Waiting for the 2018 MBP

[socialwill]

A lot of people keep saying we will not see a “redesign” this year and that infact is a year or two away. Maybe.

Another possibility is that they don’t do a complete redesign but more of a mid cycle refresh, similar to what car manufacturers do. After the 2nd or 3rd year there is a slight refresh to the existing frame. Maybe this is what Apple chooses to do with this update. It would give them a design to keep for a couple more years. Now what would this entail, not sure, but they could do a lot a lot of work on the internals, and some external changes.

 

[benface]

A lot of people keep saying we will not see a “redesign” this year and that infact is a year or two away. Maybe.

Another possibility is that they don’t do a complete redesign but more of a mid cycle refresh, similar to what car manufacturers do. After the 2nd or 3rd year there is a slight refresh to the existing frame. Maybe this is what Apple chooses to do with this update. It would give them a design to keep for a couple more years. Now what would this entail, not sure, but they could do a lot a lot of work on the internals, and some external changes.

They actually did that before when they introduced the new Force Touch trackpad in the 2015 MBP.

 

[Momo13Drums]

A lot of people keep saying we will not see a “redesign” this year and that infact is a year or two away. Maybe.

Another possibility is that they don’t do a complete redesign but more of a mid cycle refresh, similar to what car manufacturers do. After the 2nd or 3rd year there is a slight refresh to the existing frame. Maybe this is what Apple chooses to do with this update. It would give them a design to keep for a couple more years. Now what would this entail, not sure, but they could do a lot a lot of work on the internals, and some external changes.

I actually kinda hope they do this since they are delaying till at least October at this point (as far as we know). If Apple put out a MBP with a coffee lake spec bump and smaller bezels + track pad I would have bought it already. Hell I'd probably buy it without the smaller bezels or track pad and settle for the spec bump - the current 2017 model is still a nice design IMO. Haven't used the touch bar but I think it would be a moot point for my uses personally either way.

 

[Gata]

I reckon the timeline we're currently looking at is:

- October for Coffee Lake refresh
- June 2019 for Cannon Lake refresh + 32 GB LPDDR4

 

[doitdada]

I reckon the timeline we're currently looking at is:

- October for Coffee Lake refresh
- June 2019 for Cannon Lake refresh + 32 GB LPDDR4

Still doesn't look that good.

Let's see if Apple does the same error with the MacBook Pro as they did with the Mac Pro and build a chassis that you can't scale because of heat. Then wait for six years until you can refresh

 

[haydn!]

I reckon the timeline we're currently looking at is:

- October for Coffee Lake refresh

If it comes with an improved keyboard, £1-200 price reduction in the UK, or potentially a non-touch 15" version with a sub £2k price point, then I'd be happy for the extra wait.

Current power is more than sufficient for me. I'm just holding out for a better now build quality and fairer price.

 

[doitdada]

If it comes with an improved keyboard, £1-200 price reduction in the UK, or potentially a non-touch 15" version with a sub £2k price point, then I'd be happy for the extra wait.

Current power is more than sufficient for me. I'm just holding out for a better now build quality and fairer price.

New keyboard, $€£1999 price point and no touch bar in the 15".

 

[Queen6]

Let's see if Apple does the same error with the MacBook Pro as they did with the Mac Pro and build a chassis that you can't scale because of heat. Then wait for six years until you can refresh

Asus S7BS8750 (GL703GS) Intel 8750H, Nvidia GTX 1070, 32Gb RAM @ 2666MHz, NVMe SSD & SATA mass storage drives.

This is one of the highest results I've seen on the web for a notebook with Intel's new 8750H hex core CPU, equally I've observed as much as 86W power draw from the CPU package in isolation (PL-2 limit being 90W) under Prime95 Small FFT stress test. Current 15" MBP power supply is rated at 87W for the entire notebook...

Some OEM's are power limiting the 8750H in order to keep the CPU within "their" design limits, resulting in significant reduction in CPU frequency and performance. Although the 8750H remains to be a 45W TDP component (at base frequency of 2.2GHz) one can see why Apple may have it's hands full getting similar performance in such a diminutive chassis with USB C charging.

FWIW Windows 10 Pro 1803 all up, not stripped down. OpenGL is in the region of 110 - 114 FPS, 3 year national warranty and 2 year international warranty included, credit where credits due.

Q-6

 

[Mr. Dee]

They actually did that before when they introduced the new Force Touch trackpad in the 2015 MBP.

They also introduced Thunderbolt on the previous unibody (conventional MBP) back in 2012, but that wasn't a redesign. These days, redesign for Apple is removing a feature. I think they would like to have less moving parts and ports.

 

[Gata]

Asus S7BS750 (GL703GS) Intel 8750H, Nvidia GTX 1070, 32Gb RAM @ 2666MHz, NVMe SSD & SATA mass storage drives.

This is one of the highest results I've seen on the web for a notebook with Intel's new 8750H hex core CPU, equally I've observed as much as 86W power draw from the CPU package in isolation (PL-2 limit being 90W) under Prime95 Small FFT stress test. Current 15" MBP power supply is rated at 87W for the entire notebook...

While those scores are impressive, the laptop you're referencing is a 17.3" beast that weighs in at 6.5 lbs, and has a battery the same size of the MBP driving a 144Hz 17" display, and no switchable graphics (meaning the 1070 is going to be guzzling power the whole time).

It's certainly an impressive machine, I just don't think it's taking aim at the same people who want to buy something like a Macbook Pro or a Dell XPS.

 

[CarbonCycles]

Does anyone know why they solder RAM? Is it to prevent it from dislodging upon carrying it around?

By soldering the RAM onto the mother board, you get a slight performance improvement in that it doesn't have to go through several different interfaces (interfaces can cause Joule heating). It also simplifies the cost of the box because of fewer parts and manufacturing processes.
[doublepost=1528765905][/doublepost]

IMO Apple's lost that intrinsic "magic" Steve's Apple was hungry, innovative & adventurous, Tim's Apple is fat, lazy & greedy...

Q-6

Tim just brought the slothful and wasteful IBM thinking over to Apple and hired a lot of old folks from Dell, HP, Microsoft, etc...you get the point.

 

[Queen6]

While those scores are impressive, the laptop you're referencing is a 17.3" beast that weighs in at 6.5 lbs, and has a battery the same size of the MBP driving a 144Hz 17" display, and no switchable graphics (meaning the 1070 is going to be guzzling power the whole time).

It's certainly an impressive machine, I just don't think it's taking aim at the same people who want to buy something like a Macbook Pro or a Dell XPS.

It's not by any means, and it will be all the more impressive if Apple can replicate the same CPU performance in the current MBP chassis. Dell XPS 15 I fully expect to throttle significantly with the i7 8750H, let alone the i9 8950HK. This I believe is one of the reasons why the MBP has not been updated, from an electronics perspective alone extremely challenging.

Think I wrote in another thread "just because you can get the new hex core CPU's into a chassis, doesn't mean you should" Some OEM's are already doing this with resultant dramatic throttling and subsequent loss of performance as powertrain and cooling is likely vastly inadequate, with the i9 8950HK Cinebench R15 scores barely passing the venerable i7 7700HQ...

Apple's many things, stupid isn't generally one of them.

Q-6

 

[EugW]

I reckon the timeline we're currently looking at is:

- October for Coffee Lake refresh
- June 2019 for Cannon Lake refresh + 32 GB LPDDR4

Nope, it seems... Yet another lake has appeared.

Comet Lake U

This appears to represent Cannon Lake U built on 14++ nm, likely with 32 GB LPDDR4x support, to debut 2019 Q2.

 

[Glmnet1]

Nope, it seems... Yet another lake has appeared.

Comet Lake U

This appears to represent Cannon Lake U built on 14++ nm, likely with 32 GB LPDDR4x support, to debut 2019 Q2.

Sorry if I'm missing something but if Whiskey Lake is Coffee Lake architecture on a Cannon Lake chipset and Comet is also Cannon Lake chipset with LPDDR4 using 14++ nm, what's the difference between Whiskey and Comet?

 

[EugW]

Sorry if I'm missing something but if Whiskey Lake is Coffee Lake architecture on a Cannon Lake chipset and Comet is also Cannon Lake chipset with LPDDR4 using 14++ nm, what's the difference between Whiskey and Comet?

Not sure, but it seems Comet Lake is the successor to Kaby Lake Refresh, whereas Whiskey Lake is the successor to Coffee Lake.

This is getting all too confusing...

 

[Hater]

Apple should move to AMD chips simply because the names aren't dumb.

 

[doitdada]

Even the nTB 13" 2017 with a 15w Kaby Lake dual core CPU suffers from fan noise when stressed, lets see how it flows when you add even more cores and GHz. Innovations in regard to instructions per cycle (IPC) have been still for a long time. There is some concept demos from AMD on 7nm, but when do they ship and will they only be available for enterprise at super premiums?

The quad core in the 13.5" Surface Book 2 is sluggish at times. Tested it for three days, and the lag was horrendous just doing normal stuff like browsing, mail and PDFs. I think the physical constrains are making progress in regards to performance exceptionally hard for most manufacturers and even though we see innovation from other brands than Apple, I think there is some time left before we can experience the type of noise levels that the new 2016-2017 15" models are capable of.

The 2015 rMBP 15" with M370X suffered from fan noise when connected to an external display, even though the chassis was bigger than the new 2016 redesign, due to the dGPU being activated. It took Apple/Intel/AMD almost a decade to get cooling/noise balance right after the first release of quad core CPUs for the laptop. I am just wondering how long will it take and is it possible to fit a quad core in a 13" without throttling and heat issues? Coffee Lake was a rush job trying to curb off AMD, but will it offer anything performance over quad core due to cooling limits within a laptop chassis?

 

[TheralSadurns]

They also introduced Thunderbolt on the previous unibody (conventional MBP) back in 2012, but that wasn't a redesign. These days, redesign for Apple is removing a feature. I think they would like to have less moving parts and ports.

Back in April 2011 with the early 2011 models actually. (Sorry for smart-assing )
[doublepost=1528782847][/doublepost]

It's not by any means, and it will be all the more impressive if Apple can replicate the same CPU performance in the current MBP chassis. Dell XPS 15 I fully expect to throttle significantly with the i7 8750H, let alone the i9. This I believe is one of the reasons why the MBP has not been updated, from an electronics perspective alone extremely challenging.

Think I wrote in another thread "just because you can get the new hex core CPU's into a chassis, doesn't mean you should" Some OEM's are already doing this with resultant dramatic throttling and subsequent loss or performance as powertrain and cooling is likely vastly inadequate with the i9 8950HK Cinebench R15 scores barely passing the venerable 7700HQ.

Apple's many things, stupid isn't generally one of them...

Q-6

Seems like the only way to do it RIGHT is to re-introduce a 17" MBP
Since this leaves a lot of room... and the power draw is high anyways... why not go to standard DDR4 in the process and offer up to 64GB
I'd take a 17" 4k, 6.5lbs machine ANY DAY of the week. And twice on Sunday!
(Oh wait... that IS basically my current MBP, which is fine weight-wise... and I'm not the body building type... but a rather skinny dude... and still lug it around every day w/o ANY issues.)
[doublepost=1528782907][/doublepost]

Apple should move to AMD chips simply because the names aren't dumb.

Oh god yes. Ryzen + Vega. Deal.

 

[c0ppo]

17", 3840x1200
i9
32/64GB RAM
512GB - 4TB SSD
Vega GPU

Put a high price tag on it. Only people/company who really need this would purchase it any way. Myself included.
But chances of something like this happening are none

 

[cool11]

i9?
What is this?
I thought i7 -six/eight cores was the best we can have.

 

[navaira]

Not sure, but it seems Comet Lake is the successor to Kaby Lake Refresh, whereas Whiskey Lake is the successor to Coffee Lake.

I've been joking around the Skylake MBP thread about how I am waiting for Whiskey Lake and it is a thing now???

PS. Don't forget Amber Lake is coming too xoxo

 

[TheralSadurns]

17", 3840x2400 ← fixed it for you
i9
32/64GB RAM
512GB - 4TB SSD
Vega GPU

Put a high price tag on it. Only people/company who really need this would purchase it any way. Myself included.
But chances of something like this happening are none

INSTA-Buy... even at €5000. It'll last me around 5 years I guess. At the end of which I can probably still sell it for 1k. But even if we forget about this...

€5000 / 5 years = €1000 year = ~€85 month, or ~€2.75 a DAY. Pretty, pretty fair if you ask me!

 

[Queen6]

i9?
What is this?
I thought i7 -six/eight cores was the best we can have.

i9 8950HK The i9 name is mostly marketing, equally a beast of a mobile CPU topping out at 4.8GHz and overclockable to 5GHz

Q-6

 

[cool11]

i9 8950HK The i9 name is mostly marketing, equally a beast of a mobile CPU topping out at 4.8GHz and overclockable to 5GHz

Q-6

Do we have any chance to see such a cpu on mbp, anytime soon?
Q-6=?

 

[Queen6]

Do we have any chance to see such a cpu on mbp, anytime soon?
Q-6=?

Honestly no idea. Some OEM's are using the i9 8950HK in thin chassis notebooks, some with what I would call very poor results. I don't think Apple will use the i9 8950HK as they never, if I'm correct utilised Intel's unlocked portable CPU's, more likely the i7 8750H & 8850H processors which remain to be tremendously powerful for a notebook.

i9 8950HK is more suited to Portable Workstations and heavyweight gaming notebooks as the powertrain & cooling required to run up to full frequency on all cores of 4.8GHz is significant. Placing this CPU into a thin & light chassis without adequate power & cooling will likely only result in lower performance than the i7 8750H or even close to the venerable i7 7700HQ, and that's pretty much what I've recently read regarding an engineering sample of the Asus Zenbook Pro

With undervolting the i9 8950HK CPU did perform reasonably solidly, yet not close to full potential and locked to 45W. Being 10% slower than my own Asus S7BS8750 with i7 8750H, speaks volumes given the much higher price point of the 8950HK...

Q-6