Unless you get an eGPU, which seems like a much better solution for gamers than a not so powerful dGPU locked in a very expensive laptop. That way you could get a much better GPU and replace it in a few years without having to replace the whole laptop. Also, I'm not a serious gamer but playing games on a laptop without external peripherals is usually quite painful anyway so it's not a big deal having to be plugged in to the eGPU.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Waiting for the 2018 MBP
- Thread starter benface
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Is 2015 15" MBP is still a good buy now, for another 5 years use? I don't do Videos editing or gaming. But I will be using it for programming. Java and iOS. Will need power. But not for video editing / video gaming
Right, if you want to add yet another $1500 on top of the MBP. For gaming purposes it seems much better to put that money towards a separate mini-ITX gaming box (which would be the size of an eGPU anyway), unless you're for some reason forced to only have a single computer. For me, the eGPU is completely counterproductive since the whole point would be to play the occasional casual game without any wires or boxes.
If gaming is so important that you're considering an eGPU, I would argue that you shouldn't be looking at MBP in the first place.
[doublepost=1530633947][/doublepost]
For programming it should be absolutely fine. I'd argue that most of the time you're thinking about what to type, or spend time typing it* -- so not actually a lot of power required there unless you need it for compilation or other purposes. And even then, based on my own experience I'm not convinced that compilation scales all that well with more cores beyond ~4.
Edit: Additionally, in terms of CPU performance, 2017 MBP is actually not that much faster than 2015 MBP. Sure, you'll see a difference in benchmarks, but in terms of how it subjectively influences your productivity I think the difference is pretty much nothing. Whether it then ends up a good buy would of course depend on the price. A 6-core refresh for 2018 would technically be 50% extra performance, but you may not be able to take advantage of that anyway. For me, the reason that I want a 6-core for programming is because I do parallel programming and I want to be able to see quickly how things scale on as many cores as possible. It's not primarily for the extra power. This is why I want a dGPU as well, just to be able to get an idea of how compute things would run on real systems.
* Or making connections or drawing story boards or whatever in XCode, same difference.
Last edited:
I agree that building a separate gaming box is probably the best option for the price if someone's a serious gamer.
There is a $1000 difference between the TB 13" and the 15" with the 560. For a $1000 you could get the Razer Core X and a Vega 64. More performance and a more portable machine for the same price. An iMac + 13" MBP or 12" MB also costs close to the cost of a 15".
Yes, of course if you want to play games straight on your laptop without wires then the eGPU is not an option. Neither is the gaming box or the iMac. What I'm trying to say is that for a lot of people who are usually stationary when doing any kind of heavy computing or gaming, there are a lot of better options for the price of a 15" MBP.
True, it also makes adjusting the volume or finding the esc key a total PITA!
So the fact that they don't immediately realize this, whereas with the old method they realize the full functionality immediately ... I would consider this a user interface misdesign.
Coffee Lake CPU's coming to 2018 MBP's: https://www.cultofmac.com/559433/2018-macbook-pro-performance-specifications-coffee-lake/
Does that mean 32GB Ram possible?
At least according this previous leak: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/06/04/macbookpro-intel-coffee-lake-geekbench-leak/
Does that mean 32GB Ram possible?
At least according this previous leak: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/06/04/macbookpro-intel-coffee-lake-geekbench-leak/
The 15,2 scores look genuine to me. It does indeed use a new device ID, and it's tested using 10.13.6, and the machine is using LPDDR3 at 2133 MHz. All pretty reasonable hints that it could be a genuine prototype or early production sample.
The other scores don't look like an Apple device to me though. It's using an older device ID, an older OS, and some other things that makes it look more like a hackintosh. I wouldn't take this as particularly strong evidence for 32G RAM.
That seems overly critical. I'm not sure how they'd make it more obvious. Maybe a talking paperclip.
I already asked about it in another thread but maybe someone here knows the answer. Why would Apple leak upcoming devices benchmarks on geekbench? It shouldn't be too hard to benchmark them without posting the results online.
You write about Apple as if it were one unified hive mind, when it's in fact 100k+ people with their own minds, own ideas of how to do things etc etc. Mistakes happen, company policies get broken etc etc. Happens all the time. So it could be that. I also suspect that many "leaks" in the tech industry are actually planted leaks, and thus become part of the communication strategy for a company. I can't say if Apple does this, but it wouldn't surprise me. Just like you said, it would be so easy to benchmark devices without anything leaking, and yet we see leaks from Intel, from AMD, from Nvidia, and indeed from Apple.
But for every genuine leak, I'm sure you also have 100 fake ones from attention seekers and others.
So Whiskey Lake is almost here, and it's incredibly disappointing. Basically Intel just increased the single core turbo frequencies by 15% compared to Kaby Lake R. Will be interesting to see whether they do in fact run more efficient, so that notebooks can keep a higher clock speed with the same amount of heat generated and a similar power draw to Kaby Lake R. Still glad we'll probably get Coffee Lake instead of these new 15W chips.
To me this also looks like a hint that Intels 9th gen notebook CPUs are even further away than many realize.
https://www.notebookcheck.com/Intel-Whiskey-Lake-Vier-Kerne-mit-bis-zu-4-6-GHz.313966.0.html
To me this also looks like a hint that Intels 9th gen notebook CPUs are even further away than many realize.
https://www.notebookcheck.com/Intel-Whiskey-Lake-Vier-Kerne-mit-bis-zu-4-6-GHz.313966.0.html
This is just how I think about user interfaces in general. I think developers and engineers should make the effort to create a zero resistance experience for the end user. In most other aspects of life, tools and appliances are easy to use. In computing, interestingly the only apps that come close to being as intuitive as they should be imo are games. Most user interfaces for computer hardware and software are absolutely terrible, and you can tell by how it alienates large portions of the population. Apple user interfaces are are generally not anywhere near as terrible, they are generally fairly good. Which can probably be said for the touch bar volume control... people do indeed manage to change the volume without much instruction, but that hold-and-slide thing is generally something that people don't know. Another thing is gestures, both in iOS and macOS. You'd think that they're great, but without instruction most people are actually not going to end up using the majority of them. Simply because they don't know that they exist. In my opinion, when that happens, the user interface isn't delivering the best possible experience. It may well be that we don't know of any better method in some cases, but for volume control we most certainly do.
I agree. I didn't mean to seem critical. Everyone wants to be minimalistic (especially Apple) and discoverability suffers.
I didn't really mean to be critical either. This is how I judge my own work, and constantly seek improvement (though I design API's and algorithms more than user interfaces). Not in a critical way, but in a constantly wanting progress way. I don't usually like to criticize others work, because we all have different goals and incentives. But it happened. Mea culpa.
https://www.neowin.net/news/13-inch-macbook-pros-with-coffee-lake-processors-show-up-on-geekbench
Looks like something might be happening soon. The product code 15,2 makes it more credible than the previous "leak" which still had the hexacore 15 inch as 14,3.
Looks like something might be happening soon. The product code 15,2 makes it more credible than the previous "leak" which still had the hexacore 15 inch as 14,3.
I am just wondering what could be the price for MBP 15" base modal.
I am deciding on getting 2015 modal vs wait for 2018. If the price is $1K difference, I would go for 2015. If its around $500 difference, then I would get 2018. Thoughts?
I am deciding on getting 2015 modal vs wait for 2018. If the price is $1K difference, I would go for 2015. If its around $500 difference, then I would get 2018. Thoughts?
Apple have pushed the price/performance to levels beyond my pain threshold now. That's effectively why I still have my money, and Apple still have my MBP. And it's not just me. At this point in the product cycle you'd think that they might start lowering the prices a bit, but I have to say I have a bad feeling about it....
Ideally they would (finally!) release a 2018 entry level 15" model to replace the 2015. It would have a similar price, maybe no TB, no dGPU and the lower end CPU.
Pure speculation on his part. The replacement keyboard could have some improvement to certain components, or some other minor manufacturing change, that he's completely unaware of.
I just also want to add that the Touchbar sucks for programming. It gets in the way.
I have a work laptop that is a 2015 MBP w/ physical function keys and a home laptop that is a 2016 MBP w/ touchbar. I much prefer the 2015 MBP. There are too many accidental touches on the touchbar. When you're editing in VIM, it's quite annoying.
If Apple releases a new laptop with less traction pad surface and physical function keys again, I'd probably sell my current 2016 MBP in favor of that. Also, the keyboard is a love/hate relationship. The travel time on a key press on the newer MBPs are far less than a 2015. What this means is you don't have to hit the key as hard. However after typing on a mechanical keyboard a lot at home and on a 2015 MBP, I notice I hammer the key pretty hard on my 2016. It's probably a matter of time until I have to repair the sucker.
Personally I don’t bother with most tech-oriented YouTube videos; they are typically content-free opinion pieces, deliberately inflammatory and sensationalist. Especially if the thumbnail has a guy with a weird facial expression or having some strange pose with his hands, you can assume it will be a complete waste of your time. I do like instructional videos, especially the step-by-step “how-to” type though.
Last edited:
I hate it when people “assume”. That guy assumes his new replacement keyboard will fail like the one it replaced...he didn’t even use it normally yet for crying out loud!
Of course the Apple-haters are commenting with agreement to him and resentment to Apple.