YouTuber Claims 15-Inch MacBook Pro With Upgraded Core i9 Chip is Severely Throttled Due to Thermal Issues

[apolloa]

Doesn’t this apply to PC manufacturers as well with this generation of Intel chips? I thought someone said that in an earlier post. I’m not aware Dell’s XPS getting some massive re-engineer for these chips.

Possibly, I guess that also depends on the thermal solutions they use, Razer has some clever ideas and it’s machines are thin, but they also run hot with loud fans.
I think an i9 is really only ever going to comfortably work in a thick laptop giving it room to breath.

 

[jeremiah256]

I’m pretty sure, in less than 24 hours, Apple centric media outlets like MacRumors and iMore will have more information from their own testing. That said, I’m confident that Dave Lee knows what he’s doing and these versions of the MBP are a no go for me, personally.

In the meantime, since I do need a new Mac and looked at the i9, 32GB variations as exactly what I would need to last me up to five years, I need to come up with a plan B, so off to research iMacs and Remote Desktop applications.

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

Dave Lee is not some random guy. His claim warrants further investigation.

LOL....yeah some random well respected YouTuber with 1.4 million subscribers.

Never heard of him. I'm not saying I'm the authority on YouTube Famous, but I've never heard of the guy, 1.4m subs isn't a whole lot, and I find it hard to believe Apple would use a chip that would throttle itself noticeably for the exact reason as mentioned above; bad PR.

 

[alwaysbeincontact]

I think once new software updates are released the speeds will vastly improve.

 

[jgbr]

Power and Portability are a balance.

 

[maflynn]

Never heard of him. I'm not saying I'm the authority on YouTube Famous, but I've never heard of the guy, 1.4m subs isn't a whole lot, and I find it hard to believe Apple would use a chip that would throttle itself noticeably for the exact reason as mentioned above; bad PR.

I really like him, he often has well balanced, meaningful reviews (not just apple reviews), and he's mentioned before that he's an apple fan. I think his YT which provides details, such as Adobe Premiere, is such that its not click bait or anything.
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I think once new software updates are released the speeds will vastly improve.

How? Slow the CPU down (that's what's happening)? We're talking about hardware thermal design, if the CPU is running at sustained speeds, its going to get hot. If the cooling design of an ultra-thin laptop cannot evacuate the heat efficiently there is no software solution available.

 

[apolloa]

I’m pretty sure, in less than 24 hours, Apple centric media outlets like MacRumors and iMore will have more information from their own testing. That said, I’m confident that Dave Lee knows what he’s doing and these versions of the MBP are a no go for me, personally.

In the meantime, since I do need a new Mac and looked at the i9, 32GB variations as exactly what I would need to last me up to five years, I need to come up with a plan B, so off to research iMacs and Remote Desktop applications.

For my use I am thinking of a second hand 2013 Mac Pro and a egpu. Still cost way less then even a 4 core MB Pro! And it’s upgradable and I can fix it myself if anything breaks.

These new Apple laptops are just too expensive and none user reparable for my liking.

 

[JimmyTW87]

To be fair, this isn't so much Apple's fault as it is Intel's. Intel has really dropped the ball in the past couple of years. If they don't right the ship soon, AMD will take over the CPU game for a while. They are late with everything and are having lots of trouble shrinking the dies.

What are you on about mate? It's Apple's job to pair the available CPU's with a suitable thermal solutions. Stop trying to shift the buck and obfuscate, this is Apple's engineering **** up!

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

I really like him, he often has well balanced, meaningful reviews (not just apple reviews), and he's mentioned before that he's an apple fan. I think his YT which provides details, such as Adobe Premiere, is such that its not click bait or anything.

Thank you for the recommendation, I may go check him out after work (if Blizzard doesn't fix their server issues by this evening, that is).

 

[OC40]

I just reordered the 15” with i7/32/512.

I’ll return the i9 this weekend. Saved $276 plus applicable taxes as well or three to four bottle of bourbon for our collection.

 

[bkkcanuck8]

If you don't need it, then don't buy it.

My usage is more humble then most others, so I'm happy with my ordering of the base model

I would also add that if you have ordered it and it is being or has been delivered, give the machine 13 days (just less than 2 weeks) before making a decision on whether to return it or not.

But yes, if your needs are modest and you only really need the 32GB of RAM for VMs or something - the lowest end CPU model should be more than sufficient. Even with the thermal throttling it the 15" Macbook would easily beat my 8-core 2008 Mac Pro... though I don't think I would run the laptop 7/24 at 750% to 800% utilization for 6 months...

 

[rawweb]

The only thing surprising is that the 2018 ended up being slower than 2017 laptops. One explanation is that Premier/Final Cut have 2017 Macbook specific optimizations and they're still working on optimizing it for 2018.

The video doesn't tell us what kind of setup the 2017 was. Let's assume it was the 3.1GHz i7. From my professional experience, the current versions of Adobe for macOS have never seemed to be fully optimized to take advantage of multiple cores. I think that's why the 2017 was able to stay in the game a bit VS the 2.2 i9. I think further testing is warranted, particularly in software better optimized for the environment. FCP, resolve etc. I do wish Adobe made some mac strides with Pr and Ae.

For what it's worth, I have 2 iMac Pro's in the office, and have noticed similar Pr render differences between the faster clocked 8 core and my slower clocked 14 core.

 

[carlos700]

That is clearly not the case. Go read some gaming notebook forums. A lot of companies dumped these 6-core CPU's into their old Skylake / Kaby Lake chassis designs with very poor results.

Same TDP or not, Coffee Lake runs hotter than Kaby Lake.

I can even confirm this on the desktop side of things. I have a Coffee Lake PC I built and the Intel stock cooler barely scraped by (they rarely do) compared to a Haswell PC I built. Added a 3rd party cooling solution and things got a lot better. As for the Radeon Vega 56 card, that thing needs to live in the freezer as well.

Both CPUs were the 65-watt TDP range. Coffee Lake was a good 5-10 C higher than Haswell on the stock cooler.

 

[maflynn]

give the machine 13 days (just less than 2 weeks) before making a decision on whether to return it or not.

Yes and no.

Definitely give it time, don't decide in one day, but certainly spend time with it. I gave my Razer Blade about 10 days before calling for an RMA. I knew more or less by the end of the first week, that I ought to return it, but I hemmed and hawed. I think after a weeks usage, you should know what to do, though everyone is different

 

[bkkcanuck8]

I just reordered the 15” with i7/32/512.

I’ll return the i9 this weekend. Saved $276 plus applicable taxes as well or three to four bottle of bourbon for our collection.

That might buy me 1 bottle of Balvenie Port Wood... (except maybe the Singapore Airport)... Gone are the days it is "affordable"

 

[jeremiah256]

For my use I am thinking of a second hand 2013 Mac Pro and a egpu. Still cost way less then even a 4 core MB Pro! And it’s upgradable and I can fix it myself if anything breaks.

These new Apple laptops are just too expensive and none user reparable for my liking.

Just a heads up: I believe it’s still the case that High Sierra removed the ability of TB1 and TB2 equipped computers (Mac Pro is TB2) to use eGPUs. There are work around, but you may have to worry about software upgrades.

 

[cfdlab]

This guy makes a good point

Apple had to stop selling its defective keyboard models since they accepted they are defective and there also those lawsuits. But they cannot just fix the keyboard, so they slapped on the 8th gen cpus without proper redesign for cooling.

 

[bkkcanuck8]

I can even confirm this on the desktop side of things. I have a Coffee Lake PC I built and the Intel stock cooler barely scraped by (they rarely do) compared to a Haswell PC I built. Added a 3rd party cooling solution and things got a lot better. As for the Radeon Vega 56 card, that thing needs to live in the freezer as well.

Both CPUs were the 65-watt TDP range. Coffee Lake was a good 5-10 C higher than Haswell on the stock cooler.

Yeah, I would always go with the Noctua DH-D15 cooler... (don't want to worry about the hassle of water)... but for some reason laptop makers don't use it

 

[JimmyTW87]

Power and Portability are a balance.

But the balance is shifted FAR too close to the mainstream crowd who care about "thin" than the "Pro" users who want the I/O and performance.

Apple has seriously ****ed up with this new MBP design, imagine paying £6500 for it, what an utter joke that is.

I hope my current MBP lasts a long time because it's fantastic, even if its 5 years old now and "obsolete" SD Card Reader, Quad Core i7, Audio out, Card Reader, Mag Safe, HDMI out.

Buying a new Macbook Pro is a downgrade in literally any area I care about (I'm not a Professional user). To add insult the equivalent quad i7/16gb/512gb is something like £700 MORE expensive than the one i bought in 2013.

All Apple have done is convince me the Surface Book 2 is the way forward.

 

[Vasilioskn]

I’m hoping my 2014 Mac Pro lasts me enough time until I start researching surface books

 

[simonmet]

The i9 is likely faster at responding to burst workloads on a mostly idle machine. Like most “normie” end user notebooks or desktops. UNLIKE most workstation type machines. The type that professionals use....

It's called a MacBook "Pro". It's not a "normie" laptop and certainly isn't priced like one.

 

[0095059]

If anyone’s curious, I believe the A10X chip in the iPad Pro runs at around 30°C.

The Core i5 runs between 50°C - 60°C.

Because 30°C is only 86°F, it’s less than your body temperature which is 37°C / 98.6°F.

So, CPU throttling based on overheating is bifurcated between mobile and desktop, where mobile is designed to prevent skin burns and fires, and desktops are to prevent components from melting or being damaged.

 

[sickpg7]

To be fair, this isn't so much Apple's fault as it is Intel's. Intel has really dropped the ball in the past couple of years. If they don't right the ship soon, AMD will take over the CPU game for a while. They are late with everything and are having lots of trouble shrinking the dies.

Wouldn't it be Apple's fault for designing the chassis, cooling mechanism, and finally choosing to put an i9 inside it?

 

[JimmyTW87]

I just reordered the 15” with i7/32/512.

I’ll return the i9 this weekend. Saved $276 plus applicable taxes as well or three to four bottle of bourbon for our collection.

Good plan, although maybe try some proper whiskey

 

[OC40]

I would also add that if you have ordered it and it is being or has been delivered, give the machine 13 days (just less than 2 weeks) before making a decision on whether to return it or not.

But yes, if your needs are modest and you only really need the 32GB of RAM for VMs or something - the lowest end CPU model should be more than sufficient. Even with the thermal throttling it the 15" Macbook would easily beat my 8-core 2008 Mac Pro... though I don't think I would run the laptop 7/24 at 750% to 800% utilization for 6 months...

2008...impressive!

I am usually not one to overreact, but I went down the rabbit hole of i9’s last night and this morning and I am concerned. I made a last second call without fully researching the i9 when I placed the initial order (something that I never do). My wife even commented on it when I told her that I ordered the i9.

If this was a receiver, headphones, etc, I would absolutely test it through the return period. However, I don’t want to go through that process on a computer.

As Ma said, I really don’t need the i9.