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

[geromi912]

then where is your outrage when the iPhone throttles when I'm at the beach in the summer recording 4k60 video for 5 minutes.

Comparing the two? Are you for real?

 

[macpcf]

I find this whole last few months of negative apple news fascinating. Apple has a HUGE or did, R&D budget. They employed some of the most ground breaking engineers and coders. They do everything in house from the OS to the design of every single goddamn piece of their hardware. Apple die hard’s can’t get it through their skulls. You can blame Intel, you can say it was the “whiner” crowd demanding big updates so Apple “rushed” to make them happy, you can blame everyone and call ALL of the pc evidence junk and upcropping evidence that it is happening inmacs a lie. You can claim Apple just didn’t know better. Right.
Right now Apple has nothing left. They slammed this i9 into a preexisting housing, that already failed at providing consistent pro level production performance. They have not redesigned anything, they haven’t even redesigned the wheel. They don’t have anything left. Face it, they have become a boutique media company that sells consumption devices. Very very very expensive consumption devices. Look at the internals of these computers. Look at the iPads, the MacBooks. Unless they very significantly change things up or do some seriously dynamic reengineering ain’t nothing gonna get better. And that sucks. DD

I was a windows laptop user for years. Hated apple and never thought about buying one because i thought they are overpriced. However, I received a 2015 macbook pro for my work. Initially, i was skeptical about the change, but loved it since then. I was impressed with the build quality and the reliability of the laptop. I finally understood why people are attracted to their ecosystem. I know there are people who defend whatever apple says blindly, but i know a lot of people who like apple's ecosystem because of the quality and the experience of their products. I had many issues with windows laptops, but with apple not so far. Maybe I am lucky. However, I personally think they screwed up with the latest touch bar models obsessing over thinness. I want to update my laptop because i must return my current macbook pro. I looked into other windows models like dell xps 15 and aero 15x. Though their specs are better, they have serious quality control issues. 2/5 laptops have some kind of a issue, which i don't want to get into. At this moment, I hope there is a better replacement for macbook pro, a quality replacement, which is harder to find.

 

[Martius]

I find this whole last few months of negative apple news fascinating. Apple has a HUGE or did, R&D budget. They employed some of the most ground breaking engineers and coders. They do everything in house from the OS to the design of every single goddamn piece of their hardware. Apple die hard’s can’t get it through their skulls. You can blame Intel, you can say it was the “whiner” crowd demanding big updates so Apple “rushed” to make them happy, you can blame everyone and call ALL of the pc evidence junk and upcropping evidence that it is happening inmacs a lie. You can claim Apple just didn’t know better. Right.
Right now Apple has nothing left. They slammed this i9 into a preexisting housing, that already failed at providing consistent pro level production performance. They have not redesigned anything, they haven’t even redesigned the wheel. They don’t have anything left. Face it, they have become a boutique media company that sells consumption devices. Very very very expensive consumption devices. Look at the internals of these computers. Look at the iPads, the MacBooks. Unless they very significantly change things up or do some seriously dynamic reengineering ain’t nothing gonna get better. And that sucks. DD

The orchestra is nothing without a great conductor. Same applies for engineering team. Tim Cook might be good in marketing, but Apple needs a great "product guy" in their lead, because the products was the thing that got Apple to the place where it is. I think "average" person is not stupid. At the beginning people were not buying iPhones / Macbooks just because the brand, but because the phones / computers were different / better than others. But right now other manufacturers are able to produce high quality phones / computers for half the price and without a strong product guy, Apple will eventually lose their momentum. It might take another 5 years, but I'm sure it could (will) happen.

From my personal experience my work is much better with a great project manager. I develop mostly e-commerce websites and I want to focus only on the development. But with a bad project manager I have to also do a lot of additional work which has nothing to do with development and it is always pissing me off.

 

[FrozenDarkness]

The orchestra is nothing without a great conductor. Same applies for engineering team. Tim Cook might be good in marketing, but Apple needs a great "product guy" in their lead, because the products was the thing that got Apple to the place where it is. I think "average" person is not stupid. At the beginning people were not buying iPhones / Macbooks just because the brand, but because the phones / computers were different / better than others. But right now other manufacturers are able to produce high quality phones / computers for half the price and without a strong product guy, Apple will eventually lose their momentum. It might take another 5 years, but I'm sure it could (will) happen.

From my personal experience my work is much better with a great project manager. I develop mostly e-commerce websites and I want to focus only on the development. But with a bad project manager I have to also do a lot of additional work which has nothing to do with development and it is always pissing me off.

Apples last great designer loved thin and light as well.

 

[bkkcanuck8]

Apples last great designer loved thin and light as well.

If you don't care about battery life, and you don't care about thin and light... just get a shoulder pouch for an iMac Pro and there you have it... the perfect portable professional machine.

 

[Martius]

Apples last great designer loved thin and light as well.

I love thin & light too, but everything has its limits. I love the difference between non-retina MBP & rMBP... but the thickness difference between rMBP and 2016+ rMBP is not really making that much difference but brings a lot of compromises. Sometimes common sense is the best designer.

I doubt that "the last great designer" would allow that.

 

[FrozenDarkness]

I love thin & light too, but everything has its limits. I love the difference between non-retina MBP & rMBP... but the thickness difference between rMBP and 2016+ rMBP is not really making that much difference but brings a lot of compromises. Sometimes common sense is the best designer.

I doubt that "the last great designer" would allow that.

I think you should separate out compromises with deterioration of quality. Apple products have always had compromises but has high standards for quality. I am disappointed about the throttling and keyboard issues.

Butt never forget antenna gate happened under Steve jobs watch and your holding it wrong

 

[sammy2066]

There is so much wrong with Apple right now (across the board), I don't even know where to begin.

 

[iLLUMI]

ThrottleGate.

ThrottleGate
ThermalGate
AppleGate

All of the above?

 

[0009827]

The fans always run at about 60% even if you cant hear them, just FYI.

2014 rmbp Apple default = idle is about 1300 rpm
Max fan speed = 6199 rpm

Your math is bad.

 

[Val-kyrie]

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Dave2D bashes all kinds of Windows/Android/Chromebook products all the time, and I've seen him praise Apple in many videos for build quality and support. He is straight forward with his disclaimers when reviewing products as to whether he was sent a demo unit etc. Many people consider him a trustworthy and non-biased source of tech information.

I seriously doubt he's going to jeopardize his reputation by faking the real-time test results that we see in the video (if that's what you're insinuating). I'm sure lots of other people will now try to reproduce the tests, so we can wait and see if they have similar results. If so, this is pretty damning for the i9 mac pro.

I hope Lisa of MobileTechReview would release her review soon.

Here you go

The same test results attained by Dave2D were attained by Lisa at MobileTechReview:

If you want to skip straight to her discussion of the i9, fast forward to 11:59.

BTW I don't understand all of you who are bashing D2D. He recommends the MBP but criticizes the i9 configuration. That is not the mark of someone who hates Apple.
[doublepost=1531989695][/doublepost]

I'd say so.

I'm returning the the 2.6/16/512 model I bought and replacing it with the 2.2/16/512 version.

I think the 2.6 i7 is probably the sweet spot. It is a shame since the i9 has 3MB more of L3 cache as well as the 300 MHz higher base clock speed.

The wiki entry for the touchbar MBP generation breaks down all the specs in good detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro#Technical_specifications_4

Lisa over at MobileTechReview recommends the i7 2.6GHz as the sweet spot for current CPUs.

 

[Ifti]

So for users who purchase the i9 - generally its a faster CPU, we know that. But it throttles under 100% utilisation.

So, for a typical FCPX user, for example, while editing and rendering short clips etc, wouldn't the i9 still perform better (especially if using a fan control software like that mentioned in the above video) and it would then throttle when exporting the final video only since that's when it will hit high utilisation for a longer period of time??

Or do I have it wrong?

 

[throAU]

Look at the internals of these computers. Look at the iPads, the MacBooks. Unless they very significantly change things up or do some seriously dynamic reengineering ain’t nothing gonna get better. And that sucks. DD

I agree, however the iPads Pros are pretty amazing devices. They just aren't suitable for high end work.

It does make me wonder if Apple's "solution" to this problem will be to just continue down the road with this Macbook pro chassis, but stuff an in-house developed CPU/GPU solution in it that runs cooler.

That will annoy a huge amount of pro users who want intel compatibility for various reasons, but it wouldn't surprise me.
[doublepost=1531990968][/doublepost]

I was a windows laptop user for years. Hated apple and never thought about buying one because i thought they are overpriced. However, I received a 2015 macbook pro for my work. Initially, i was skeptical about the change, but loved it since then. I was impressed with the build quality and the reliability of the laptop. I finally understood why people are attracted to their ecosystem. I know there are people who defend whatever apple says blindly, but i know a lot of people who like apple's ecosystem because of the quality and the experience of their products. I had many issues with windows laptops, but with apple not so far. Maybe I am lucky. However, I personally think they screwed up with the latest touch bar models obsessing over thinness. I want to update my laptop because i must return my current macbook pro. I looked into other windows models like dell xps 15 and aero 15x. Though their specs are better, they have serious quality control issues. 2/5 laptops have some kind of a issue, which i don't want to get into. At this moment, I hope there is a better replacement for macbook pro, a quality replacement, which is harder to find.

The 2015s are the last good machines IMHO. But that only applies if you bought a big enough/powerful enough configuration. If you want to expand them you're screwed.

The 2011-2012 pre-retina models were better in that respect, albeit without the same quality screen. It was a WAY better screen than the Airs though. I wish my 2011 still worked. It could take 16 GB of RAM and i can stuff as big an SSD in it as I like. Plus a spinning drive in the old optical bay if i want.
[doublepost=1531991206][/doublepost]

So for users who purchase the i9 - generally its a faster CPU, we know that. But it throttles under 100% utilisation.

So, for a typical FCPX user, for example, while editing and rendering short clips etc, wouldn't the i9 still perform better (especially if using a fan control software like that mentioned in the above video) and it would then throttle when exporting the final video only since that's when it will hit high utilisation for a longer period of time??

Or do I have it wrong?

Yes, an i9 will be faster for workloads where you aren't smashing the CPU at 100% for long periods. But those "long periods" don't really have to be very long.

Also bear in mind that one of the guys in one of these threads who claims to have good news on the issue by turning fan speed up was only in a 77F/25C ambient environment. Good luck if you're anywhere hotter than that.

Good luck when the thermal paste is past its best, the intake vents aren't 100% clean, etc.

Also, good luck if you're stressing the CPU and GPU at the same time!

These things are throttling under repeated cinebench CPU only benchmarks if I'm not mistaken. Throw a discrete GPU worth of heat in the mix (if it is doing something that happens to stress both components, like say - AR, running a game, etc.) and whoah...

 

[shadowmatt]

All their high end laptops throttle and have for years. Each new generation comes with a smaller case and less cooling.

Each new generation suffers from heat related issues which shortens their lifespan.

Each generation people recommend editing the fan profiles.

Each generation is included in a repair program to fix heat related issues.

When will Apple learn.

 

[throAU]

All their high end laptops throttle and have for years. Each new generation comes with a smaller case and less cooling.

Each new generation suffers from heat related issues which shortens their lifespan.

Each generation people recommend editing the fan profiles.

Each generation is included in a repair program to fix heat related issues.

When will Apple learn.

This is exactly the reason I went for a 13" last time around. The integrated GPU and 35 watt CPU is actually capable of mostly running within the thermal constraints in that chassis.

Anything that needs more grunt than my 13" can run is better off on a desktop. Like the one in my sig. That I built for less than Apple want to charge me for a 5 year old 6 core Mac Pro.

 

[Donoban]

The entire point of my post apparently flew way over your head. There was NO NEED for an i9 in this enclosure. People would have been plenty happy with the latest i7. Apple could have dodged this bullet altogether.

The i9 has blown way over your head.

There is a need for the i9, regardless of the enclosure.

That's why they released it.

Pro users aren't happy with just an i7.

More RAM more CPU more STORAGE.

Yeah baby!

 

[Mydel]

Two things

1) apple screwed up, shouldve known that these chips would throttle hard for pro users
2) 90% of you guys are not pro users/even interested in getting the i9.

Define who is a Pro user. I use my laptops for everything and like to have a capacity to run whatever I need at the moment. So what category am I? And I still was aiming at getting i9. Not happening now.

 

[asiga]

As much as I have been bashing Apple these years (they really deserve it), however I disagree with this one. It's very good to see Apple putting 32GB RAM and more than usual numbers of cores in the MBP. Not that I consider the MBP perfect, though (it should have NVIDIA GPU for that), but I think the current MBP update is in the right direction.

Moreover, powering up the MBP in specs, leaves room for lighter and quiter MacBooks to exist with display sizes larger than 12'', so I'm really applauding Apple at the new MBP update, and I'm not joining this rant. I really wish a very light MacBook larger than 12'' to come into reality.

This doesn't mean that I quit bashing Apple. They deserve to be criticized, for neglecting the Mac, for controlling your life through iOS, and for running a political party instead of a computer company.

 

[Michael Goff]

I wonder how much of this is Apple and how much of this is the fact that the i9 could heat a house during winter time?

 

[swingerofbirch]

Those are dangerous temps for an acdc transformer of that type and class.

When I was under AppleCare, Apple would replace my adapters because they would always get a melty look and eventually expose wire underneath close to the actual computer. The cable also turns a weird color of yellow. I called them about this last one even after AppleCare expired because it seemed like a safety issue. They absolutely refused to replace. So I started using my sister's old MagSafe one power adapter and bought Apple's magsafe 1 to magsafe 2 adapter. That metal adapter gets singeing hot. Like I wince if the magsafe accidentally unplugs and hits my arm. There's definitely something wrong. It's plugged into a surge protector that says it's grounded properly. I know this adapter will fail as well, as they did continuously when I was under AppleCare.

It looks like other people have similar issues:

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/...daptermacbook-pro-with-13-inch-retina-display

 

[asiga]

I love thin & light too, but everything has its limits.

The problem is that Apple mistakenly positioned the MBP as "the Mac laptop of choice". That's a mistake, because there are two different needs: extreme lightness at sizes larger than 12'' (what the MacBook should be if they had properly updated the MBA into a 14'' ultralight MacBook these years). And extreme power with a heavier form factor (what the MBP should be).

By not updating the MBA these years, they have been moving the MBP more and more into the MBA area. I hope that newer MacBooks will regain the larger than 12'' ecosystem, and so put the MBP where it belongs: extreme performance rather than MBA form factor.

 

[belvdr]

I wonder how much of this is Apple and how much of this is the fact that the i9 could heat a house during winter time?

Apple knew this going in and made the choice around thermal characteristics of the chassis. I'm not sure how this was the issue of any other entity.

 

[OC40]

Interesting theory on the correlation between gpu heavy tasks and the cpu.

https://twitter.com/jfpoole/status/1019823024747483136?s=21

 

[Michael Goff]

Apple knew this going in and made the choice around thermal characteristics of the chassis. I'm not sure how this was the issue of any other entity.

This is an issue in almost every laptop the i9 is in, though.

 

[jgbr]

The i9 has the same thermal output as the top processor in the 2017 model. If you believe the i9 is too hot then you have to believe the top of the line i7 in the 2017 was too.

Never really had an issue with the HQ
[doublepost=1531997359][/doublepost]So conclusion the cooling can’t deal with 6cores.

The end. Lol