Waiting for the 2018 MBP

[koyoot]

This is exactly how they're bending the truth though. Some grains of fact, and then invented facts and false conclusions that serve only to support whatever lies they're trying to tell. This is how you end up "proving" that the earth is flat, how aliens are secretly infiltrating governments, how the holocaust never happened and so on. Except here it's applied to tech, and if you don't know the tech I'd argue that it's close to impossible to read that article and differentiate between the actual grains of fact, and what's conjecture.

Nope.

Charlie was dead right about, first about postponing of release of 10 nm process, and it was in 2016, when he was calling it out, then he was damn right about the problems with making it to work with reasonable yields, and right now is damn about the technical explenation, about the technical stuff about this process.

Even Intel admits, that theirs 14 nm ++ process is faster and more power efficient, than 10 nm, and only 10nm++(IceLake) is going to achieve slightly higher clock speeds than 14 nm+++. However - this may never work, because Intel is not able to put yields high enough, at as low cost as possible, for it to be financially viable(Intel will be LOSING money, on each wafer they will sell, if they will not fix this).

All of this Charlie wrote in all of articles about Intel's 10 nm process. This one, is just validation of his words.

And the fact that in 2018 we haven't seen 10 nm process, and Murthy Renduchintala, chief operations guy, at Intel, in conference call few weeks ago, have said that they believe that 10 nm process is going to come within 12-18 months tells you - that Charlie, author of the article is damn right.

 

[A_ardvark]

This is exactly how they're bending the truth though. Some grains of fact, and then invented facts and false conclusions that serve only to support whatever lies they're trying to tell. This is how you end up "proving" that the earth is flat, how aliens are secretly infiltrating governments, how the holocaust never happened and so on. Except here it's applied to tech, and if you don't know the tech I'd argue that it's close to impossible to read that article and differentiate between the actual grains of fact, and what's conjecture.

I think there's still a pretty huge difference between people who believe all that nonsense and someone who is claiming that Intel is in a bind and playing for time.

I'm hoping WWDC brings a quad core 13 inch MacBook Pro with a keyboard fix and a slight price drop.

I'm keeping my expectations low, but if I was dreaming a terraced battery would be nice and some functional revision to the touchbar would be good too. Although honestly, I can't imagine what they could do with it that would excite me. I thought it was pretty good for changing the volume or brightness, hardly compelling use cases.

 

[EugW]

Pretty much everyone has come to the same conclusion with the i3-8121U release. These are 10 nm parts just for Intel to say they've got 10 nm started. These are effectively just engineering samples, but released into the wild partially for PR reasons. The 8121U is a very disappointing chip for 10 nm and in very low volume, and with a deactivated iGPU. Even Intel has already admitted officially that 10 nm in volume isn't coming until 2019.

The only positive thing is that the parent chip to this, the 8114Y, is something Intel is aiming a bit higher for. This Y series chip likely will perform better than the current Kaby Lake models (from 2016), and does have the intact iGPU, although it is not clear if it will be 5.2 W or higher Wattage to achieve that higher performance. Unfortunately, this chip doesn't actually exist in the wild yet, and there is no guarantee it will appear any time soon either. So far it has only been seen in benchmarks and other leaks, not in an actual working product in the wild. Its child is the 8121U, running at higher power (and higher base speed), but without an iGPU active, so it's not unreasonable to think 10 nm at Intel is very problematic.

 

[CodeJoy]

You're right in your description of the author. However in this instance he's pretty spot on. Technical facts listed in his article are pretty damning and self-explanatory even if you don't read his interpretation of them.

Like what? That Intel has problems with 10nm? Everyone knows that already. That the Cannon Lake part that showed up in some laptop exists for some other reason than just being a good consumer product? Everyone knows that already. I have no doubt that some of what he writes is probably partially correct. But he's also a professional hater that presumably got fired from a real writer job because of inadequate fact checking. Some people will fall for that, I'm just suggesting that people be a bit more careful about believing articles that come with a hidden agenda.

 

[Populus]

So Intel is actually having serious issues with the 10nm technology. And with AMD's Ryzen at 7nm approaching, their time is running out. I wouldn't want to be in the place of an Intel worker...

 

[koyoot]

Like what? That Intel has problems with 10nm? Everyone knows that already. That the Cannon Lake part that showed up in some laptop exists for some other reason than just being a good consumer product? Everyone knows that already. I have no doubt that some of what he writes is probably partially correct. But he's also a professional hater that presumably got fired from a real writer job because of inadequate fact checking. Some people will fall for that, I'm just suggesting that people be a bit more careful about believing articles that come with a hidden agenda.

You have talked about incorrect information, that Charlie is spreading, and yet, you haven't pointed, what exactly is incorrect.

So far, everybody in tech analyst community, agrees with Charlie, and what he wrote.

 

[kcrossley]

I plan on buying a new MBP no matter what comes out (or doesn't next week). I have my mid-2012 and do a lot of video editing. It's painful to use at the moment. I'm debating getting a 13" one with a second monitor at home but it depends on if a quad core is released in that size.

I'm in the exact same situation Shawn, with a mid-2012 15" MacBook Pro. Apple Motion is absolutely killing me. Fingers crossed that Apple comes out with something awesome next week.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I'm in the exact same situation Shawn, with a mid-2012 15" MacBook Pro. Apple Motion is absolutely killing me. Fingers crossed that Apple comes out with something awesome next week.

Is your current wait based on the 2017, 2016, 2015 processing power not good enough; or you just want to maximize your money since its this close to a new revision? Because if you were experiencing issues with Motion on a 2012 for this long, either 2016 or 2017 would have been a worthy upgrade.

 

[ShawnBoucke]

Is your current wait based on the 2017, 2016, 2015 processing power not good enough; or you just want to maximize your money since its this close to a new revision? Because if you were experiencing issues with Motion on a 2012 for this long, either 2016 or 2017 would have been a worthy upgrade.

Just trying to hold out as long as possible

 

[Mr. Dee]

Just trying to hold out as long as possible

Well, waiting 5 more days to a month won't hurt much then.

 

[sotorious]

right after WWDC do they release the products the talk about right after that, or do those usually come out later?

 

[simonmet]

right after WWDC do they release the products the talk about right after that, or do those usually come out later?

It varies. For a major update, such as a new generation, most commonly they’ll announce a preorder starting within a week and shipping some time after that, so even if you get in early it could be a couple weeks minimum to wait; think iPhone releases. For smaller updates and refreshes I think they’ve sometimes had new models available within as little as a few days (such as on the Friday) with ordering straight away.

Any new MacBook Pro this year will be considered a refresh because it retains largely the same physical design, albeit with a tweaked keyboard hopefully.

 

[Falhófnir]

So Intel is actually having serious issues with the 10nm technology. And with AMD's Ryzen at 7nm approaching, their time is running out. I wouldn't want to be in the place of an Intel worker...

From the horse’s mouth as it were, Intel are struggling with 10nm because, not only was their 14nm node already equally as or more dense than TSMC et al.’s 10nm, but they tried to increase density for 10nm by an unusually large 2.7x (2.4x is more standard for intel; across the industry it’s often under 2x). I presume the reason for overreaching was to make up for the delay to 10nm they presumably knew might/would happen from quite an early stage. So realistically not all nodes are created equal, and far from pulling out ahead, it’s likely AMD will still struggle to compete with Intel’s coffee lake offerings as they’re going to be getting ~40% boosts in multi core power and are already leagues ahead on single core performance anyway.

https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/intel-cpu-10nm-earnings-amd,news-58336.html

 

[CodeJoy]

From the horse’s mouth as it were, Intel are struggling with 10nm because, not only was their 14nm node already equally as or more dense than TSMC et al.’s 10nm, but they tried to increase density for 10nm by an unusually large 2.7x (2.4x is more standard for intel; across the industry it’s often under 2x). I presume the reason for overreaching was to make up for the delay to 10nm they presumably knew might/would happen from quite an early stage. So realistically not all nodes are created equal, and far from pulling out ahead, it’s likely AMD will still struggle to compete with Intel’s coffee lake offerings as they’re going to be getting ~40% boosts in multi core power and are already leagues ahead on single core performance anyway.

https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/intel-cpu-10nm-earnings-amd,news-58336.html

Now, one does wonder what Apple will put in the 2019 refresh MBP's. Presumably not any 10nm chip. It does make me wonder again about 32 Gb options. Apple must have known for a while about the severity of the delays. They also must have considered the 16 Gb "limit" of current chips, and what (if anything) to do about it.

I suspect that any move to ARM MacBooks is at least as much (and probably more) about Intel's decisions (tech and other) rather than just pure performance or power utilisation. Apple wanting to use low power ram, and Intel not being very quick about integrating that. Apple wanting to use higher end iGPU's, and Intel not being very quick about refreshing those chips. And presumably -- since we're not seeing it -- Apple can't get custom CPU's from Intel, at least very often.

 

[bulldoze]

Really feel like I need to jump on whatever is released next week. The battery in my early 2011 13" now only lasts about 1 hour from 100% and the charger cable is a mess of duck tape trying to cover up degraded plastic sheathing.

I do some light development work in VMs so quad core would be a real help along with the added raw horsepower.

 

[Gata]

Maybe it will happen, in a week! I believe Apple is going to remove the TB, or at least make it optional. The fact that the TB model has more fans though, really made me change my mind on buying the base model.

I'm pretty sure that, if Apple were to update the design of the 13" to accomodate a higher TDP, they would get more mileage out of offering a beefed up CPU than a separate, low-power GPU.

 

[leman]

You're right in your description of the author. However in this instance he's pretty spot on. Technical facts listed in his article are pretty damning and self-explanatory even if you don't read his interpretation of them.

This is exactly how they're bending the truth though. Some grains of fact, and then invented facts and false conclusions that serve only to support whatever lies they're trying to tell.

Well, the article does make a fair number of weird jumps. For example, the TDP... he says that the TDP of these chips is 15W without the GPU, which makes them less power-efficient then Kaby Lake. However, TDP is not the same as actual power consumption or power efficiently, its just a number in the end. Intel offers CPUs in certain TDP brackets, so it would totally make sense for them to sell this CPU as 15W as opposed, to say, 10W. Without having tested the chip, we don't know how hot it gets and how much it consumes in reality. The performance is not bad actually, when you look at the clocks, it's per-clock performance is definitely better than Kaby Lake R.

All in all, there is no doubt that Intel's 10nm has massive issues, and those i3 CPUs are literally garbage (failed yields), but I think that authors conclusions are a bit opportunistic. I also don't see any issue in this i3 model existing per se — its faster then the previous gen and comes at a lower price, so why not. Finally, if there are really limited quantities of this chip, it can mean one of the two things: either Intel will simply stop its 10mn production and move to other products or they actually figured it out, so they only have enough "garbage" to produce the 100k batch (or whatever number it was). We'll see.

 

[Falhófnir]

I'm pretty sure that, if Apple were to update the design of the 13" to accomodate a higher TDP, they would get more mileage out of offering a beefed up CPU than a separate, low-power GPU.

What CPU though, this is the issue for the 15”, and why the 2015 is still on offer - there’s no H series chips with Iris plus/pro graphics since Broadwell... HD graphics alone don’t really cut it for a performance oriented laptop.

 

[kcrossley]

Is your current wait based on the 2017, 2016, 2015 processing power not good enough; or you just want to maximize your money since its this close to a new revision? Because if you were experiencing issues with Motion on a 2012 for this long, either 2016 or 2017 would have been a worthy upgrade.

Thanks for your question Mr. Dee.

I just started using Motion a few months ago, which is why, for the most part, I didn't have any significant performance issues with my 2012 MacBook Pro until recently. Of course, replacing the stock HDD with a Samsung 500GB SSD made a big difference too. The reason I choose to wait is because of the reported keyboard issues and the fact that I'd like whatever I purchase to last as long as my trusty 2012 model. Having said that, if whatever Apple releases next week is not that impressive, I would likely consider a 2017 model—especially since many retailers are beginning to discount those laptops.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Thanks for your question Mr. Dee.

I just started using Motion a few months ago, which is why, for the most part, I didn't have any significant performance issues with my 2012 MacBook Pro until recently. Of course, replacing the stock HDD with a Samsung 500GB SSD made a big difference too. The reason I choose to wait is because of the reported keyboard issues and the fact that I'd like whatever I purchase to last as long as my trusty 2012 model. Having said that, if whatever Apple releases next week is not that impressive, I would likely consider a 2017 model—especially since many retailers are beginning to discount those laptops.

My brother has the 2017 and the keyboard feels much improved compared to the 2016 when I tried it out in 2016. But, hopefully its even better with the 2018 where tactile feedback is close to the 2015 model; not to mention the reliability. One of the reasons why you might want to go for the 2018 is the faster SSD Apple might include in the 2018. They year of year always make improvements in speed, which is something you are likely to benefit from. Not to mention future proofing.

 

[gobikerider]

It varies. For a major update, such as a new generation, most commonly they’ll announce a preorder starting within a week and shipping some time after that, so even if you get in early it could be a couple weeks minimum to wait; think iPhone releases. For smaller updates and refreshes I think they’ve sometimes had new models available within as little as a few days (such as on the Friday) with ordering straight away.

Any new MacBook Pro this year will be considered a refresh because it retains largely the same physical design, albeit with a tweaked keyboard hopefully.

A lot of the WWDC refreshes are also available shipping that day with stock in stores within the week.

 

[Ma2k5]

Just me or is there very little (if any) rumors for the upcoming potential refresh. Could leave a lot of people disappointed.

 

[benface]

Why would there be rumors for a MBP refresh? There are almost never any!

 

[socialwill]

Just me or is there very little (if any) rumors for the upcoming potential refresh. Could leave a lot of people disappointed.

Rumors are always light on the MBP side, but lots of signs are there. New chips from Intel are shipping, lead times for current MacBook Pros are slipping, and the timing of a refresh is right with it being a year since updates.

Not to mention all of the bad PR the keyboards have been getting, but that would not force a refresh per-say.

 

[Loge]

Last year Bloomberg had a largely accurate rumour about a month prior. This year nothing.