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throAU

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2012
8,775
6,939
Perth, Western Australia
Money talks. Apple could’ve easily got what they needed from Intel but chose not to. It’s one of the many things that went backwards with the 2016/17 versions. One of the reasons the 2015 was so great was its excellent smooth UI performance, even on low-power integrated graphics.

Apple is not as massive a part of intel's market as you may think. Apple can complain, but they're literally 10% of intel's x64 CPU market in total, and 13" macbook pros or 12" retina macbooks are the majority of that with iMacs probably coming in third. You're talking about a small fraction of an already small segment of intel's sales. Intel likely don't care enough at this point - Apple are going to buy those CPUs for the 15" anyway, and just up-sell people to discrete graphics. Win-win for Apple. None of their competitors will offer anything different because intel is their CPU supplier also.

And yes money talks. This is why apple is starting to make their own GPUs and will end up with their own processors in the Macbooks. They could switch to AMD and get a better GPU for macbooks right now but they'd still face the same problem in trying to direct where AMD goes in the long term. If you want something done "right" (where "right" = what you want), do it yourself, etc.
 

simonmet

Cancelled
Sep 9, 2012
2,666
3,663
Sydney
Apple is not as massive a part of intel's market as you may think. Apple can complain, but they're literally 10% of intel's x64 CPU market in total, and 13" macbook pros or 12" retina macbooks are the majority of that with iMacs probably coming in third. You're talking about a small fraction of an already small segment of intel's sales. Intel likely don't care enough at this point - Apple are going to buy those CPUs for the 15" anyway, and just up-sell people to discrete graphics. Win-win for Apple. None of their competitors will offer anything different because intel is their CPU supplier also.

And yes money talks. This is why apple is starting to make their own GPUs and will end up with their own processors in the Macbooks. They could switch to AMD and get a better GPU for macbooks right now but they'd still face the same problem in trying to direct where AMD goes in the long term. If you want something done "right" (where "right" = what you want), do it yourself, etc.

That makes sense. I just remember how the integrated graphics on my early 2013 15” MBP weren’t good enough to drive the UI smoothly, so I ended up turning off integrated and using discrete graphics most of the time (especially when plugged in). This changed dramatically with the Iris Plus graphics in my 2015 model; they were good enough for all 2D tasks . I now only needed the discreet graphics for 3D applications. So that’s why it was a shame to see the integrated performance go backwards.
 
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leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,153
18,932
Apple is not as massive a part of intel's market as you may think. Apple can complain, but they're literally 10% of intel's x64 CPU market in total, and 13" macbook pros or 12" retina macbooks are the majority of that with iMacs probably coming in third.

To make the problem worth, while Apple is a small client of Intel's overall market, but they also utilise a large chunk of Intel's premium CPUs. For instance, the high-tier 28W CPUs with fast GPUs — nobody else uses them but Apple. Computers that belong to the smaller, premium segment of other brands — for Apple, that is standard spec. This puts them into an unfavourable situation — they need a very high supply (in relative terms) of premium CPUs (and that supply is naturally constrained), but they are not that big of a client overall to dictate terms.

They could switch to AMD and get a better GPU for macbooks right now but they'd still face the same problem in trying to direct where AMD goes in the long term.

Switching to AMD would also mean sacrificing the CPU performance, since AMD is still not on par with Intel...
 

davidmartindale

macrumors regular
Jan 28, 2011
234
64
PNW, USA
Switching to AMD would also mean sacrificing the CPU performance, since AMD is still not on par with Intel...

Ehh, the AM4 based Ryzen chips are pretty darn good and the STR4 based Threadripper chips are phenomenal. They are both better in terms of performance per $ than Intel IMO and have good benchmarks to show that.

As far as I know the only Intel chips to beat out Threadripper are the new Core i9s and the Xenons.
 
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leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,153
18,932
Ehh, the AM4 based Ryzen chips are pretty darn good and the STR4 based Threadripper chips are phenomenal. They are both better in terms of performance per $ than Intel IMO and have good benchmarks to show that.

Those are not laptop CPUs, and also, performance per $ is not the only metric. They obviously outbench Intel CPUs in suitable multi-core workflows (since they simply have more cores), but their performance per core (and also per watt) is still below Intel's offerings in comparable configs. They are certainly great chips, just not what Apple is after in the mobile segment.
 

sakabaro

macrumors regular
Feb 24, 2015
153
103
I notice a jump in performance when switching to GPU only on 2017 MacBook Pro 15" (Radeon Pro 560 4096 MB).

Like literally it takes time to draw some UI elements in a heavy graphics webpage on Chrome (Like 2-3s) when with GPU-only it's immediate and butter smooth.

I can't believe I've been working this way for this past 6 months.
 

davidmartindale

macrumors regular
Jan 28, 2011
234
64
PNW, USA
Those are not laptop CPUs, and also, performance per $ is not the only metric. They obviously outbench Intel CPUs in suitable multi-core workflows (since they simply have more cores), but their performance per core (and also per watt) is still below Intel's offerings in comparable configs. They are certainly great chips, just not what Apple is after in the mobile segment.

Fair enough. There are PC laptops that do use them though. Granted they are like 3" thick and have a 45min battery, but they do exist lol.

Also I was just stating that switching to AMD would not necessarily lose performance over Intel in general.

My biggest gripe with Apples HW choices are not using nVidia GPUs, no DDR4 in mobiles, and soldered on SSDs
 

Luigi3

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 11, 2012
107
13
I notice a jump in performance when switching to GPU only on 2017 MacBook Pro 15" (Radeon Pro 560 4096 MB).

Like literally it takes time to draw some UI elements in a heavy graphics webpage on Chrome (Like 2-3s) when with GPU-only it's immediate and butter smooth.

I can't believe I've been working this way for this past 6 months.

See? That's why most of the people didn't notice the problem - they used better GPU(macbook pro 13 integrated, iMac) or never experienced full performance rendering from discrete gpu on 15".

For me, it's a bigger scandal than keyboards.
 
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simonmet

Cancelled
Sep 9, 2012
2,666
3,663
Sydney
See? That's why most of the people didn't notice the problem - they used better GPU(macbook pro 13 integrated, iMac) or never experienced full performance rendering from discrete gpu on 15".

For me, it's a bigger scandal than keyboards.

I was pointing this out as a major concern (for me) when the 2016 Pros first launched, but it didn’t get much traction at the time — at least not compared to all the other changes like the loss of USB-A. It’s one of many things that was either cut or went backwards. Others include:
  • Smaller battery with reduced battery life with high-power loads
  • Loss of optical audio
  • Giant oversized trackpad that gets in the way with imperfect palm rejection
  • Loss of SD card slot
  • Loss of HDMI port
  • Loss of keyboard travel and a loud, obnoxious and breakable keyboard
  • Little to no improvement in CPU perfomance
  • Loss of USB-A leading to dongle-life at least initially (two years later I still don’t own a single USB-C device!)
  • Loss of function keys with tactile feedback
  • Big jump in cost until the 2017 models
It’s not all bad, but the improvements didn’t offset that massive list of regressions. Nonetheless they were:
  • An even faster SSD
  • A somewhat less anaemic video card if you upgraded to the 460/560
  • Wide colour and brighter screen
  • 50% faster Thunderbolt with eGPU support
 
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Luigi3

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 11, 2012
107
13
It’s not all bad, but the improvements didn’t offset that massive list of regressions. Nonetheless they were:
  • An even faster SSD
  • A somewhat less anaemic video card if you upgraded to the 460/560
  • Wide colour and brighter screen
  • 50% faster Thunderbolt with eGPU support

First two are not that really noticable, since:
* APFS slowed down SSDs, startup is much slower so performance is on par with 2015 without APFS or worse
https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2017/20171124_2015-macOS-HighSierra-FileCopySpeed.html
* I've got the 560 but I wish I could replace with slower card but Intel Iris.

So the screen got better, that's it from my point of view.
 
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