a difficult decision. I feel like it is an endless cycle of madness waiting for a redesign for any Apple product, and when it doesn't happen, you convince yourself that you waited so long and that a redesign should be coming soon.

 

[sunapple]

People had the exact same "problem" when waiting for Broadwell and now the new 2015 MBP doesn't even have it yet. It really depends on how fast Intel produces these things, but it doesn't seem to be easy to really make any predictions.

Another reason to wait for Skylake could be USB type-C and Thunderbolt 3, but they could as well include those ports in a later version. A redesign seems logical to go with the new port layout.

I bought my 15" MBP in summer 2014 because I needed it and despite of people telling me to wait for Broadwell. No regrets, machine still works really well (of course) and I don't really need anything more right now. I can easily hold out for those redesigned models if I want to.

So to answer your question; if Skylake doesn't bring a new design, just go back in time and buy the 2015 or even 2014 version..

 

[wct097]

Unless they drop the dGPU option or USB 3 in favor of all USB-C, I'll be buying a Skylake MBP. I'm due for an upgrade and have the money saved. I'm not waiting for a redesign, I'm just unwilling to pay the "Apple Tax" compounded by outdated technology that hasn't been discounted. The 15" 2015 models are using the same procs that the 2014 models used and the same generation that the 2013 models used.

I'd go back and buy a craigslist 2013 or 2014 for half the price before I'd buy a refurb 2015.

 

[n-evo]

I haven't had a single positive experience with rev. A products from Apple and personally I'm fed up with playing beta tester when purchasing a 2K+ euro costing machine. As such I'm more than happy with the 2015 MacBook Pro (13-inch) I just bought. I'll hold out until the next design is at least rev. B.

 

[magbarn]

Unless it drops the dgpu, I'll be placing an order on the release day. I'll be at least getting a laptop that at least has a modern cpu, not a circa 2013 one.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Like many of us here waiting for Skylake, more often than not, people generally list "redesign" as one of the pros of skipping Broadwell (along with the other enhancements like wireless charging and a more powerful chipset).

If you have been painfully waiting for Skylake and it finally comes out but the MacBook Pro does not have a redesign, will you wait one more generation? Will you buy a refurbished or brand new 2015 model for cheaper?

For me it is a difficult decision. I feel like it is an endless cycle of madness waiting for a redesign for any Apple product, and when it doesn't happen, you convince yourself that you waited so long and that a redesign should be coming soon.

Well thats what you get for worrying about pointless nonsense.

If a new computer is needed or would make your computing life better then get one, if it won't make much difference then wait. That should be the overiding drive behind buying a new computer of whatever make.

 

[Razeus]

Skylake = USB-C

 

[abowlby]

For me it's not even the redesign as much as it is the components inside and the feature set. TB3 and USB-C namely. Also, the Iris Pro graphics in Broadwell alone are nearly as poweful as the 750m was, so the chipset upgrades are/will be substantial.