Waiting for Skylake MBP thread

[Seed101]

What I'm saying is it will be called by whatever moniker they choose to call it, but I believe it is inevitable that Apple changes their entire mobile lineup to thinner and kill along with it certain ports in order to do this. EVENTUALLY they will kill off the 3.5mm audio jack as well, again EVENTUALLY. Now? Probably not. It just seems like the writing is on the wall.

Who is to say that a "Pro" level laptop cannot be redefined so as to include more suitable external solutions while keeping the laptop/notebook itself in a slimmer design? Heck, Apple thought so with the Mac Pro desktop.

Yeah...they can redefine it to the point of what exactly?

External Gpu's such as with the Razor are all well and good but they're not really portable and are for gamers basically.

There will come a point of form over function for apple, at that point, some user's who need power will jump ship..but they'll be replaced by more who's need's are less I'm sure...

 

[Oppenheim]

...so you're saying it won't be a "pro" and that's fine?

It will be a best in class device weighted in favour of design conscious people. If you want pro performance, buy a Mac Pro or a 5k iMac. If you don't care about design and want only raw performance, buy yourself some 16 core Xeon blades and code in Fortran/C/C++. Apple isn't in that market. Call HP/IBM/Dell/etc.

I want a Skylake i5, 16gb RAM, 512-1024GB SSD, 4k 16" monitor, all USB-C, 12 hours battery, thinner, lighter. I want to do inspiring work on an inspirational machine that oozes ingenuity, opinionated design, continuity with the past and attention to detail like no other machine. I write code for a living. I want to write high quality code all the time. I need to be inspired. I value greatly what adopting the Apple philosophy has done for my career and the way my work benefits others.

 

[mjs402]

Yeah...they can redefine it to the point of what exactly?

External Gpu's such as with the Razor are all well and good but they're not really portable and are for gamers basically.

There will come a point of form over function for apple, at that point, some user's who need power will jump ship..but they'll be replaced by more who's need's are less I'm sure...

Maybe you are right in that regard. It doesn't change the fact that it is what they are doing. If they manage to squeeze in the Iris Pro 580 into a thinner form factor than the current 15 inch rMBP, it should provide users with a bit of mobile power.

Yes the Razer Core is primarily for gamers, but that isn't to say that Apple can't/won't come up with their own eGPU solution for those that need it. They were selling external SuperDrives too.

 

[Oppenheim]

Yeah...they can redefine it to the point of what exactly?

External Gpu's such as with the Razor are all well and good but they're not really portable and are for gamers basically.

There will come a point of form over function for apple, at that point, some user's who need power will jump ship..but they'll be replaced by more who's need's are less I'm sure...

MBP is not for gamers. "Gamers" should save themselves 1000 bucks and buy something else. They'll be much happier consuming games on Windows. More money for beer, pizza and chocolate.

 

[Seed101]

It will be a best in class device weighted in favour of design conscious people. If you want pro performance, buy a Mac Pro or a 5k iMac. If you don't care about design and want only raw performance, buy yourself some 16 core Xeon blades and code in Fortran/C/C++. Apple isn't in that market. Call HP/IBM/Dell/etc.

I want a Skylake i5, 16gb RAM, 512-1024GB SSD, 4k 16" monitor, all USB-C, 12 hours battery, thinner, lighter. I want to do inspiring work on an inspirational machine that oozes ingenuity, opinionated design, continuity with the past and attention to detail like no other machine. I write code for a living. I want to write high quality code all the time. I need to be inspired. I value greatly what adopting the Apple philosophy has done for my career and the way my work benefits others.

I've got an iMac.
I can't take it to work on the occasions I need to work on site...

Inspiration doesn't come from a machine.
You buy into a system of belief that suits your needs..fair enough...I need power, and will (sadly) have to switch if the pendulum swings too much to the form factor over function.

I'm happy it's working for you and your coding.

 

[j1104638]

I'll probably never understand why some people need a laptop that is average-powerful.
For me, having a computer that is capable to handle different tasks is really important.
Especially if it's a computer that costs 2000 €.
Do a really need now the most powerful dGPU of the market?
Probably no, but if the next year I want to play a game that is heavy, maybe I won't have to worry about it.
I want durability on my 2000 € working machine, at the cost of have to carry 300 grams more of aluminum and batteries.
And I want to have the possibility to choose between different categories of power.

And by the way, dGPU it's not always about gaming. There are others tasks that need a dGPU to be execute.

I'm all for asking a powerful dGPU without iGPU at all or powerful iGPU without dGPU.
Having both powerful iGPU and powerful dGPU is, again, inefficient.

 

[Oppenheim]

I've got an iMac.
I can't take it to work on the occasions I need to work on site...

Inspiration doesn't come from a machine.
You buy into a system of belief that suits your needs..fair enough...I need power, and will (sadly) have to switch if the pendulum swings too much to the form factor over function.

I'm happy it's working for you and your coding.

Out of interest, what is your use-case?

 

[Seed101]

MBP is not for gamers. "Gamers" should save themselves 1000 bucks and buy something else. They'll be much happier consuming games on Windows. More money for beer, pizza and chocolate.

Never said MBP was for gamers. You misunderstood.

I said external gpu's are for gamers gamers in relation to the razor.

Get off your high horse/bugbear..

 

[CinemaMaker97]

is it worth waiting for the 2016 MacBook Pro? The reason I ask is because I have seen and heard so many things about it getting thinner and fears of the MacBook Pro losing power due to its possible new thinness. I currently have a late 2012 Mac Mini with 500GB of storage and 4GB of ram running Final Cut Pro X and was going to upgrade it to a fully upgraded MBP 15". I am going to college late in the summer and since I will be upgrading my canon dslr to a BlackMagic Cinema Camera MFT and running even more software than final cut and motion I need something more powerful.

 

[mjs402]

I've got an iMac.
I can't take it to work on the occasions I need to work on site...

Inspiration doesn't come from a machine.
You buy into a system of belief that suits your needs..fair enough...I need power, and will (sadly) have to switch if the pendulum swings too much to the form factor over function.

I'm happy it's working for you and your coding.

I like how you kept composure and most importantly your manners.


Cheers.

 

[Seed101]

Out of interest, what is your use-case?

I use After Effects/Illustrator/C4D /Maya...mainly...sometimes on laptops when required.

I make animations. It's power intensive.

 

[Oppenheim]

I'm all for asking a powerful dGPU without iGPU at all or powerful iGPU without dGPU.
Having both powerful iGPU and powerful dGPU is, again, inefficient.

A dGPU could be an option for i7 model.

I would much prefer a shared memory iGPU over a dGPU where you have to shunt data around. Especially on a general purpose machine. dGPU doesn't make any sense.
[doublepost=1459722470][/doublepost]

I'm all for asking a powerful dGPU without iGPU at all or powerful iGPU without dGPU.
Having both powerful iGPU and powerful dGPU is, again, inefficient.

A dGPU could be an option for i7 model.

I would much prefer a shared memory iGPU over a dGPU where you have to shunt data around. Especially on a general purpose machine. dGPU doesn't make any sense.
[doublepost=1459722595][/doublepost]

I use After Effects/Illustrator/C4D /Maya...mainly...sometimes on laptops when required.

I make animations. It's power intensive.

Maybe you could do the calculations on a cloud farm full of Teslas? Faster results, I'd imagine. You'd have a huge amount more battery time too.

 

[j1104638]

is it worth waiting for the 2016 MacBook Pro? The reason I ask is because I have seen and heard so many things about it getting thinner and fears of the MacBook Pro losing power due to its possible new thinness. I currently have a late 2012 Mac Mini with 500GB of storage and 4GB of ram running Final Cut Pro X and was going to upgrade it to a fully upgraded MBP 15". I am going to college late in the summer and since I will be upgrading my canon dslr to a BlackMagic Cinema Camera MFT and running even more software than final cut and motion I need something more powerful.

Yes, it is.
The worst that could happen is you'll see the new model, don't like it and buy the old one with good discount.
The best that could happen is the new model will be as good as current one, but redesigned to be even more pleasing and made futureproof using USB-C and Thunderbolt 3.

 

[Oppenheim]

I'm all for asking a powerful dGPU without iGPU at all or powerful iGPU without dGPU.
Having both powerful iGPU and powerful dGPU is, again, inefficient.

Why do you assume that dGPU is always better? There are many cases where shared memory gives far better performance than with a more powerful dGPU. This is particularly the case for general purpose machines (laptop computers running OSX). iGPU is almost always better in terms of power consumption.

 

[j1104638]

I use After Effects/Illustrator/C4D /Maya...mainly...sometimes on laptops when required.

I make animations. It's power intensive.

You won't see much difference between iGPU and dGPU if rMBP 2016 is released before Polaris/Pascal.
And even if it includes Polaris/Pascal, the years of times difference for TDP constrained dGPUs are over.

Now you will have 30-50% more performance on dGPU one year, then 15-30% more performance on iGPU next year, then again dGPU, and then again iGPU.

dGPUs are still going to win big in desktop high end gaming systems because, well, I doubt we'll see 300 W CPU with iGPU from Intel any time soon. But they won't in mobile. The game is over.

 

[pmau]

I little reality check. Apple will never give us the latest hardware, because they want to keep their margins.

If you look at chipset availability and the power profile of modern hardware (throttling, low-power modes, etc.),
it would not be a problem to create a fast well-powered MacBook that also features long battery live.

The only hardware that has a current chipset is the iMac and even that has a GPU from ca. 2012 (I did not google)
If Apple would produce a MacPro today that would feature SLI NVIDIA 980s, it would still not be useful, because you
would not hear from Apple for the next three years.

And that is the problem right now today.

My MacPro from 2008 is still working because I'm able to use SSD's, a USB 3 card and a GPU without the boot screen.
Apple does not provide any kind of upgrade path AND they do not release early.

If zou add the increased pricing for the design "innovation", it is totally clear to me that the next MacBook lineup will be disappointing. The only thing that helps Apple is the external build quality and its service.

BOTH of these points are becoming less and less relevant. Other brands are catching up really really fast.
If I would invest time in building a OSX Hackintosh, I would not look at Apple at the high-end.

Apple's low-end laptops are great, except for their price.
The high-end will not be a growing market for Apple.

My 2 cents.

PS: I owned an endless list of MacBooks starting around 2006, this will change.

 

[Seed101]

A dGPU could be an option for i7 model.

I would much prefer a shared memory iGPU over a dGPU where you have to shunt data around. Especially on a general purpose machine. dGPU doesn't make any sense.
[doublepost=1459722470][/doublepost]

A dGPU could be an option for i7 model.

I would much prefer a shared memory iGPU over a dGPU where you have to shunt data around. Especially on a general purpose machine. dGPU doesn't make any sense.
[doublepost=1459722595][/doublepost]

Maybe you could do the calculations on a cloud farm full of Teslas? Faster results, I'd imagine. You'd have a huge amount more battery time too.

I could...but the advertising/marketing companies I work for, on the whole, have no idea of such concepts and expect me to turn up and get the job done on my equipment.

Sometimes their expectations are unrealistic, and I explain what's actually needed to achieve their aims, but thanks to apple, often I've been able to deliver...

Batteries are not an issue because I'm always near a power point...that's one thing they understand...

 

[j1104638]

Why do you assume that dGPU is always better? There are many cases where shared memory gives far better performance than with a more powerful dGPU. This is particularly the case for general purpose machines (laptop computers running OSX). iGPU is almost always better in terms of power consumption.

You got me wrong. I've said the same you did on the previous page (remove dGPU, use freed TDP for iGPU or shrinking/battery/etc).
What I'm saying on this page is that if anyone wants dGPU no matter what, he should also ask for CPU without iGPU at all. Having both is inefficient as hell.

 

[pmau]

What I'm saying on this page is that if anyone wants dGPU no matter what, he should also ask for CPU without iGPU at all. Having both is inefficient as hell.

Yes, I totally agree. But I do believe the dGPU days in portable devices are over.
Apple will move to integrated only solutions and will leave the high-end market.

Thinner, less power-consumption, fewer ports (that also have power requirements).
This also leads to smaller universal chargers etc.

I would love to see Apple at the high-end, but since the upgrade of the original Retina MBP,
they have reduced the versatility of their high-end products a lot.

They will not compete at the high-end (spec wise, not the pricing of course)

 

[nicovh]

On the positive side, we are making history here. We are the people that will own one of the last MacBook Pro laptops ever before Apple says:
"We have a big announcement to make. Apple has completely revolutionized the idea of what a computer can be, and do. It is literally as light as a feather! Introducing the brandnew 'Air'."

 

[Woochoo]

@snc you neither gave links to benchmarks, just the number of TFLops you considered convenient, without any more GPU data, neither comparing it to anything. By the way, you must be looking at diferent performing area, since it's impossible to have Teraflops on one GPU and Gigaflops in the other. That would mean the nVidias are x1000 better performing, which clearly arent. So if you pick random numbers at least compare them to similar iGPUs and put them in context.

Doesn't matter tho, Pascal/Polaris high end can be real beasts, but Apple will put, the mid-lower end gamma in the top end 15" MBP (if they still use dGPU). So all these "great improvements" will be reduced to almost nothing else than a slighly improvement over the iGPU that will already come with the MBP. That, for just 700$ more bucks (which you could use to get a real desktop GPU with external enclosure to the Thunderbolt 3).

 

[dtsisdead]

A dGPU could be an option for i7 model.

...

Maybe you could do the calculations on a cloud farm full of Teslas? Faster results, I'd imagine. You'd have a huge amount more battery time too.

Not sure which country everyone is from, but some people tend to take their fancy-pants 'WiFi is absolutely everywhere' for granted. In Australia, free WiFi (especially outside of the city centres of Melbourne and Sydney) is almost unheard of. Mobile data plans are horrendously expensive. So, for a person who requires mobile computing power within a sleek, slim design (not gamers, not people who want/can lug around 6-10Kg mobile workstations) cloud options are not always feasible. I think Apple should still at least offer the option of a dGPU. For some, especially those who are tied into the Apple ecosystem (FCP X, etc.) 'general purpose' computers aren't sufficient and that is where the MacBook Pro comes into it, currently.

Thinner, lighter rMBPs for me, persoanlly, would be fine. I don't need a dGPU, especially if the iGPU is as good as everyone is saying. But then, I am not that type of power user. I need something more than the MacBook 12" can do and I want a larger screen than the MacBook Air offers. Thus, I want to buy a MBP. If they release a larger (14-15") MBA with Retina display, I will probably buy it, however, Apple aren't going to do that. There are, however, plenty of people whose livelihoods depend on a capable machine that doesn't have to rely on external (either eGPUs or Cloud) to get the job done.

 

[akkotaire]

I want durability

The thing is dGpu are often the cause hardware failure over time. For me this is the only reason I would choose a iGpu over a dGpu.

 

[pmau]

The thing is dGpu are often the cause hardware failure over time. For me this is the only reason I would choose a iGpu over a dGpu.

Ini my humble opinion this is the result of continuous miniaturisation and bad soldering.
In the good old days the circuits could handle power consumption needed for a big GPU.

They build the new logicboards to JUST be able to handle a little load.
If you "abuse" your laptop hardware for constant gaming, you are in trouble.

But this IS Apple's problem ... they even TELL you how small their logicboards are getting.
No one would argue that it could be thicker and conduct more heat.

 

[IndigoDesign]

is it worth waiting for the 2016 MacBook Pro? The reason I ask is because I have seen and heard so many things about it getting thinner and fears of the MacBook Pro losing power due to its possible new thinness. I currently have a late 2012 Mac Mini with 500GB of storage and 4GB of ram running Final Cut Pro X and was going to upgrade it to a fully upgraded MBP 15". I am going to college late in the summer and since I will be upgrading my canon dslr to a BlackMagic Cinema Camera MFT and running even more software than final cut and motion I need something more powerful.

If you have have the late 2012 you have an awesome machine and should think about upgrading it. I'm running the same machine and if you do things right you're hard pressed to find a more reliable, powerful machine in that small form-factor. If you have to move it around between two or three locations you could consider having power-cable, keyboard, mouse and monitor on each site and just carry around the mini, it's small enough. Sure, if you have to be FULLY portable, you'll need a MBP.

IF you wanna upgrade the mac mini (you should definitely HOLD ONTO it, and NOT sell it as long as it is supported as it makes an awesome machine and is highly sought after for a reason) there are videos about the upgrade process on youtube, it's really NOT hard to do and you can easily upgrade it to to 16 GB of Ram and either dual 512 GB SSDs in Raid 0 giving you approx 800 MB/sec or go for a 512 GB SSD system drive (samsung evo, around 450 MB/sec) and a 1TB HGST 7200 rpm drive (around 120 MB/sec) for storage. It's really not that hard to do and only costs a fraction of what a similar config bought new from Apple would cost you.

Consider it.
Just don't trash the mac mini, it's awesome value for your money that can't be bought anymore nowadays from Apple.