What if 32GB was only accessible when powered by the charger?

[Gregintosh]

Apple should let people choose between a 10 hour macbook or a macbook pro that doesn't sacrifice performance for an absurdly long battery life. Who are these people who need to sit at starbucks for 10 hours and can't access an outlet?

Apple has enough SKU's as it is. The same people who want to create variations of every product to suit every need will then turn around bash Apple for losing its focus and having a bazillion options.

I prefer a 10 hour battery because when I take my laptop to work outside at a library or coffeeshop I prefer not having the inconvenience of carrying a charger and having to sit near an outlet.

Also, on flights it may not be possible to have a charger at all. There are many scenarios under which not having to carry your cord everywhere you go is a big plus.

 

[Balaamsdonkey]

Just tell people that having 32 GB of memory will decrease the battery time xx%. Then let people make a decision whether to buy or not. Options are good.

Oh yes, design and build stock for something they don't think the majority of the target market wants.

 

[therealseebs]

Could that technically work?

No.

The problem is that the 32GB would have to be a completely different kind of memory, so you'd have to have 48GB total installed, and switch between them somehow. And Macs have to be able to survive swapping between charger and no-charger all the time. So. No.

 

[Softwarez]

No. It is not possible. Not without major re-thinking of how memory systems are implemented both hardware wise, and software wise.

If you're interested in the tech behind it, the memory management unit's general architectural design requires the physical amount of ram to remain constant. It could be redesigned to support real-time variable capacity physical ram, but not without massive increases in complexity, as well as theoretical decreases in performance. Software implementations of virtual memory spaces would also need to be redesigned.

 

[maratus]

Screw LPDDR3, I want Intel Optane in my rMBP for both RAM and SSD. Do it, Apple. Innovate FFS.

 

[mrex]

it is consuming more, but how much more? what is the overall experience under the load? which is better - ram using more the battery but things are done faster or the ram is the bottleneck and things get more time to be finished and swapping (paging) all the time? which one consumes more?

i quess in a light usage, the battery decrease may be noticeable, because the ram works all the time - it cant be switch off partially. but even then again, refreshing, paging or storing in a ram? which consumes more eventually?

and people who needs 32gb ram, i bet, they are working in front of their desks rather than sitting in a cafeteria... so i assume, there is a powercord near them all the time if it really consumes significantly more...

compairing macbooks with similar win laptops with 32gb ram is abit useless. maybe you should compare the same win laptop with 16gb and 32gb ram and doing the same task to see how much more(?) the extra ram consumes measured in percents in time. put those machines under doing the same heavy task, and then calculate which was faster/slower and how much the extra ram affected the battery life (pos or neg!).

if you arent happy with 32gb and less(?) battery life, buy the 16gb variant, you dont need to by the 32gb variant. it was a stupid move to force people still live in 16gb era. i cant either be thinking that they also thought how it would affect selling macs if you can get a laptop with 32gb ram, qc i7 and 4gb ram gpu or even egpu.

 

[maflynn]

Here's the issue I have.
Why couldn't Apple make the ram user replaceable and then let the owner decide if he want's less battery life and more ram?

For what its worth, they decreased the battery size in the new MBPs, instead they could have given us a slightly larger battery and an option to increase the ram with the understanding that the battery performance will be inferior.

Other makers have 32GB laptops and for those who need more then 16GB, apple is forcing them to go and buy a non-mac. I'm not one of those people, I'm living within 8GB on my iMac and its ok, but I can empathize to those that need more ram and now apple is saying you cannot have a mobile product from us to meet your needs

 

[leman]

it is consuming more, but how much more? what is the overall experience under the load? which is better - ram using more the battery but things are done faster or the ram is the bottleneck and things get more time to be finished and swapping (paging) all the time? which one consumes more?

According to toms hardware, 32GB of DDR4 RAM will consume around 11.85W, which is absolutely MASSIVE. Occasional swapping is probably easier on the battery, as SSDs are known to consume less than 5W under load

 

[mrex]

more than 16gb or just 11,85w?

 

[itsamacthing]

Travel with my iPad and MacBook, MacBook Pro is at home 99% of the time. 8,9, or 10 hours is the same for me.. what I wanted was power to crunch data whether I'm creating virtual machines or using Adobe CC.

 

[leman]

H
Other makers have 32GB laptops and for those who need more then 16GB, apple is forcing them to go and buy a non-mac. I'm not one of those people, I'm living within 8GB on my iMac and its ok, but I can empathize to those that need more ram and now apple is saying you cannot have a mobile product from us to meet your needs

But you know, on the other side, who are people who can really claim to need 16GB+? Mostly video editors that do extremely heavy-duty editing tasks on high-resolution sources. I don't think that they would be very happy with the MBP to begin with, that machine simply doesn't have enough OOMPF for the task. In fact, I am very surprised that these users would even look at a Mac, because with the exception of Mac Pro, Apple never made a computer that would target such usage. A more powerful windows laptop that doesn't put mobility in the foreground is almost always the better choice here, and as the software is not Mac-exclusive, I see no reason to choose a Mac.
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more than 16gb or just 11,85w?

11.85W for 32Gb DDR4

 

[jackoatmon]

Here's the issue I have.
Why couldn't Apple make the ram user replaceable and then let the owner decide if he want's less battery life and more ram?

Well, they could have done that, but the only upgrading you would be able to do is buy the 8GB and upgrade it to 16GB aftermarket. Or buy the 16GB and... swap it out for... a different brand's 16BG. Not too exciting.

Even if they added a little door to upgrade it, that's not going to magically change the capabilities of Intel's current line of mobile i7s.

Also, here's a better question: What if Apple's world-class engineers have literally nothing to learn from a bunch of random enthusiasts with zero real world engineering experience on a messageboard?

 

[leman]

Well, they could have done that, but the only upgrading you would be able to do is buy the 8GB and upgrade it to 16GB aftermarket. Or buy the 16GB and... swap it out for... a different brand's 16BG. Not too exciting.

Not to mention that you can't buy LPDDR RAM as slotted RAM anyway.

 

[mrex]

11.85W for 32Gb DDR4

how much 16gb lpddr3 consumes then?

 

[leman]

how much 16gb lpddr3 consumes then?

I was unable to find that information. Its also very difficult for anyone to test, because there is no pocketable LPDDR3. Maybe someone has access to manufacturer's data?

 

[AlanShutko]

Screw LPDDR3, I want Intel Optane in my rMBP for both RAM and SSD. Do it, Apple. Innovate FFS.

Alas, Intel's ever shifting roadmap hurts that too. Optane is delayed. Just like Skylake was delayed, just like Kaby Lake is delayed.

 

[viljamip]

12W is massive. CPU + iGPU is 45W and Polaris dGPU is 35W. Thats 15% of the CPU+GPU. I bet LPDDR3 is not even close to that much. On the 13" touch bar that would be 40%, non-touch-bar 80%. I'm pretty sure LPDDR3 and DDR4 require completely different circuitry on the logic board. It would add too much complexity to have completely different logic board for 32GB models.

 

[mrex]

they need a differend memory controller, of course.. and remember that 12w is under the load, neither your cpu or gpu is running 100% all the time consuming 28watts for example... (and i dont know how exactly the ddr4 is working but i assume there are standby rate and under the load rate.)

the same thing is that any of those laptops wont last 10hours when you run final cut/premiere or so. if you use only light web browsing and itunes, then you might get the same results as apple got in their test environment (web+itunes). but quess what, pro users arent using itunes to watch movies and light browsing...

what have i understood it is that apple uses a mem controller only supporting 16gb ram and the whole new memory system with ddr4 would consume more hence. but still the question, how much? what is the difference between a typical usage of ddr4 and lpddr3.

it is pointless to repeate "much more". i want to know the numbers, not repeating the same as everybody is saying.. phil said this and that.. so what! phil could have given the numbers too and the real reason.

 

[therealseebs]

Oh yes, design and build stock for something they don't think the majority of the target market wants.

You know, this is a very odd position for a Mac user to take, given that Mac users are not the majority of the home or office computer user markets.

The usual idea is to try to subdivide your audience into different groups, then make things for at least two radically different sets of people, so you maximize the number of people who are happy with at least one.

Right now, Apple has a ridiculous number of laptops focused directly on "I want it to be small and don't care that much about performance or port options". They've got the 12" macbook, and the 13" MBP, and the 13" with touchbar, and the 15", and the other 15", and the Air. And they may eventually remove one or more of those... But none of them step outside that very narrow envelope of "thinnest thing we can make, no matter the design compromises required".

 

[leman]

they need a differend memory controller, of course.. and remember that 12w is under the load, neither your cpu or gpu is running 100% all the time consuming 28watts for example... (and i dont know how exactly the ddr4 is working but i assume there are standby rate and under the load rate.)

AFAIK, with DRAM its always 'under load'. The contents of RAM needs to be actively refreshed or the data will be lost. The CPU/GPU can power down if not used, the SSD doesn't need to refresh its cells, but RAM really needs that constant supply of power to preserve its contents. Maybe there is someone more knowledgeable on the topic here to tell us if modern RAM also has a concept of power states or something similar?

 

[MedRed]

What's your actual point? That DDR4 is better than the DDR3 from your 2011 laptop? Great. That's how it should be. Fortunately for all of us here, Apple isn't selling a 2011 MacBook Pro anymore or using power-hungry DDR3.

I'm saying DDR4 uses more energy than LPDDR3 and Apple prioritized better battery life for everyone over giving a very small percentage of users who need 32GB the option.

If you need 32GB, then buy something else right now or wait until Apple has the right hardware from Intel to give us a 32GB option without significantly compromising their battery life targets. Pretty straightforward.

There's a flaw with your logic:
Dell XPS 15 DDR4 @ 2133 MT/s = 1.2V
New Macbook Pro LPDDR3 @ 2133 MT/s = either 1.2V or 1.8V

I found a source that said the new Macbook Pro memory is 1.8V but I can't verify. It's quite possible that using DDR4 would have saved on power consumption over LPDDR3 and allowed for 32gigs with a minimal power hit.

Same speed, DDR4 is the same or lower power consumption than LPDDR3. The drawback would be thickness. With Apple's obsessive compulsion for device slimness, that and margin were probably the ultimate reasons DDR4 didn't make an appearance.

 

[cmaier]

AFAIK, with DRAM its always 'under load'. The contents of RAM needs to be actively refreshed or the data will be lost. The CPU/GPU can power down if not used, the SSD doesn't need to refresh its cells, but RAM really needs that constant supply of power to preserve its contents. Maybe there is someone more knowledgeable on the topic here to tell us if modern RAM also has a concept of power states or something similar?

DRAM consumes more power when reading or writing than when refreshing. Among other reasons, when reading or writing you have to power up various drivers that send signals a long distance, etc.

You can completely power down unused parts of DRAM but only if the RAM is partitioned into banks in such a way that nothing else is in use impending the powered down banks (and of course the memory controller would have to trade off speed vs power in allocating physical memory).
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There's a flaw with your logic:
Dell XPS 15 DDR4 @ 2133 MT/s = 1.2V
New Macbook Pro LPDDR3 @ 2133 MT/s = either 1.2V or 1.8V

Same speed, DDR4 is the same or lower power consumption than LPDDR3. The drawback would be thickness. With Apple's obsessive compulsion for device slimness, that and margin were probably the ultimate reasons DDR4 didn't make an appearance.

You cite voltage but what does that have to do with power consumption? Ultimately power is cv^2f. It's not clear to me that switching capacitance or frequency are the same between these two interfaces. (Just asking - I'm not familiar with the details of the interfaces since they were adopted after I got out of the processor business).

 

[MedRed]

You cite voltage but what does that have to do with power consumption? Ultimately power is cv^2f. It's not clear to me that switching capacitance or frequency are the same between these two interfaces. (Just asking - I'm not familiar with the details of the interfaces since they were adopted after I got out of the processor business).

Wait what? voltage supplied directly correlates into power consumption. Also, the lower the voltage, the cooler the memory runs. Cooler memory runs more efficiently and uses less power as well. LPDDR3 has its tricks to aid it in using less power than DDR3, but the difference between it and DDR4 is not enough to warrant not offering a 32 gigabyte option, especially when the laptop could have maintained similar weight with a slight larger battery and a slightly thicker case.

 

[idunn]

Could that technically work? [What if 32GB was only accessible when powered by the charger?]

No idea, but I like where you are going with this.

Exactly, why not offer 32GB ram or more as an option and let the customer decide how they want to use it? With Apple even helping in designing creative balances between desired ram in the moment and power usage.

They really need more thinking like yours as Apple. Only they could never allow as much, as it might interfere with all the marketers dreaming up new emojis and watchbands.

MacBook Pros with this type of horsepower could be marketed as same—and deserve the moniker. Let the customer decide: MacBook or a 'Pro' model with its greater capabilities as well necessary limitations in battery life, weight and size.

 

[mrex]

quite interesting =}

after abit gooling i found this brochure for micron ddr3 sdram modules. it explains how the system works
https://www.micron.com/~/media/documents/products/technical-note/dram/tn41_01ddr3_power.pdf

and for ddr4 https://www.micron.com/~/media/documents/products/power-calculator/ddr4_power_calc.xlsm

this is old but also interesting
http://www.nxp.com/files/training/doc/dwf/DWF13_AMF_ENT_T1070.pdf

it seems to be that lpddr can provide a slower standby consumption, but.. like i said, i dont understand how the whole system works... but the more you read from the memory and consumption of new memory modules, the more it sounds - more or less - that the real reason is actually that apple uses a mem controller that can only support max 16gb ram..