Waiting for the 2017 MBP (Kaby Lake / Cannonlake / Coffee Lake??)

[dumastudetto]

A colleague just got a Skylake Dell...and I'm stuck with the late 2013 Macbook Pro...I can tell you that my 3 year old Macbook is about 5 years ahead, performance wise, fan-noise wise, battery-wise, you name it. Not to mention Dell's trackpad. It's probably the crappiest touchpad I have ever worked on. Some times it double clicks while you are just moving the mouse, other times it doesn't click when you want it to...

We have the latest 15" XPS (9550) Skylake here, and Geekbench numbers benchmark very close to my 15" Late 2013 MBP. I was actually amazed how close the performance is. Some of that may be how poorly Geekbench runs on a Windows 10 machine vs. macOS of course, it's not exactly a like-for-like comparison. But I was astonished how close the numbers are.

I personally hate the feel of the carbon fibre on the Dell. But I thought the touchpad was pretty decent compared to old Windows laptops I used to own. It's definitely not as good as my MBP, but I would no longer describe it as terrible and unusable with WIndows 10. The screen is of course lovely, but the webcam is placed ridiculously because there wasn't room at the top with their thin bezel design. We have the touchscreen model here and I would never use it, finger prints all over my laptop screen yuck! Oh and Windows 10 isn't horrible. It looks quite modern in places, even ahead of macOS in some ways, but I would never go back to it from a Mac.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I'm ready to move in. Hopefully we don't reach 1000 pages this time.

I have some hope this thread can be closed next week.

 

[Workerbee Redux]

I have some hope this thread can be closed next week.

Intel sells no 45W Kaby Lake chips yet.

 

[EnesM]

Intel sells no 45W Kaby Lake chips yet.

Unless Apple made a special deal with Intel to be first with 45W Kaby Lakes (highly unlikely), yeah, not before spring 2017

 

[Traverse]

Intel sells no 45W Kaby Lake chips yet.

And Apple shall be the first....

Actually, I don't think that will happen, but I wouldn't be completely surprised if it did.

 

[EnesM]

And Apple shall be the first....

Actually, I don't think that will happen, but I wouldn't be completely surprised if it did.

I have this secret tiny teeny trickle of hope that happens...but it's still highly unlikely

Intel seems to be in bed with Microsoft more than ever

 

[gooseta]

What are the main benefits of Kaby Lake over Skylake? I assume performance won't be more than 5-7% better, is power optimisation better?

 

[sofianito]

Any chance to expect 24 or 32GB RAM?

 

[EnesM]

What are the main benefits of Kaby Lake over Skylake? I assume performance won't be more than 5-7% better, is power optimisation better?

Power optimization, probably. For me, most important advantage is 4K HEVC 10bit hardware decoding. That shouldve been in Skylake but Intel decided to leave it till Kaby Lake for some reason

 

[2457248]

For me, most important advantage is 4K HEVC 10bit hardware decoding.

that, and integrated usb3.1 controller, useful only for the rMB due to the lack of TB controller.
oh and that +100MHz no one will notice in real use case.

 

[TheGamerzZ]

Power optimization, probably. For me, most important advantage is 4K HEVC 10bit hardware decoding. That shouldve been in Skylake but Intel decided to leave it till Kaby Lake for some reason

What do you mean? So the Skylake MacBook can't handle Ultra HD stuff from Netflix or what? Or can't run this with 60 Frames? And if I connect the MacBook with my Ultra HD TV, whats then?

 

[Patrick-Photo]

What do you mean? So the Skylake MacBook can't handle Ultra HD stuff from Netflix or what? Or can't run this with 60 Frames? And if I connect the MacBook with my Ultra HD TV, whats then?

It can but will take up much more cpu power compared to the dedicated hardware decoding it...

 

[EnesM]

What do you mean? So the Skylake MacBook can't handle Ultra HD stuff from Netflix or what? Or can't run this with 60 Frames? And if I connect the MacBook with my Ultra HD TV, whats then?

Well, Netflix doesn't offer UHD on PC platforms yet anyway, but maybe they will in the future.

To have your Macbook connected to UHD TV, and run smoothly at 4K, you need HDMI 2.0. While skylake sort of supports HDMI 2.0, it needs Alpine Ridge which Apple may or may not include with new Macbooks. Kaby Lake has native HDMI 2.0 afaik

 

[Ries]

What do you mean? So the Skylake MacBook can't handle Ultra HD stuff from Netflix or what? Or can't run this with 60 Frames? And if I connect the MacBook with my Ultra HD TV, whats then?

The "new" online video formats will be HVEC265 Main10 and VP9-10bit, skylake intel chips only have support for 8-bit in HW and therefore skylake will have to use a lot more CPU power especially at highres to display them (the fans will be in jet engine mode). Unless you get a pascal or polaris dGPU.

 

[TheGamerzZ]

Okay, that's really ****... But I've read that the KabyLake CPU for 13'' MacBook Pro is ready? Maybe Apple build in the 13 MBP the KabyLake CPU and in the 15" the Skylake. What do you think guys?

 

[Cougarcat]

Okay, that's really ****... But I've read that the KabyLake CPU for 13'' MacBook Pro is ready? Maybe Apple build in the 13 MBP the KabyLake CPU and in the 15" the Skylake. What do you think guys?

No, not til January. If anything gets KL it'll be the rMB or the MBA.

 

[TheGamerzZ]

No, not til January. If anything gets KL it'll be the rMB or the MBA.

But other companys like HP or Dell have Kabylake Notebook with 15W. I think that the 13" MBP also need the 15W CPU?

 

[Cougarcat]

But other companys like HP or Dell have Kabylake Notebook with 15W. I think that the 13" MBP also need the 15W CPU?

No, the MBP used the 28. MBA will use the 15.

 

[toddzrx]

Apple did this to themselves in that they waited until near the end of life of Skylake to roll out skylake processors.

I think to get back on a decent schedule they probably should roll out a silent update next spring/summer

I'd love to see Intel's release cycle change so that Apple can shift back to releasing computer hardware at the summer Developer's Conference.

 

[EnesM]

I'd love to see Intel's release cycle change so that Apple can shift back to releasing computer hardware at the summer Developer's Conference.

It did, no Kaby Lakes till spring '17, so yeah, next WWDC you might see a release or two

 

[toddzrx]

It did, no Kaby Lakes till spring '17, so yeah, next WWDC you might see a release or two

Right; the problem is that Apple takes at least 6 months to get a newly released processor into the machine, if not more.

 

[TheGamerzZ]

No, the MBP used the 28. MBA will use the 15.

Okay, then our last hope is that Apple built an external Chip or something like that in the MacBook Pro that manage the new HVEC265Main10 and VP9-10bit standard... In this case I think thats okay if you pay over 2.000$ for an "old" CPU

 

[mattburley7]

deleted

 

[maflynn]

I'd love to see Intel's release cycle change so that Apple can shift back to releasing computer hardware at the summer Developer's Conference.

I think Apple moved away from hardware announcements at WWDC, so even if they opted for a Kaby Lake refresh, I'm not sure they'd do it at the venue.

 

[EnesM]

I

Okay, then our last hope is that Apple built an external Chip or something like that in the MacBook Pro that manage the new HVEC265Main10 and VP9-10bit standard... In this case I think thats okay if you pay over 2.000$ for an "old" CPU

Never gonna happen. Besides, Apple is not really concerned wi 4K content yet. Apple TV is still HD, and until that changes we're pretty much stuck with old gen crap.