Waiting for the 2018 MBP

[Poki]

Ehh customer will get peeved if Apple updated the lineup in less then a year again. Apple probably wants to space to back to a year to look normalize the schedule again. Idk though if they released sooner I’d be happy expect we still haven’t seen new H series proccesors.

Why should they? Even with that obnoxious 527 day gap between the 2015 and 2016 models, the average time between updates is only 303 days. If you take out that wait, the average drops to 258 days, which is only 40 days from now. It's not like Mac updates follow any "normal" schedule like iPhone releases - they (have to) release them whenever the new chips are ready to stay competitive.

Also, pretty much any 13" notebook out there is now quad-core, with Apple being one of very few exceptions. This is not like in previous years, where a new CPU generation got you 5% more performance. We're talking about a 40% or more performance boost here. I cannot imagine Apple likes to be in a position where every competing notebook, even at less than half the price, is so much faster than their own products.

 

[gobikerider]

Why should they? Even with that obnoxious 527 day gap between the 2015 and 2016 models, the average time between updates is only 303 days. If you take out that wait, the average drops to 258 days, which is only 40 days from now. It's not like Mac updates follow any "normal" schedule like iPhone releases - they (have to) release them whenever the new chips are ready to stay competitive.

Also, pretty much any 13" notebook out there is now quad-core, with Apple being one of very few exceptions. This is not like in previous years, where a new CPU generation got you 5% more performance. We're talking about a 40% or more performance boost here. I cannot imagine Apple likes to be in a position where every competing notebook, even at less than half the price, is so much faster than their own products.

Hey the sooner they release them the sooner I can buy one for my college laptop for the next 4-5 years. Sitting here hoping intel announces the new H series proccesors at the ces conference. They tryna do the car thing for some reason to stupid to see Nvidia already has that taken care of.

 

[cvm19]

Dear ,

Please, please, please bring us a decent MBP 2013-esque keyboard. I was SO (measurably) much faster and more accurate on that keyboard. Please...

 

[gobikerider]

Dear ,

Please, please, please bring us a decent MBP 2013-esque keyboard. I was SO (measurably) much faster and more accurate on that keyboard. Please...

They aren’t going to go back to it, it’s adding way to much extra thickness then they would ever consider putting back into the laptop.

 

[cvm19]

They aren’t going to go back to it, it’s adding way to much extra thickness then they would ever consider putting back into the laptop.

I know... but *something*. After more than a year, my typing speed is still 30% slower than before, and my error rate is over 7x worse.

 

[Poki]

Soo ... the Intel press conference was kinda disappointing. Let's hope they announce some new chips during the CES outside of this press conference - it's about time.

 

[whg]

Because of the mess with Meltdown and Spectre hardware bugs in all current CPUs, I will wait for a new generation where these problems are fixed. This will probably take some time, but now, with a fairly new 2017 Macbook Pro, I can wait this out. I would not be surprised if AMD is faster than Intel to get there and I expect Apple to make the switch in future notebooks.

 

[Poki]

Because of the mess with Meltdown and Spectre hardware bugs in all current CPUs, I will wait for a new generation where these problems are fixed. This will probably take some time, but now, with a fairly new 2017 Macbook Pro, I can wait this out. I would not be surprised if AMD is faster than Intel to get there and I expect Apple to make the switch in future notebooks.

It might take some time until these security issues are fixed on a hardware level, probably won't happen this year. Since my 2009 MacBook Pro is starting to fall apart, I'll just get whatever Apple announces, the sooner the better.

 

[oldtime]

Ehh customer will get peeved if Apple updated the lineup in less then a year again. Apple probably wants to space to back to a year to look normalize the schedule again. Idk though if they released sooner I’d be happy expect we still haven’t seen new H series proccesors.

If anything, the lukewarm reception to the latest MBPs and the fact that their competition has really stepped up its game the last few cycles should give Apple the kick in the pants they need to get an updated and, frankly, better MBP out there. Improve the keyboard and make them as powerful as the competition. Not that hard. Qcore 13" is long overdue at this point.

 

[leman]

Qcore 13" is long overdue at this point.

The Kaby Lake R quad-core comes with a GPU thats 50% performance of Iris in the current 13" MBP. Or would you prefer Apple to downgrade the graphics here? They are obviously waiting for the rest of the lineup, not just the low-tier CPUs...

 

[Poki]

The Kaby Lake R quad-core comes with a GPU thats 50% performance of Iris in the current 13" MBP. Or would you prefer Apple to downgrade the graphics here? They are obviously waiting for the rest of the lineup, not just the low-tier CPUs...

There would be other options too. Since the 13" MBP can handle 28W CPUs, it should be no problem to use one of these 8th gen Intel CPUs and add the recently released Vega 12 with shared memory. Won't be much faster than an Iris Pro, but shouldn't be slower either. Or just go with AMD all together. Their 15W Ryzen Mobile offer similar CPU performance to Intels 8th gen 15W CPUs, while the GPUs are in the same class, if not a little better, than the Iris Pro.

 

[The Mercurian]

The Kaby Lake R quad-core comes with a GPU thats 50% performance of Iris in the current 13" MBP. Or would you prefer Apple to downgrade the graphics here? They are obviously waiting for the rest of the lineup, not just the low-tier CPUs...

How is it the Dell have managed to stuff these chips into a new high performing tiny form factor with 4k screens ?

 

[Poki]

How is it the Dell have managed to stuff these chips into a new high performing tiny form factor with 4k screens ?

By using the 15W chips with the slower iGPU.

 

[The Mercurian]

By using the 15W chips with the slower iGPU.

Yeah but my point is that is enough to drive the 4k screen and they claim at least that it is a very high performance machine. So....something doens't make sense

 

[leman]

How is it the Dell have managed to stuff these chips into a new high performing tiny form factor with 4k screens ?

Intel HD 620 supports 4k output perfectly well. I mean, we had much slower Intel IGPs running HiDPI displays years ago without problems. But don't expect any stellar graphical performance out of XPS 13".
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...and they claim at least that it is a very high performance machine. So....something doens't make sense

Yes, the part where they claim it Its good for burst workflows, but if you really want a high-performance machine, you need a proper quad-core (thats not severely limited by the TDP). Its till going to outperform the 13" MBP of course.

 

[The Mercurian]

Intel HD 620 supports 4k output perfectly well. I mean, we had much slower Intel IGPs running HiDPI displays years ago without problems. But don't expect any stellar graphical performance out of XPS 13".

I seem to be the only one around here who simply doens't care about the graphical performance so long as it can keep the screen refreshed quickly enough for standard use

 

[leman]

I seem to be the only one around here who simply doens't care about the graphical performance so long as it can keep the screen refreshed quickly enough for standard use

You are not the only one. Most folks for some reason expect that one would need a beefy GPU to draw to a 4K screen (no, one doesn't). But facts are still facts — Apple tends to ship higher-end Intel parts which contain "premium" GPU parts, while the current Kaby Lake R only comes with low-end graphics. So if you are looking for the reason why 13" MP hasn't been updated yet, there it is.

 

[NathanD]

You are not the only one. Most folks for some reason expect that one would need a beefy GPU to draw to a 4K screen (no, one doesn't). But facts are still facts — Apple tends to ship higher-end Intel parts which contain "premium" GPU parts, while the current Kaby Lake R only comes with low-end graphics. So if you are looking for the reason why 13" MP hasn't been updated yet, there it is.

I'm wondering what Apple would do with 13" MBP if Intel decided not to release any Kaby Lake R with Iris.

 

[The Mercurian]

You are not the only one. Most folks for some reason expect that one would need a beefy GPU to draw to a 4K screen (no, one doesn't). But facts are still facts — Apple tends to ship higher-end Intel parts which contain "premium" GPU parts, while the current Kaby Lake R only comes with low-end graphics. So if you are looking for the reason why 13" MP hasn't been updated yet, there it is.

Oh yes I agree with you entirely on these points. It simply frustrates me since I don't care aobut it

 

[oldtime]

The Kaby Lake R quad-core comes with a GPU thats 50% performance of Iris in the current 13" MBP. Or would you prefer Apple to downgrade the graphics here? They are obviously waiting for the rest of the lineup, not just the low-tier CPUs...

Why not Coffee Lake and the 30% boost over KLR? That'll allow the 15" to be upgradeable to 6 cores as well, differentiating it enough from a quad core 13" . 16 GB will still be a problem, but oh well.
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I seem to be the only one around here who simply doens't care about the graphical performance so long as it can keep the screen refreshed quickly enough for standard use

I am in the same boat. Cannon Lake's mega delay has axed what would have been a mega refresh this year. Too bad. Apple still has to do something attention-grabbing as so many pro users are now turning to the competition.

The most shared news about the most recent MBPs is the ****** keyboard and port frustration. Perhaps it's a little gimmicky, but more cores gets one of Apple's flagship devices a ton of good PR.

 

[Poki]

Why not Coffee Lake and the 30% boost over KLR? That'll allow the 15" to be upgradeable to 6 cores as well, differentiating it enough from a quad core 13" . 16 GB will still be a problem, but oh well.

The architecture performance gains of Coffee Lake are actually minimal. The bulk of the additional performance of 8th gen CPUs comes from the additional cores. And since Intel could already do it within the limits of a 15W TDP, I couldn't care less whether the higher TDP parts are Kaby Lake Refresh, Cannon Lake or whatever - give me more cores, and release the damn things already.

 

[The Mercurian]

I wonder if Meltdown and Spectre are the reason for the hex core delays?

Perhaps they are reworking the silicon to fix these vulnerabilites at the hardware level ?

 

[oldtime]

The architecture performance gains of Coffee Lake are actually minimal. The bulk of the additional performance of 8th gen CPUs comes from the additional cores. And since Intel could already do it within the limits of a 15W TDP, I couldn't care less whether the higher TDP parts are Kaby Lake Refresh, Cannon Lake or whatever - give me more cores, and release the damn things already.

On that I agree. Give me at least 2 extra cores so I can run multiple VMs on a 13" without it starting to choke. I want the portability of that machine, plus I really don't want to spend the $2300+ on a 15"...

 

[Frederik on MacRumors]

It might take some time until these security issues are fixed on a hardware level, probably won't happen this year. Since my 2009 MacBook Pro is starting to fall apart, I'll just get whatever Apple announces, the sooner the better.

Im in the exact same boat. With my mid 2009 I can decide between old Xcode (on El Capitan) or random shutdowns and black screens when woken in High Sierra... oh well and the hashtag key is broken...

 

[The Mercurian]

Im in the exact same boat. With my mid 2009 I can decide between old Xcode (on El Capitan) or random shutdowns and black screens when woken in High Sierra... oh well and the hashtag key is broken...

Woah. If I were you I would buy a second hand or refurb 2012-2014 machine as a stopgap. It would be so far ahead of your 2009 machine but without the expense of a new one. Then wait for newer models for the big investment and sell the two older ones.