2018 i5 quad core MacBook Pro 13” throttling?

[CodeJoy]

These machines haven't been for "pro" users for a while now. TBH besides a persons preference of OS and Final cut pro generally speaking a Windows machine can probably do it better. There is a video by Austin Evans and while he was comparing the 2018 15 i9 to a 2016 P70. Dollar for dollar a P52 has the same cpu with a better GPU but with a slower HDD and 8GB of RAM compared to the base level 15 inch. Comparing to the 13 inch MacBook Pro the differences is even bigger. You'll get better GPU performance with similar CPU specs and for less money.


The P52 is $1,749.99
2018 15 inch $2,399.99


Even comparing the P52 to the lowest base 2018 13 the price is $1,799.99

When you just compare specs per dollar, the Apple laptops are pretty awful value for money. If it were just for that, their market share would probably be small to none. However, when you widen the context a bit, there are people who find that they are more productive on Apple laptops. I'm in this category myself, and this is what actually ends up making a MBP a better value than a Windows laptop. Once you can start improving productivity, you don't actually have to improve it a lot at all to compensate for the higher price. If it weren't for this, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be opting for Apple. I rejected Apple computers for a very long time, and I would be quick to move away as soon as it doesn't deliver what I'm looking for. But currently, for me, it's really the best value for money when you look at it in a wider context. I will admit though that with their current pricing it's pretty close to the point where I say screw it.

The whole "pro or not pro" argument is getting pretty stale though. Think of it as in Playstation Pro, it's not really meant to say intended for corporate users, it's mostly a brand name to differentiate the higher end line.
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Jokes aside, that situation seems pretty bad in stress tests. However, I think in a lot of different real world scenarios, like photo editing, where you only need the full speed a few seconds at a time, I think the performance advantage of these new models over the older ones will be very noticeable.

It's just with task which continuously use the CPU where the throttling is going to be an issue, like rendering tasks or even exporting a lot of photos at once. Still pretty bad, but at least it won't impact most of my workflow.

Yes, exactly this. Modern CPUs have been optimised for short bursts of really high performance, with longer periods of really low power usage in between. This is true for desktops, but even more so on laptops. And this happens because Intel are aligning the performance of their CPUs to the workloads that people are actually using. This is going to fit the majority of users quite well.

This is also where the mad desire for 15% extra performance becomes quite silly, along with the overdone outrage over the throttling. If you're getting 15% extra performance 1% of the time that you actually burst the CPU to max, that's just not really translating into a whole lot of value overall. And if it's only throttling the 1% of the time that you actually burst the CPU, then is it really something to be all that upset about? The conclusion is of course that the CPU upgrades are completely not worth it for most users. There will be exceptions, but those who are in the exception probably know it.

And quite frankly, if someone has large computational needs, get that computing power in a desktop, an own server, or a cloud server if any of those options work for you. And for the small minority who really do need the computing power in a laptop -- just don't get an Apple laptop, it won't be the best tool for the job.

At the end of the day, I bet most people use 1% or less of the total processing power available to them in personal computers. Most of the time the computer is waiting for human input. Upgrade the human first

 

[Nozuka]

Except Apple claims large performance BOOSTS for the higher core count MBPs (4-core 13"; 6-core 15") on their website. You shouldn't have to research a product to find out if it is deceptive or not before buying; it should go without saying that you should not be deceived in the first place!

Well to be fair, there really is a big performance boost compared to last years MBP. Even if it can't hold the frequency at the same constant level as last year, it's still doing more because it got double the cores.

It's just disappointing compared to some of the competition, especially considering the price.

(i9 might be a different story, but this topic is about the 13'')

 

[RobbieTT]

I too am interested to see the difference between the i5 and i7 on the 13". Upgrading to the i7 is a significant price increase.
At the moment if the i7 is going to be throttled I'm thinking the;
i5/16GB/512GB config - thoughts?

Planning for the machine to get me 4+ years of use, light trans-coding/Photoshop and multiple virtual machines.

Similar usage to mine and I have the i5/16GB/512GB on order. To me the price, spec and performance makes it a very good machine. If efforts are made to tweak the i7 & i9 issues they may trickle down to the i5 in future firmware updates too.

 

[RobbieTT]

A colleague and I have been testing his base 13" i5 overnight. The final results are similar to others so the tests are repeatable. The 13" i5 can (just) make it to its claimed boost cpu frequency. The more encouraging result is that its max-continuous frequency averages above the claimed 2.3GHz, running closer to an average of 2.5GHz whilst bouncing around at its thermal limit.

We are still talking small sample sizes but it makes the performance claims look even more inconsistent across the 8th gen MBPs. The new i5 in the MBP works better than spec, the i7 runs close(ish) to spec at base but short at burst and the i9 bares little or no resemblance to its claimed performance levels.

 

[Poki]

A colleague and I have been testing his base 13" i5 overnight. The final results are similar to others so the tests are repeatable. The 13" i5 can (just) make it to its claimed boost cpu frequency. The more encouraging result is that its max-continuous frequency averages above the claimed 2.3GHz, running closer to an average of 2.5GHz whilst bouncing around at its thermal limit.

2.5 GHz across all four cores looks quite good to me, should give a very nice performance increase over last years 13" MacBook Pro. Burst performance should be great too, I'm excited to see how actual work performance will feel compared to my other Macs.

 

[Rasta4i]

2.5 GHz across all four cores looks quite good to me, should give a very nice performance increase over last years 13" MacBook Pro. Burst performance should be great too, I'm excited to see how actual work performance will feel compared to my other Macs.

Please let me know how you get on with yours. At the moment I’m caught between i5 13” and base i7 15” I know they’re very different machines but I need to know how these work to decide the best route to choose.

 

[Closingracer]

When you just compare specs per dollar, the Apple laptops are pretty awful value for money. If it were just for that, their market share would probably be small to none. However, when you widen the context a bit, there are people who find that they are more productive on Apple laptops. I'm in this category myself, and this is what actually ends up making a MBP a better value than a Windows laptop. Once you can start improving productivity, you don't actually have to improve it a lot at all to compensate for the higher price. If it weren't for this, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be opting for Apple. I rejected Apple computers for a very long time, and I would be quick to move away as soon as it doesn't deliver what I'm looking for. But currently, for me, it's really the best value for money when you look at it in a wider context. I will admit though that with their current pricing it's pretty close to the point where I say screw it.

The whole "pro or not pro" argument is getting pretty stale though. Think of it as in Playstation Pro, it's not really meant to say intended for corporate users, it's mostly a brand name to differentiate the higher end line.
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Yes, exactly this. Modern CPUs have been optimised for short bursts of really high performance, with longer periods of really low power usage in between. This is true for desktops, but even more so on laptops. And this happens because Intel are aligning the performance of their CPUs to the workloads that people are actually using. This is going to fit the majority of users quite well.

This is also where the mad desire for 15% extra performance becomes quite silly, along with the overdone outrage over the throttling. If you're getting 15% extra performance 1% of the time that you actually burst the CPU to max, that's just not really translating into a whole lot of value overall. And if it's only throttling the 1% of the time that you actually burst the CPU, then is it really something to be all that upset about? The conclusion is of course that the CPU upgrades are completely not worth it for most users. There will be exceptions, but those who are in the exception probably know it.

And quite frankly, if someone has large computational needs, get that computing power in a desktop, an own server, or a cloud server if any of those options work for you. And for the small minority who really do need the computing power in a laptop -- just don't get an Apple laptop, it won't be the best tool for the job.

At the end of the day, I bet most people use 1% or less of the total processing power available to them in personal computers. Most of the time the computer is waiting for human input. Upgrade the human first

And this is why it’s not for “pro” users. A lot of people assume just by name these days. With everything being equal and you don’t care for the OS windows is better for professionals these days. I myself love macOS and prefer it over windows . I did have a windows machine but it was because it was superior for gaming for which I rarely do now so I sold it. Whatever gaming I do is available on Mac.

 

[The Mercurian]

2.5 GHz across all four cores looks quite good to me, should give a very nice performance increase over last years 13" MacBook Pro. Burst performance should be great too, I'm excited to see how actual work performance will feel compared to my other Macs.

Curious to here your impressions on this too - although I suspect for many daily tasks the disk speed will make as much difference as cpu speed ? Or maybe disk speed is not so different from last years. I'm on a 2014 SSD I'd say there is a huge differene

 

[CodeJoy]

And this is why it’s not for “pro” users. A lot of people assume just by name these days. With everything being equal and you don’t care for the OS windows is better for professionals these days. I myself love macOS and prefer it over windows . I did have a windows machine but it was because it was superior for gaming for which I rarely do now so I sold it. Whatever gaming I do is available on Mac.

Well then you must quickly tell everyone who's using a MBP professionally to stop, because they're clearly breaking your "pro" rules.

 

[Closingracer]

Well then you must quickly tell everyone who's using a MBP professionally to stop, because they're clearly breaking your "pro" rules.

Lol you’re taking this way over the top are you ? I’m simply talking dollars to dollar without preferences of OS. If you want more proof just look at the touch bar. I’m not arguing preferences or anything else.

 

[aknabi]

Here's a review that discusses the throttling in English
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-13-2018-Touch-Bar-i5-Laptop-Review.316648.0.html

A key takeaway from that nice link:
"We will investigate further, but it seems Coffee Lake-U is just not as efficient as Kaby Lake-R. This is obviously not just Apple's problem, but Intel is to blame as well. This begs the question why the new 28W models are not based on Kaby Lake-R. All in all, the new MacBook Pro 13 is faster than the old previous 2017 model, but some Windows devices are faster with supposedly slower CPUs. The advantage of the optional Core i7 should be very small, and it might even be slower than the i5 due to higher temperatures (especially under sustained workloads)"

I was about to pull the trigger on both a new 6-core i9 15 and quad i7 13 (used as my travel/cafe/backup machine)... but given what we're seeing I think it's wise for folks who do need sustained performance to hang in there and wait until Cannonlake (which is 10nm and last I recall was based on Kaby Lake)... and would have LPDDR4. But just the process bump should bring down the power/temps (not to mention Apple hopefully will have done some more optimization).

I'm going to check with my friend who was a senior processor architect at Intel until he retired recently if he has any advice at least on the processor side (as a side note - he got sick on the nonsense politics there... Intel could be running much more smoothly - many of their issues are self-inflicted due to politics and games).

 

[ofarlig]

Lol you’re taking this way over the top are you ? I’m simply talking dollars to dollar without preferences of OS. If you want more proof just look at the touch bar. I’m not arguing preferences or anything else.

Actual pro users won't care about dollars to dollar, doesn't matter if the laptop is 1k or 6k for a pro user as they make that money back in no time.

 

[CodeJoy]

Lol you’re taking this way over the top are you ? I’m simply talking dollars to dollar without preferences of OS. If you want more proof just look at the touch bar. I’m not arguing preferences or anything else.

You're not arguing anything, you're just blurting random meaningless statements. You can go waste someone else's time now, I'm done here.

 

[Closingracer]

Actual pro users won't care about dollars to dollar, doesn't matter if the laptop is 1k or 6k for a pro user as they make that money back in no time.

And time is money. As I said if a person doesn’t care about OS windows is becoming the better choice. Apple isn’t catering to the professionals like they used to. As much as I like the touch bar it is clearly a gimmick.

 

[ofarlig]

And time is money. As I said if a person doesn’t care about OS windows is becoming the better choice. Apple isn’t catering to the professionals like they used to. As much as I like the touch bar it is clearly a gimmick.

Better choice for certain pro users yes, I cannot use OS X for work since I do a lot of number crunching with Microsoft software. If I was purely developing for non Microsoft software I would most likely prefer OS X for work as well. For my personal use and side business I use OS X because it just works better. For my gaming needs I use Windows for the same reason.

 

[Poki]

Curious to here your impressions on this too - although I suspect for many daily tasks the disk speed will make as much difference as cpu speed ? Or maybe disk speed is not so different from last years. I'm on a 2014 SSD I'd say there is a huge differene

I'm a professional graphic designer and a semi professional photographer, and most of my work needs fast CPU speeds in bursts, but rarely in sustained loads. For example, if I edit a photo and pull the contrast slider to the right, I want to get a preview instantly, which needs a very fast CPU on these large RAW files, but it shouldn't need it longer than a few seconds. Same for complex photoshop filters, which sometimes take some seconds to apply - but not long enough that throttling should become an issue. So I'm interested to see if this works as good for me as I hope.

 

[Closingracer]

Better choice for certain pro users yes, I cannot use OS X for work since I do a lot of number crunching with Microsoft software. If I was purely developing for non Microsoft software I would most likely prefer OS X for work as well. For my personal use and side business I use OS X because it just works better. For my gaming needs I use Windows for the same reason.

I don’t disagree but my point still stands though. Apple isn’t catering then fully and going after the premium mass market route really. If you’re spending $4,000 on a 15 MacBook Pro with a 4TB SSD and an Intel i9 then it shouldn’t be throttling even under base clock speeds quickly yet at all. I am all for USB C but taking away the SD card slot and USB type A ports is not a pro friendly idea. They are going thinner for the sake of saying they can at the expense of performance. If they increased thickness and didn’t do anything else the throttling issue would be a little less worse.

 

[Closingracer]

I'm a professional graphic designer and a semi professional photographer, and most of my work needs fast CPU speeds in bursts, but rarely in sustained loads. For example, if I edit a photo and pull the contrast slider to the right, I want to get a preview instantly, which needs a very fast CPU on these large RAW files, but it shouldn't need it longer than a few seconds. Same for complex photoshop filters, which sometimes take some seconds to apply - but not long enough that throttling should become an issue. So I'm interested to see if this works as good for me as I hope.

On most of these MacBooks your use case isn’t an issue. But on the Intel i9 on the 15 it’s throttling pretty quickly according to some

 

[ofarlig]

I don’t disagree but my point still stands though. Apple isn’t catering then fully and going after the premium mass market route really. If you’re spending $4,000 on a 15 MacBook Pro with a 4TB SSD and an Intel i9 then it shouldn’t be throttling even under base clock speeds quickly yet at all. I am all for USB C but taking away the SD card slot and USB type A ports is not a pro friendly idea. They are going thinner for the sake of saying they can at the expense of performance. If they increased thickness and didn’t do anything else the throttling issue would be a little less worse.

Think you are in the wrong thread if you want to talk Intel i9, there are multiple others that discuss that with varied results. But no, going under base clock should never happen.

As for USB C and SD card readers I don't see the problem, SD readers are only usable to some of the pro users and they can be using an external reader. USB-C is only different in the shape of the port so all that is needed is a difference cable. USB-C with thunderbolt 3 will on the other hand make it possible for pro users to get a much better setup due to the connectors versatility (one cable docking and so on).

 

[Closingracer]

Think you are in the wrong thread if you want to talk Intel i9, there are multiple others that discuss that with varied results. But no, going under base clock should never happen.

As for USB C and SD card readers I don't see the problem, SD readers are only usable to some of the pro users and they can be using an external reader. USB-C is only different in the shape of the port so all that is needed is a difference cable. USB-C with thunderbolt 3 will on the other hand make it possible for pro users to get a much better setup due to the connectors versatility (one cable docking and so on).

I was using the Intel i9 as more of a reference. At these prices there shouldn’t be throttling issues specially with the i9 which does go below base according to some.

As far as your second point the dongle life is stupid specially if your mobile. I in no way want to be carrying dongles for everything if I’m at Starbucks or even in the office when you don’t “need” to relatively. Since I really don’t need to plug in anything it’s not an issue for myself but it’s not something that’s great.

 

[ofarlig]

I was using the Intel i9 as more of a reference. At these prices there shouldn’t be throttling issues specially with the i9 which does go below base according to some.

As far as your second point the dongle life is stupid specially if your mobile. I in no way want to be carrying dongles for everything if I’m at Starbucks or even in the office when you don’t “need” to relatively. Since I really don’t need to plug in anything it’s not an issue for myself but it’s not something that’s great.

I never said to use dongles for everything. I said use USB-C cables for anything that needs USB. The same way I am not using a micro-usb to lightning dongle for my iPhone I wouldn't use USB-C to USB-A dongles either.

 

[Closingracer]

I never said to use dongles for everything. I said use USB-C cables for anything that needs USB. The same way I am not using a micro-usb to lightning dongle for my iPhone I wouldn't use USB-C to USB-A dongles either.

Because there is many of those ....

 

[ofarlig]

Because there is many of those ....

Of what? I am using USB-C to whatever cables all day long, never use a dongle for anything.

 

[joelhinch]

Has anyone actually ordered a 13” with the i7 ?

 

[Closingracer]

Of what? I am using USB-C to whatever cables all day long, never use a dongle for anything.

There isn’t... keep dreaming. For most things it’s still requiring usb C to usb A