I agree that the G-series chips are unlikely to show up in MBP's, as nice a fit as they might seem. However, I would personally be quite surprised to see any Polaris derivative rather than Vega. AMD showed engineering sample silicon in January, and while they didn't say anything about release date other than 2018, it seems weird that it should take all year from engineering sample to production. And I would expect maybe 15% performance over current 560s.
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Waiting for the 2018 MBP
- Thread starter benface
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If we don’t get a July or August MBP update, it seems we’d get Vega for sure—at least I hope AMD could provide sufficient quantity in time for an October update. But who knows?
I agree. I was linking to them to demonstrate that the GPU in them (Vega Mobile) appears to require a lot of power. Their use in the 15" MBP would be disappointing for the reasons you have outlined (limited TB3, CPU only quad-core) and I doubt it would happen too. I'm pretty sure they are obviously designed for gaming laptops, which is not what the MBP is about.
Intel have been lagging for so long with ~10% y/y improvements in their CPUs. This is the first time they have released a significant upgrade, with ~40% improvement over Kaby Lake. Surely they can't ignore that, as they have so far. There must be a reason why they have not yet updated the MBPs, as Coffee Lake has been available for quite a while now. So, is it because they want to wait until the end of the year for Turing, or are they going to try and cram a Vega in there? Or, are they going to risk their brand new MBPs becoming superseded (by comparable Windows notebooks) almost immediately by sticking with Polaris, just months before a whole new generation of more advanced GPUs are released?
GPU is important to Apple, but only up to the point of “sufficient”.
If we assume the current performance is good enough, how many Watts is Apple willing to spend (for all buyers) to get better graphics performance vs. everyone getting a longer runtime on battery? Which workloads would benefit from throwing another 20 or 30 or 40 Watts at the GPU? How much of the user base would benefit from each approach?
Those who can benefit from more Tflops often want a LOT more, and I think nVIDIA/CUDA will be supported in next year’s Mac Pro, because ML.
I think their vision is that on-the-go performance is good enough for most users; when stationary at office/home customers will use an eGPU(s) if they need more performance.
I don't really have a single good link, and I don't know if the full story is out or known. There were lawsuits over broken Nvidia GPUs in the way past, and no doubt these problems ended up costing Apple quite a lot. Those references are easy enough to find if you google it. Beyond that I think you'll have to dig around a bit on your own to make up your own mind. That's what I've done. Here are a couple starters:
https://www.cultofmac.com/72421/report-apple-to-ditch-nvidia-for-future-macbooks/
https://www.quora.com/Can-I-expect-the-MacBook-Pro-2018-with-a-NVIDIA-GPU
As far as eGPU.... I mean, I agree with you that it's quite expensive. Whether it's too expensive probably depends on your situation. For myself, I wouldn't ever use it, I think there are better options. But the main point is, if you depend heavily on CUDA, then there's no easy way to make that work with modern Apple products. There are elaborate ways to make it work with macOS if you really really want, or you can choose to leave macOS. I'm not particularly keen on defending Apple's product lines and design choices, as you may have seen in previous posts I'm also not completely convinced that my next laptop is an Apple.
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It's a mobile part, so of course it will be under clocked with respect to the desktop cards. And it's a smaller chip, I'd guess that you get 28 cu or something like that. Not blindingly fast, but probably quite acceptable for an ultrabook. But there won't be any CUDA.
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I would mainly expect them to wait for three things before a refresh:
- Updated CPUs
- Updated GPUs
- Fixed keyboards
We know that the CPUs are out. Updated GPUs are on the way, and they may or may not be available already. And we see some potential indications that fixed keyboards are at least on the horizon.
Beyond that, there can of course be other things. Integration problems with these new devices. Power problems. Heat problems. Waiting to redesign the logic board. Who knows? There isn't much data to go on, only educated guesses really.
Yeah, I'v had first hand experience there. The 8600GT in my 2006 MBP had some serious problems, and I managed to get it fixed under the replacement program. I'm sure that did a lot of damage between Apple and NVIDIA. However, considering my next and current MBP from 2011 also has a failed AMD GPU, I'd figure Apple would let it slide, because both sides have let them down.
There's been NVIDIA GPUs in MBPs and other Macs since that first link. i.e. 2013's 750M. I don't think there have been any problems with those.
Ultimately, I don't think it's any single reason. People on the outside usually want clear, simple explanations, but the corporate reality is usually a lot more complex than that. I just know this from experience in other corners of the IT industry. And as sour as it can be between two companies, it can still pop back in a heartbeat at some point in the future. There may well come a time when there are Nvidia GPUs in MBPs again, though I don't expect it to happen in the near future. And for the longer term, it seems like Apple is going towards its own chips both for CPU and GPU, so I wouldn't expect it there either. You may find it quite interesting to know, if you didn't already, that they deprecated OpenGL and OpenCL in Mojave. Gives a bit of an indication on where they expect to be going.
You expect me to have a link to some article about it... wouldn't you already know about it in that case?
That's fine, although whether it's a dream spec or not is yet to be seen.
So an event in October, with availability immediately?
Seem to remember something about that recently, but it's good to be reminded. For the graphics API, hopefully Vulkan will be supported instead.
In terms of OpenCL, that means no GPGPU support except for Apple's own APIs.
I guess this is a more clear message than what they put in their hardware. Pro Macs are now devices for making iOS apps, and that's about it, apparently.
Would be awesome if they kept the 13" and 15" sizes of the MacBook Pro as they are but introduced a 14" MacBook (with the same overall design and thinness as the current 12" MacBook). So basically have a 13" and 15" size of the MacBook Pro, and 12" and 14" of the MacBook.
Personally I think they should for for 12", 14" & 16" sizes instead of the current lineup.
That's what i'm thinking, they have the rumoured 13" MacBook/new MacBook Air that's been rumoured, new MacBook Pro's and the iMac to update. OR they could announce at a big September event but i don't think they will do that especially if they are going to announce a new iPad Pro redesigned with the iPhone X style face ID.
I've been wanting to upgrade from my 2011 MacBook Pro for a while now but i'm holding out to see what's announced this year, i just wish they would do it sooner rather than later.
This was a prediction around 2016, but it never materialised. It is very possible to do that with slimmer bezels, but the question is whether by slimming bezels, Apple prefers to make a smaller laptop or a bigger screen. It could be they prefer to make a smaller laptop instead (still able to make a marketing statement of "we made the laptop 10% smaller", with the added benefit that it costs less as they won't need to buy larger screens).
Even when they called it Vega, intel apu GPU is not Vega, its just an improved Polaris, Amd is not stupid enough to give intel his best GPU.
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Several of the 15-inch models seem to be out of stock at many Apple Stores around the US. I wonder if that's a sign that new models are coming soon.
It will be Metal, not Vulcan. And thereby, yes, pretty much saying goodbye to scientific computing. Pretty much saying goodbye to whatever little gaming there is also. OpenCL/GL will still be around for a few years presumably, and maybe it will be moved to open source, like they did with X, or maybe it will be like Java where there's 3rd party support, it's just not included with the OS. Who knows? But it's clear that cross platform GPGPU is not part of Apple's strategy for the future. And this will indeed have an impact on the hardware they produce as well.
I'm a machine learner and number cruncher too, and I've been doing all of it on Mac so far. For me, the deprecation of these API's is the biggest thing with Mojave, and not a particularly positive one. Interestingly, I've seen just about zero about it in the popular press.
It was like that for build to order 15" 2015 and all 2017 models in Canada. Wait time was about 10 days but unfortunately, when I asked about this yesterday at Apple Store, the employee checked and everything changed back to 1-3 business days.
Seems like the most likely outcome.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12465/khronos-group-extends-vulkan-portability-with-opensource
Build to order times can always vary, but I think it’s rare for stock, non-customized configurations to be out of stock at so many stores when it’s not the holiday season or back to school season or obviously when a new model is released.
They should really just stop joking around and get on a regular yearly schedual - sometimes a bigger update, sometimes minimal, but still fresh productline year-round (just like iPhones).
I think something is happening at Apple, I don't know if its a lack of drive, resting on their laurels, the iPhone is printing money left, right and center. There is still innovation: Face ID, Wireless Airpods, Pencil, Touch ID, T2 chip and even the design and aesthetics of the products top notch.
But it still feels like Apple is not giving the all they could an should. Maybe human engineering resources continue to remain the biggest issue. There is just so much to go around. But, honestly, what could really be the factor behind the Macs irregular update process in 2018?
But it still feels like Apple is not giving the all they could an should. Maybe human engineering resources continue to remain the biggest issue. There is just so much to go around. But, honestly, what could really be the factor behind the Macs irregular update process in 2018?
The mac is much more reliant on external technologies and companies than the iphone.
Both Mac and iPhone make use of a variety of different components from third-parties. The primary difference is the CPU, which in the case of the Mac is reliant on Intel's release schedule and availability.
However, I don't buy the excuse that Intel's release schedule is the primary reason for the Mac delays. Usually months go by between the time when Intel releases a new CPU and it the time it shows up in a Mac, with plenty of PC manufacturers adopting the new CPU in the meantime.
This case is no exception; the suitable Coffee Lake chips for the 2018 MacBook Pro have already been out since April.