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Intel Portables (Apple) Apple Hardware

Apple Updates Top-End MacBook Pros With Tweaked Keyboard and Faster Processors (theverge.com) 91

Posted by msmash from the new-laptop-lineup dept.
Apple is refreshing its top laptops again by announcing newly updated specs for its 15-inch and 13-inch MacBook Pro models. It's bringing faster Intel processors and some slight changes to the much-maligned keyboard that Apple says should reduce issues. From a report: The biggest changes are coming to the 15-inch model, which is getting Intel's 9th Gen Core processors. The base model now starts with a 2.6GHz, 6-core i7 processor, which can turbo boost up to 4.5GHz. The next-step-up model is getting a 2.3GHz, 8-core i9 processor -- the first ever on a MacBook -- which can turbo boost up to 4.8GHz.

And for those of you who want the most power possible, Apple will also offer a custom top configuration of an even more powerful 8-core i9 chip with a 2.4GHz base speed, which can boost all the way up to 5.0GHz for what Apple calls "the fastest Mac notebook ever." The 13-inch Touch Bar models are getting similar (albeit less exciting) processor refreshes: the base model now comes with a 2.4GHz 8th Gen quad-core i5 processor that can boost to 4.1GHz.
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Apple Updates Top-End MacBook Pros With Tweaked Keyboard and Faster Processors More

Apple Updates Top-End MacBook Pros With Tweaked Keyboard and Faster Processors

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  • Hopefully the new keyboard uses high-temp plastics else they'll have a new class of issues with the high-end model :-)
    Also - it's a Mac-Book, not a Lap-Top - so don't keep it in your lap especially with a high CPU load.

  • Clock speed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheMeuge ( 645043 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @04:56PM (#58632394)

    I'm not sure how any of this is possible as MacBook cooling is inadequate as it is. I am not sure that 8 thermally or power-throttled cores are any better.

    They should increase the thickness by a couple millimeters and improve the thermal management, and that would produce more of a real world improvement than this marketing bullshit.

    • ... and it would give the batteries room to expand without trashing the keyboard or other critical internal parts.

      • Ugh, my battery just screwed up my 2015 model. Of the three guys on my team that had 2015 models, all of us had bloated batteries. Mine just went in for service today, hopefully it's salvageable. My boss's just blew up fast within a week and completely ruined his. What a horrible design!

    • Re: Clock speed (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, but then Apple would be putting functionality as more important than design. Not going to happen.

    • They should increase the thickness by a couple millimeters and improve the thermal management

      You can already buy laptops that are thicker and cooler from companies that are way less profitable than Apple.

      Why should the winner try to be more like the losers?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )

        You can already buy laptops that are thicker and cooler from companies that are way less profitable than Apple.

        Yes, but they make you run Windows 10. So the choice is between crappy hardware and a crappy OS.

      • They should increase the thickness by a couple millimeters and improve the thermal management

        You can already buy laptops that are thicker and cooler from companies that are way less profitable than Apple.

        Why should the winner try to be more like the losers?

        Do provide us with links will you, some of us are in the market for a new laptop.

        • Here you go, way thicker and way better cooling :-P
          https://www.dell.com/en-us/sho... [dell.com]

          But for real, moderately thicker, and the Dell Precisions usually have a cooling system designed to handle the load.
          https://www.dell.com/en-us/wor... [dell.com]

          That's their "thin and light" model, they also have much thicker ones (7520 and 7530) that have 4 DIMM slots and support 128GB of memory, really beefy cooling, and a Quadro P1000.

          • Re:Clock speed (Score:4, Insightful)

            by samwichse ( 1056268 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @01:03PM (#58636850)

            And a side note, the looking at the 7530 manual, replacing the battery is as easy as removing the screws from the bottom, then unscrewing a couple more holding the battery in and unplugging it.

            In fact, the manual starts with a table of every screw size used on what part of the computer.

            The same bottom hatch gives you access to two of the RAM slots, the hard drive, wireless cards, SIM card, all three (!) m.2 hard drive slots.

            The other two ram slots, you have to disconnect the ribbon cables that are also under that hatch, then take the keyboard off (unsnap the trim panel then it's just philips screws) to get to the access hatch on the other side of the mainboard.

            Even the power plug is on a little cable with the actual plug held in with screws so it's easy to replace. The graphics card is a separate daughter card. This is how a "pro" machine should be. Everything glued together and nothing replaceable/upgradeable is consumer toy crap.

            The manual, for your perusal.
            https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pd... [dell.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Why should the winner try to be more like the losers?

        Because the losers are actually making billions of dollars and more market share is always a good thing?

        They could offer a workstation laptop for people who want MacOS and top performance.

    • Re:Clock speed (Score:4, Informative)

      by Wrath0fb0b ( 302444 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @06:27PM (#58632930)

      I'm not sure how any of this is possible as MacBook cooling is inadequate as it is. I am not sure that 8 thermally or power-throttled cores are any better.

      That depends on the specific use case and duty cycle. For example, after the initial clone/build, most of my development flow is short bursts of activity (15-30 seconds to do an incremental build) followed by long periods of relatively lower CPU usage. In this case, I'd expect that higher turbo would be super helpful and the extra heat would easily dissipate between bursts.

      On the other hand, if the use case is rendering video or similar high-duty-cycle tasks, the performance is going to be thermally limited and the only way to improve is better cooling or better perf/watt.

    • Counting cores when talking about thermal management is pointless. The question is what is the sustained IPC per watt, and what is the instantaneous peaks before throttling kicks in. In both cases you will very likely find the highend model gives you real world speed improvements especially due to the lower base clock.

    • Apple now is more about specs than performance. The price to spec ratio has just gone down. But you're right: thermal throttling will mean that performance is unimproved.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by edwdig ( 47888 )

      Modern laptop clock speeds are about bursts.

      The CPU tends to be at a low ( 2 ghz) clock speed when idle or under very light load.

      When the workload increases, you've got two levels of boost power available. A higher level boost for short loads, and a lower level one for sustained. The laptop can stay in the higher level boost for a short time - say 30 says, after which it drops to the lower level boost to avoid overheating.

      The high level boost is great for a lot of workloads. If you're opening a big program,

  • Removable SSD? Removable RAM? Battery not glued? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Tuesday May 21, 2019 @05:08PM (#58632470)
    Removable SSD? Removable RAM? Battery not glued in? No? Then these no-books are still a downgrade over stuff made before 2013. Apple has turned into a real shitshow under Tim Cook.

    • For you maybe. For everyone else that doesn't have your specific hardware criteria it's an upgrade. Fortunately there's more than one company on the market. Feel free to buy something from someone else.

  • Can we tweak that back to a Model M [wikipedia.org]?

  • Turbo to 4.8ghz for 6 seconds then throttled (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Too many laptop manufacturers are shoving VERY hot chips in laptops without adequate cooling. In turn they thermal throttle like crazy and are out performed in cpu intensive tasks by cpus far less 'powerful' but simply don't thermal throttle thus keeping higher clocks.
    Anybody that buys an i9 laptop that isn't the size of a briefcase is simply throwing their money away to get a number 9 instead of a 7.

  • Most customers aren't complaining... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I like how Apple claims most customers are not complaining about the keyboards. Well, I'm not a customer any more because of them. They went from having by far the best keyboard of any laptop to having the worst. I cannot type on their current keyboards. The feel of them is horrendous (I have one for work, so I do have experience despite not upgrading my persona late 2012 macbook pro). The trackpads used to be the best as well. The new ones plain suck. I'd give up all the slimming down they've done t

  • As a long time purchaser of all things Apple and Mac, starting with my SE20, Powerbooks, G4s..and last, a 17" MacBook Pro, ala 2011, it's come to an end. Even though the updates had stopped for a perfectly serviceable MacBook, I used it daily. Then one night, I spilled wine in the keyboard. It would cost a bunch to just bring it back to life. I could buy a used one, but in the end, the new OSes were not being produced for this i7 machine. Ridiculous. I looked at the 15 inch, but my old eyes just can't

    • As a long time purchaser of all things Apple and Mac, starting with my SE20 [...]

      ...you mean the SE/30 [wikipedia.org]?

      I looked at the 15 inch, but my old eyes just can't handle the display anymore. Increasing pixel density is something I don't care about. I just wanted a larger screen that I could read.

      I know that feeling--I had the same thing when they dropped the 17". My antique 2010 MacBook Pro is still chugging along quite happily.

      That said, I use a 15" MacBook Pro at work and these old eyes don't have any problems.

      One reason, of course, is you can set the size. Yeah, if I use the "Max resolution" to get my 1920 x 1200, it can be tough to read. But I find that one notch lower (1680 x 1050?) gives me a decent amount of real estate and I can read what's on it.

      Second, I attach ex

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by yusing ( 216625 )

      I started with a IIsi in the early 1990s. Moved on to a Power clone that lasted 7 years, no problems. Decided to try another Mac, a 2006 iMac. It arrived (from the Apple Store) with a wonky hard drive (kept losing the partitions). Then, a month after the warranty ran out, I became one of thousands whose displays developed colored vertical stripes over a quarter of the screen. Apple ignored us.

      Never bought another one. It was a shitshow LONG before Cook arrived.

  • I always wonder what they mean, cores or hyperthreads?
    My 14" MacBook air has an i7 with 2 cores (which displays activity of 4 cores, aka hyperthreads), the article is about an 6 core i7 ... so is that 3 cores with hyperthreading making it look like 6 or is it really 6 cores which then can run 12 hyperthreads? Intel web site looks like 12 threads.

    Anyway, more meaningful names or "type specifications" would be helpful. If you look at Intels web site: there are dozens of i7's etc.
    https://ark.intel.com/content/ [intel.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      the article is about an 6 core i7 ... so is that 3 cores with hyperthreading making it look like 6 or is it really 6 cores which then can run 12 hyperthreads?

      Do you seriously think there is a three-core i7 processor?

      • I mean, AMD used to sell 3-core Phenom processors (IIRC quads where one core didn't pass muster and was disabled). It seems like a good way to get rid of stock that would otherwise be a loss. Some revenue is better than none.

        But I've never heard of Intel doing this.

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