I don't totally disagree they need 10nm sooner than later. However, its not intel's fault the latest version of the MacBook Pro is as thin as an ultrabook. At its thickest, the MacBook is roughly the same thickness. I mean, why? The marginal 1/6th of an inch in the 2015 vs 2016 design just had no benefit and only costs.
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Waiting for the 2019 MBP [Merged]
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I don't totally disagree they need 10nm sooner than later. However, its not intel's fault the latest version of the MacBook Pro is as thin as an ultrabook. At its thickest, the MacBook is roughly the same thickness. I mean, why? The marginal 1/6th of an inch in the 2015 vs 2016 design just had no benefit and only costs.
Well, I guess you’ll have to wait to see if that’s the case first. Have you considered what the specter and meltdown hardware fixes could imply thermally?
I think the problem with this classification is that both the 8th and the 9th gen chips having a 45w TDP implies that they roughly draw the same amount of power in the same use-case scenarios, but in practice, this is probably not going to be the case, at least not when we use Coffeelake as a metric. The issue with the TDP is that its' official definition has always been a little vague. Up to Intel's 7th mobile gen, the TDP of Intel's mobile lineup was essentially the estimate of the average power in watts that a CPU dissipates under full load. It was meant as a (more or less) upper limit of the power draw, whereas on average, the power draw was much less. Even though Intel officially defined the TDP as the power draw at base clock speeds, there was usually a lot of room for these chips to boost without exceeding the TDP. You could fire up a quad-core Kaby Lake H chip to its boost clock speeds at all four cores, and it wouldn't go above its' 45w TDP by any significant margin.
But with the launch of Coffee Lake and Kaby Lake R, the U and H-series processors from Intel each gained two additional cores, all across the board. The base clock speeds were lowered, while the promised boost clock speeds were significantly increased. Yet, despite these two additional cores, the TDP for every processor in their lineup remained completely unchanged, which suggests that these chips would now achieve their maximum turbo boost speeds, or something close to it, on all six cores at roughly the same 45w TDP, or something not much higher.
But in practice, that's not the case, as these chips can easily have a power draw of >100 watt (!) in order to run at their boost clock speeds on all cores, which no notebook that's anywhere near as thin and portable as the MBPs is designed to run as. The TDP is now meant to be taken as the power draw of a CPU at full core lead at its' base clock speed, which is also the way Intel officially defines it as, whereas up to and including Kabylake (7th gen), it was more of a maximum of the heat a CPU would put out at base clocks, while an overwhelming majority of their chips didn't come close to that amount of heat dissipation unless they were at or somewhere lose to their boost frequency. Now with Coffeelake (and, I would guess, their new 9th gen lineup of mobile chips), Intel is significantly more aggressive with both boost aswell as base clock speeds, they leave almost no wiggle room anymore for their CPUs before they hit their TDP, which they can't really exceed by any significant margin on a thin laptop like the MBP, so the returns from throwing two more cores onto the pile should be very measured on thermally constrained laptops. At least that's my understanding of it.
Point is, until we see some actual benchmarks in laptops comparable to the MBPs (I don't think we have yet?), or in the actual 2019 MBPs, I would not set my expectations too high on any noticeable performance improvements this generation. In desktop PCs where there's enough thermal room for these new chips to breath, sure, but in laptops like the MBP in which we are restrained by the same 45w TDP that we were before, not so much, and the fact that a chip is classified as 45 watt doesn't mean a whole lot anymore; it certainly doesn't mean that its' power draw hasn't increased compared to its' predecessor.
If it could be thinner and lighter, I would be like hell yeah.
IMHO, the 15 is too big and heavy. I find the 13 much better. Now if they could get rid of the bezels and turn it into a 14.5 while keeping the weight the same.....
That’s why I’m counting on hardware fixes for spectre and meltdown to balance for the additional 2 more cores in practice.
That’s great news when you just bought a €1000 phone or tablet!
Fake news alert!
There's been comparisons that go beyond simple benchmarks that come to the exact same conclusion as the benchmarks. I can't find it immediately, but the study I saw debunked the CISC vs RISC myth, the 'simple' benchmark myth and much more. Get used to it: there's a new player in town that is competitive for laptops now.
Of course, it takes more than just a fast CPU to build a laptop. That's the reason why I don't expect ARM MacBooks this year. But it's not because of the CPU, as you and many others claim.
Found it. A short quote:
There’s nuance in every corner, but after working through common arguments and misconceptions, such as that the RISC (ARM) instruction set architecture is inherently inferior to CISC (x86), that the benchmarks spruiking excellent ARM performance are inaccurate, that the performance gap is explained by different operating systems, and more, I’ve found that the central claim of these articles largely holds true: ARM processors, particularly those produced by Apple, have caught up to high-end x86 processors in most perspectives of performance.
https://reveried.com/article/arm-processors-nearing-performance-parity-with-x86
No, we could indeed see them coming likely this summer. Coffee Lake H processors for the 15” MBP are already available and according to Intel’s leaked schedule Ice Lake U processors for the 13” MBP should be launching soon (Q2 2019 May-August).
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No, we could indeed see them coming likely this summer. Coffee Lake H processors for the 15” MBP are already available and according to Intel’s leaked schedule Ice Lake U processors for the 13” MBP should be launching soon (Q2 2019 May-August).
Interesting, I was just wondering if Apple were planning a MacBook Pro announcement alongside the Mac Pro at WWDC in June.
So these are the full specifications that we kinda know/can expect so far of the upcoming 2019 15" MacBook Pro from the latest Intel mobile CPU launch:
Display
15.4” IPS 2880x1800 P3 True Tone
500 nits (maybe 600 nits with HDR??)
Processor NEW!!
Core i7 6 core 12 threads i7-9750H
2.6 GHz (Turbo Boost 4.5 GHz) 12 MB cache
Core i7 6 core 12 threads i7-9850H
2.6 GHz (Turbo Boost 4.6 GHz) 12 MB cache
Core i9 8 core 16 threads i9-9980HK
2.4 GHz (Turbo Boost 5.0 GHz) 16 MB cache
Storage (MAYBE THE SAME)
SSD 256GB (maybe with standard 512GB??)
SSD 512GB
SSD 1TB
SSD 2TB
SSD 4TB
Memory (MAYBE THE SAME)
16 GB 2400 MHz DDR4 onboard memory (maybe 2666 MHz DDR4??)
Configurable to 32 GB (maybe up to 64 GB?? 128 GB not likely)
Graphics (MAYBE THE SAME)
(We don't know yet what dGPUs will be used for the 2019 MBP. But as no new dGPU from AMD are out, it's quite likely that they'll use the current optional Vega GPUs as standard on the 15" MBP.)
Intel UHD Graphics 630
Charging and Expansion (NO CHANGES AT ALL)
Four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports with support for charging, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt (up to 40 Gbps), USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps).
Keyboard and Trackpad (MAYBE THE SAME)
Full-size backlit 3rd Generation Butterfly keyboard with Touch Bar with integrated Touch ID sensor and force Touch trackpad
(LIKELY 4th gen Butterfly Keyboard)
Wireless (MAYBE THE SAME)
Wi-Fi 802.11ac; IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n compatible
(maybe Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax??)
Bluetooth 5.0 wireless technology
Camera (MAYBE THE SAME)
720p FaceTime HD camera (maybe 1080p??)
Video Support (NO CHANGES AT ALL)
Simultaneously full native resolution on the built-in display at millions of colors and up to 2 displays with 5120x2880 60Hz at over a billion colors or up to 4 displays with 4096x2304 60Hz at over a billion colors.
Thunderbolt 3 digital video output, DisplayPort native output over USB‑C and VGA, plus HDMI, DVI, and Thunderbolt 2 output supported using adapters.
Audio (MAYBE THE SAME)
Stereo high dynamic range speakers, three microphones, 3.5 mm headphone jack.
Battery and Power (MAYBE THE SAME)
Up to 10 hours wireless web, up to 10 hours iTunes movie playback and up to 30 days of standby time.
87W USB-C Power Adapter, built-in 83.6-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery
(maybe a higer watt-hour lithium-polymer battery)
Display
15.4” IPS 2880x1800 P3 True Tone
500 nits (maybe 600 nits with HDR??)
Processor NEW!!
Core i7 6 core 12 threads i7-9750H
2.6 GHz (Turbo Boost 4.5 GHz) 12 MB cache
Core i7 6 core 12 threads i7-9850H
2.6 GHz (Turbo Boost 4.6 GHz) 12 MB cache
Core i9 8 core 16 threads i9-9980HK
2.4 GHz (Turbo Boost 5.0 GHz) 16 MB cache
Storage (MAYBE THE SAME)
SSD 256GB (maybe with standard 512GB??)
SSD 512GB
SSD 1TB
SSD 2TB
SSD 4TB
Memory (MAYBE THE SAME)
16 GB 2400 MHz DDR4 onboard memory (maybe 2666 MHz DDR4??)
Configurable to 32 GB (maybe up to 64 GB?? 128 GB not likely)
Graphics (MAYBE THE SAME)
(We don't know yet what dGPUs will be used for the 2019 MBP. But as no new dGPU from AMD are out, it's quite likely that they'll use the current optional Vega GPUs as standard on the 15" MBP.)
Intel UHD Graphics 630
Charging and Expansion (NO CHANGES AT ALL)
Four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports with support for charging, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt (up to 40 Gbps), USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps).
Keyboard and Trackpad (MAYBE THE SAME)
Full-size backlit 3rd Generation Butterfly keyboard with Touch Bar with integrated Touch ID sensor and force Touch trackpad
(LIKELY 4th gen Butterfly Keyboard)
Wireless (MAYBE THE SAME)
Wi-Fi 802.11ac; IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n compatible
(maybe Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax??)
Bluetooth 5.0 wireless technology
Camera (MAYBE THE SAME)
720p FaceTime HD camera (maybe 1080p??)
Video Support (NO CHANGES AT ALL)
Simultaneously full native resolution on the built-in display at millions of colors and up to 2 displays with 5120x2880 60Hz at over a billion colors or up to 4 displays with 4096x2304 60Hz at over a billion colors.
Thunderbolt 3 digital video output, DisplayPort native output over USB‑C and VGA, plus HDMI, DVI, and Thunderbolt 2 output supported using adapters.
Audio (MAYBE THE SAME)
Stereo high dynamic range speakers, three microphones, 3.5 mm headphone jack.
Battery and Power (MAYBE THE SAME)
Up to 10 hours wireless web, up to 10 hours iTunes movie playback and up to 30 days of standby time.
87W USB-C Power Adapter, built-in 83.6-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery
(maybe a higer watt-hour lithium-polymer battery)
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There is no 10nm version of the H series chips in foreseeable future if that roadmap is right.No, we could indeed see them coming likely this summer. Coffee Lake H processors for the 15” MBP are already available and according to Intel’s leaked schedule Ice Lake U processors for the 13” MBP should be launching soon (Q2 2019 May-August).
No, they can’t. The latest 9th gen Intel Core-H processors are not compatible with LPDDR4, only DDR4 up to 2666 MHz and LPDDR3 up to 2133 MHz which is the same memory type specification as the previous 8th gen Intel Core-H CPUs.
What’s new about them memory wise is that now they can handle up to 128 GB of RAM when the previous generation maxed out at 64 GB.
[doublepost=1556299762][/doublepost]
Have you ever seen any 8 GB Vega GPU for a laptop anywhere yet?
This is a more than a bit off base. They have caught up, if you compare 8 core A12X to 4 core i5s or 4 core i7s from 2 years ago on synthetic benchmarks. These ARMs are also very likely to be tuned in ways that favor good scores on short duration and shallow data depth benchmarks. What happens when ARM needs to support more complicated systems (managing more IO is one area that jumps out), deeper/wider data, and longer running tasks? Though they also have/had process node (7nm) and DDR4 advantages at the time all the A12X vs Intel whatever articles where written, but these will be temporary. There really is no reason to expect ARM to continue these advantages over x86. If one instruction set is fundamentally inferior or not doesn't really concern me, its the real life performance of chips using those instruction sets that I care about. And, at least for the foreseeable future, ARM isn't matching 45w and above performance.
Well, at least you explained it for us
As the post above mentioned, please feel free to cure me of some ignorance, if you believe some exists. I don't have a dog in the fight, but am just relaying the impression I get from what I've read. Feel free to give me something else to read.
Hello!
I got a question you probably hear a lot. I am looking at purchasing a new MacBook Pro 13' without the TouchBar. This model hasn't been updated since 2017. Do you guys think it will be updated this year with a new keyboard or is it just a refresh? Will it even be refreshed at all? Am I better off waiting for WWDC and hope something is announced?
I got a question you probably hear a lot. I am looking at purchasing a new MacBook Pro 13' without the TouchBar. This model hasn't been updated since 2017. Do you guys think it will be updated this year with a new keyboard or is it just a refresh? Will it even be refreshed at all? Am I better off waiting for WWDC and hope something is announced?
Apple: Ok great so you want to preorder our new Apple Card! We think you are going to love it!
I would wait unless you’re getting a killer deal on it. Dual core, 2x2 wifi, keyboard issues etc. It may not be refreshed and it may be phased out and replaced by the Air. I do like the idea of a cheaper Pro, but there are too many compromises for the price IMO.
I hope they introduce a new keyboard with some travel distance, and of course better reliability.
Ironically, because my my GPU needs are demanding (RAW video), what with the crazy power/value of eGPUs now, I don't even think a GPU upgrade is on my list of desires for the next Macbook Pro. Granted, my use of my 2015 MBP is moving from home to office setups, and not everyone is like that. But I bought a maxed-out 2018 Vega 20 MBP... and then returned it to go back to my 2015 and a Vega 56 at home and work, because the power was 5 times as much, for 1/4 the price.
It's funny, because a better GPU used to be my number one desire for new MBPs, now it's not even on the list.
It's funny, because a better GPU used to be my number one desire for new MBPs, now it's not even on the list.
To Aquamite's spec post...
Most of this makes sense - but I'm thinking the 15" is at least likely (not guaranteed) to be Ming-Chi Kuo's 16-16.5" redesign, so a few things change.
All as per Aquamite, except:
Display:
16.5" (?) 4K (?) P3 True-Tone, etc.
Processor:
I don't know what they'll do to come up with three models, because the 9750H and 9850H are so similar (100 MHz difference in boost clock, nothing else). Base model will have the 9750H, high configuration will have one or the otherof the two i9s, but what's in the middle? One or two sources have mentioned that the 9850H (only) may be able to be up-configured (official, so not an overclock) to 2.9 or 3.0 GHz base, turbo to 4.9 or 5.0 GHz. If that's feasible in MBP power and cooling, it solves the problem.
Storage:
I'm inclined to think they'll move up one storage tier (512 GB standard on base model, possibly 1 TB standard on higher model) - Aquamite mentions the possible move on the base model.
Memory:
16 configurable to 32 in the base model
32? configurable to 64? in the high-end
Graphics:
Current optional Vegas as standard - possibly an optional "Vega 25" or 8 GB Vega 20.
Charging and Expansion (No changes at all):
As per Aquamite
Keyboard and Trackpad:
New keyboard - maybe 4th Generation Butterfly, maybe something new, hopefully not glass haptic.
Wireless:
As per Aquamite
Everything else:
As per Aquamite - I suspect we'll see a somewhat new cooling system (not sure how changed), and I hope for a 90+ watt hour battery (and maybe a 100 W adapter - the current machine can outdraw its 87W adapter under heavy load).
Most of this makes sense - but I'm thinking the 15" is at least likely (not guaranteed) to be Ming-Chi Kuo's 16-16.5" redesign, so a few things change.
All as per Aquamite, except:
Display:
16.5" (?) 4K (?) P3 True-Tone, etc.
Processor:
I don't know what they'll do to come up with three models, because the 9750H and 9850H are so similar (100 MHz difference in boost clock, nothing else). Base model will have the 9750H, high configuration will have one or the otherof the two i9s, but what's in the middle? One or two sources have mentioned that the 9850H (only) may be able to be up-configured (official, so not an overclock) to 2.9 or 3.0 GHz base, turbo to 4.9 or 5.0 GHz. If that's feasible in MBP power and cooling, it solves the problem.
Storage:
I'm inclined to think they'll move up one storage tier (512 GB standard on base model, possibly 1 TB standard on higher model) - Aquamite mentions the possible move on the base model.
Memory:
16 configurable to 32 in the base model
32? configurable to 64? in the high-end
Graphics:
Current optional Vegas as standard - possibly an optional "Vega 25" or 8 GB Vega 20.
Charging and Expansion (No changes at all):
As per Aquamite
Keyboard and Trackpad:
New keyboard - maybe 4th Generation Butterfly, maybe something new, hopefully not glass haptic.
Wireless:
As per Aquamite
Everything else:
As per Aquamite - I suspect we'll see a somewhat new cooling system (not sure how changed), and I hope for a 90+ watt hour battery (and maybe a 100 W adapter - the current machine can outdraw its 87W adapter under heavy load).