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Cannonlake might not get 45W (H-Series) processors released. These would be the appropriate candidates for the 15-inch MacBook Pro. If they do produce the right processors with improved GPUs included I'd jump in but it looks like Ice Lake might be the next product released in time for the 2019 update.

If 45W Cannonlake CPUs ship before the end of this year it would burn anyone buying this release as better AMD GPUs will likely be included as well as native support of LPDDR4, and for 32 GB total. This might play out like in 2011 with the "early" and "late" releases. The Coffee Lake MBP looks like the one to skip.
Indeed but make that won’t be arriving in 45W skus, not might not - Cannonlake is now supposed to be only the 8th gen Y series (they all have different code names for some reason) and isn’t going to be launching until later in the year.
 
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Indeed but make that won’t be arriving in 45W skus, not might not - Cannonlake is now supposed to be only the 8th gen Y series (they all have different code names for some reason) and isn’t going to be launching until later in the year.

That's correct. I left open the language in case Intel does an about face behind the scenes and pushes out some H-series chips, which no one should expect. There are currently no known plans for anything beyond the Y-Series for Cannonlake mobile releases.

Time to start waiting on that 2019 MBP.
 
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That's correct. I left open the language in case Intel does an about face behind the scenes and pushes out some H-series chips, which no one should expect. There are currently no known plans for anything beyond the Y-Series for Cannonlake mobile releases.

Time to start waiting on that 2019 MBP.
In the mean time I think the Iris 6100 should be fine for Counter-Strike GO and Starcraft 2
 
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That's correct. I left open the language in case Intel does an about face behind the scenes and pushes out some H-series chips, which no one should expect. There are currently no known plans for anything beyond the Y-Series for Cannonlake mobile releases.

Time to start waiting on that 2019 MBP.
Yeah I like the sound of ice lake H chips, the drop to 10nm should really give a boost to battery life (maybe the 15” could even hit the advertised 10h of light usage rather than the 8 and a bit most people say they are getting). But really for me, make or break is what they do/ don’t do about the keyboard issue, I’m not splashing £2.5k on an indulgence that might crap out after a year and cost me another £700. I’m guessing if it’s not fixed with this year’s model it’s not going to be until the likely 2020 redesign (which could be going secondary touch screen with haptic which wouldn’t be any good for me either).
 
What do you do with your computer? For most people the CPU is more important, but for some other people, the GPU is just as important if not more.
Missed this from earlier. I do video and graphic production. CPU and GPU performance play about an equal role in what I do for work so seeing only a marginal improvement in graphics performance puts this purchase on ice (lake).
 
Between Apple waiting for the official releases from Intel and AMD, its no wonder they want to use their own chips. Using their own 'P' or 'M' or whatever letter they choose series of chips puts them in the drivers seat as to when products will get announced and what those products will have. Plus they will be able to 100% build around their own silicon.
 
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In the mean time I think the Iris 6100 should be fine for Counter-Strike GO and Starcraft 2

Even my 2009 MacBook Pro with the onboard GeForce GT 9400M can run Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and CS:GO just fine. The Iris Plus is probably dozens of times faster than this chip, so yes, while it's definitely not comparable to any gaming GPU, it's not as bad as people sometimes seem to think.

Also, the 128 MB eDRAM in the 8th gen 28W CPUs can be used as a fast L4 cache for the CPU cores too, which might improve performance for some specific tasks too.
 
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Even my 2009 MacBook Pro with the onboard GeForce GT 9400M can run Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and CS:GO just fine. The Iris Plus is probably dozens of times faster than this chip, so yes, while it's definitely not comparable to any gaming GPU, it's not as bad as people sometimes seem to think.

Keep in mind the retina screens are driving many more pixels than your 2009 MBP, which requires a faster GPU to keep up.
 
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Keep in mind the retina screens are driving many more pixels than your 2009 MBP, which requires a faster GPU to keep up.

A 13" retina MBP drives exactly four times the pixels of my 15" 2009 MBP. The Iris Plus 650 is 25 times faster. We're talking about a floating point performance of 35.2 GFLOPs (9400M) to 883.2 GFLOPs (Iris Plus 650). Also, when you run the game at the same resolution (1440 x 900 pixels), it won't need a lot more performance than it did with the lower res screen.
 
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Need a little advice.

I have a MBP Retina Mid 2012. I'm generally ok with the performance but I'm due for an upgrade and I need to power a 4k monitor.

I do tons of web and photo work. Not so much video.

From what I've gathered the 2017 models have major issues with keyboards. Do the 2015 model keyboards have the same issues?

I need a new a MBP.

If they launch a 2018 with a new keyboard design I'll probably go for it.

If they don't address the keyboard what would you buy? A 2015 MBP?

How sad is it that I'm considering buying a 3 year old machine because Apple can't get things right?
 
Need a little advice.

I have a MBP Retina Mid 2012. I'm generally ok with the performance but I'm due for an upgrade and I need to power a 4k monitor.

I do tons of web and photo work. Not so much video.

From what I've gathered the 2017 models have major issues with keyboards. Do the 2015 model keyboards have the same issues?

I need a new a MBP.

If they launch a 2018 with a new keyboard design I'll probably go for it.

If they don't address the keyboard what would you buy? A 2015 MBP?

How sad is it that I'm considering buying a 3 year old machine because Apple can't get things right?
The 2015 models don't suffer from any well-known keyboard issues such as the later models. It's worth noting however that the models that seemingly suffer the most from these issues are the 2016 models; in the 2017 models Apple already made a first step towards fixing them (didn't fix it completely, but it's the general consensus that the issues are less likely to happen than on the 2016 ones).

Regarding the highlighted question: nope, I'd still buy a 2018 one (and that's also what I'm personally intending to do either way, it's not just a "what would you"-type of question for me). The reason for that is mainly that the 2018 models will be a huge leap in performance if everything we hear about them is true; we're talking about ~40% or maybe even more increase in CPU power compared to last year's model, so if you compare it to the 2015 models the speed difference will be even larger. Because the CPU and GPU improvements over the last few generations were rather incremental, the 2015 model holds up just fine right now, but the CPU increase is a big deal when it comes to future proofing.

And then there are all the other improvements that the 2016/17 models had over the 2015 one, such as: much better speakers, improved screen that can get brighter and has a larger color space, faster SSDs, T1/(possibly) T2 chips for more security, Touch ID, much thinner, lighter and therefore more portable, and so on.

Look at it this way: assuming that the keyboard current issues remain the exact same in the 2018 models (which is very unlikely) and you buy one of them, then there is a small (!) chance that you'll encounter the keyboard issues sometime after the 1-2 year warranty and before the end of the product's lifecycle, and that you have to put in a couple hundred $/€ to get it fixed. If you do however buy a 2015 model right now, then there's a very large (!) chance that the model will become outdated or insufficient for your needs and uses a couple years earlier than if you had bought the 2018 model, and that you therefore will have to upgrade a couple years earlier and are putting thousands of $/€ into a new model at a point in time where the 2018 model would still be perfectly sufficient.

That's why I would strongly discourage anyone from buying models from 2015 or earlier right now (unless you're getting them at a really good price): because even if the 2018 models don't address the keyboard issues which they most likely will, chances are you'd still financially come out on top at the end of the product's lifecycle.
 
Possibly not the most suitable post here, but not irrelevant too, in my opinion!
I would rather wait, for 2019 model. I have late '13 mbp.

I would not not buy a new mbp, if it does not has:
- 32gb ram
- really new cpu/chipset architecture, more cores, with serious improvements in speed etc
- keyboard reliability
- general reliability (not so sure like in Steve's years)
- also I would like not having any heating issues due to slimness, and more ports/expandability, as we talk about a professional laptop and not a...tablet! Apple seem to confuse this topic...
 
Damn it. I generally need a notebook... but if the 2018 model is a fluke AGAIN... waiting for Ice Lake will take a long long time. Anyone know how solid Hackintoshed (desktop) are by now? Like... for realz?
A mini ATX machine would still be reasonably portable (home and work at the office)...
 
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Anyone know how solid Hackintoshed (desktop) are by now? Like... for realz?
A mini ATX machine would still be reasonably portable (home and work at the office)...

If you build with known compatible components, it's exceptionally solid.

My 4790k build has been like a rock for 3-4 years now. I have everything working, even iMessage & HDMI audio out, the latter of which I don't actually use but I wanted to see if I could get it working.

Follow a tonymacx86 forum Golden Build or a User Build of some kind and that way you'll have a spot to ask questions and lots of great info to start with.
 
If you build with known compatible components, it's exceptionally solid.

My 4790k build has been like a rock for 3-4 years now. I have everything working, even iMessage & HDMI audio out, the latter of which I don't actually use but I wanted to see if I could get it working.

Follow a tonymacx86 forum Golden Build or a User Build of some kind and that way you'll have a spot to ask questions and lots of great info to start with.

Same here - I've had my 4790k build for about 3 years and it has been great. You get the occasional hiccup (every 6 months or so), and can typically fix it in under 30 minutes thanks to a very active community that provides fixes.

I built my Hackintosh desktop because what Apple was offering wasn't exactly what I was looking for in order to get me to the point of spending close to $3k on a machine. It looks like the Ice Lake MBP will finally have what I'm looking for, so the Hackintosh has been a great way to have a powerful OS X machine for the last few years to hold me over.
 
Regarding the highlighted question: nope, I'd still buy a 2018 one (and that's also what I'm personally intending to do either way, it's not just a "what would you"-type of question for me). The reason for that is mainly that the 2018 models will be a huge leap in performance if everything we hear about them is true; we're talking about ~40% or maybe even more increase in CPU power compared to last year's model, so if you compare it to the 2015 models the speed difference will be even larger. ...

Due to extensive work travel, I haven't had nearly as much time for this site as usual over the past six months. Aside from the above, which sounds great, can any provide a recap of the ETA for the 2018 MBPs and the general consensus re: any additional changes that seem likely or unlikely? Thanks very much.
 
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I will wait for 2019. For a machine expected to last 3 years or more, 16GB is just not sufficient for me. My 2016 MBP has a replacement keyboard now and feels like a new machine!
 
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Due to extensive work travel, I haven't had nearly as much time for this site as usual over the past six months. Aside from the above, which sounds great, can any provide a recap of the ETA for the 2018 MBPs and the general consensus re: any additional changes that seem likely or unlikely? Thanks very much.

General consensus based on rumors and some thinking... (no hard evidence) seems to point to 13" getting quad core, 15" hexa core. RAM will stay at 16GB.
GPU either another Radeon 5xx or if we are lucky something Vega based.
Other than that things will basically stay the same.

Most people believe WWDC is when the new machine's will drop!

For European readers... due to the Euro-Dollar conversion rates turning in the European favor we can expect a slight price drop, even if US prices remain stable. I'd guess tho that US prices might also go down $100-200. Just a hunch, though.
 
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