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2018 i9 MacBook Pro throttling discussion [merged]
- Thread starter M.Rizk
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Love this guy! Unfortunately, when I posted hislast video, we still had people saying BS like “why buy the i9 when last year’s 2017 i7 is faster?” ♂️
Okay this I will bet my life on. Even after a pretty comprehensive and quite informative review like this, Apple haters are still gonna be blinded by their hate and they might even say “omg! The 2017 quad core i7 is faster than the iMac Pro. Apple is garbage”.
All along we’ve been saying there has to be something to do with software optimization happening here. We have also mentioned plenty of times that the fans on our Macs seem to ramp up slower. By no means am I saying that now we’ll see the i9 reach it’s full potential, that would be a farfetch dream but this seems to be a good comparison and a good indicator of things possibly to come.
Thanks again for sharing.
So whats the solution now? Is is just better to not upgrade to 2.9mhz and just stick with the 2.6? Im about to get mine soon and don't want to regret it.
Okay, what will you use your MacBook Pro for?
If you want the most power you can possibly get, get the i9. If you want most bang for your buck get the base 15 inch. Still works great.
Not picking on Dan particularly but it does show how emotive and extreme some posters views can become on a product that has yet to be touched by its owner.
Thanks,
I use my computer for work and personal, don't do any major processing work like editors do but my main goal is to future proof it so in 4 or 5 years its still very capable. The original thought was to just get a 2.6 but spending the extra 300 to go to 2.9 isn't gonna kill me, but I don't have to do that if the 2.9 isn't worth it (not sure if the supposed throttling will even affect a user like myself). Will also be getting the 32gb and 2TB ssd.
Why are you spending so much money on such high configuration when you probably won't even see the difference when compared to a dual core model? What are you going to do with the extra seconds that you save?
I don't know I thought I answered that question already in the post you quoted. The extra $300 to upgrade isn't a big deal and I would like the performance to be considered good years down the line, when the new tech comes out.
I'm big on multi-tasking for the several businesses that I do and the saved extra seconds, added up, is very desirable.
Worth it or not is relative. As I’ve mentioned before, if I need to be mobile with my work, and if I can shave about 2 minutes each workflow process, that actually earns an extra 24 grand a year!
Sure it isn’t running its full potential just yet, but in general, it is the best performing MacBook Pro.
It's not too much money I understand but that's not the point. You're going to be spending money for performance you might not see. For future proofing, choosing a quad core model might be more worth the money. But 6-core is overkill.
Also, time savings can't be added up like that. Time does not work that way. You can't add seconds into hours to watch a movie.
not to reign on your parade, but future proofing is kinda silly and not really proofing usually, because new tech comes out, new connectivity standards, etc.
Buy what you need, then sell and buy new if (when) you need more. In 6 years (speaking from experience because I "future proofed" my 2012 retina), 0,5GHz of CPU clock wont make any difference. Check the benchmarks. In ideal conditions it's 10% difference between baseline and maxed out.
And the difference between 2012 retina and 2018 retina is ~100% (when cooled). I can get a year or two for my needs out of the machine I have, but frankly, getting 2.3GHz vs 2.7GHz wouldn't change that.
I guess the way I use my time and the way you use yours, is very different.
Two thing about what you said does not make sense. You say to future proof, go with the quad core because 6 core is over kill. That’s counter future proofing.
Also, you obviously don’t do the sort of work that MacBook Pro users do. You do add up time like that. If I can do 12 jobs instead of 10 jobs a day, that earns me more money. ♂️
Agree with you completely. I’m in the same boat as @hellopupy in that I could afford the i9 but for my use case (which is similar to his it seems) it’s simply overkill along with a dGPU (which I’ve had bad experiences with in my previous MBPs due to failure)...I’m going for the 13” i5 instead and will sell when the next significant update comes out (will miss the screen estate from the 15” though
).
Agree with you completely. I’m in the same boat as @hellopupy in that I could afford the i9 but for my use case (which is similar to his it seems) it’s simply overkill along with a dGPU (which I’ve had bad experiences with in my previous MBPs due to failure)...I’m going for the 13” i5 instead and will sell when the next significant update comes out (will miss the screen estate from the 15” though
Umm, if you’ll miss the screen size, just get the base i7. I always find that I can never go back to a 13 inch. I tried once and returned it after two days.
Well, you can try and if you’re happy with the smaller screen then why not.
Been following this with interest. There're a couple of issues that don't seemed to have popped up yet.
One is the power consumption on battery vs mains. I remember previous MBP were able to pull *more* power from the battery than when they were plugged into the wall. So all these power tests are based on wall or battery? - there probably would be a difference.
Secondly these turbo boosts are for a single core, right? So when we watch the spikes we don't know at that point how many cores are running and at what speed - so some of the issues might be to do with how the firmware manages the speeds vs cores balance. I don't know enough about the finer details of how this happens to say for sure (i am a developer) but it lends the chance the the management of single core boost vs cores could be wrong causing the ping pong with throttling. I think it's an issue to have a single value when you don't know what the cores are doing - would it not be more sensible to add up the GHz for each core and then graph that for example. 2 6 low core clocks would offer more compute that a single high core?
cheers
Paul
One is the power consumption on battery vs mains. I remember previous MBP were able to pull *more* power from the battery than when they were plugged into the wall. So all these power tests are based on wall or battery? - there probably would be a difference.
Secondly these turbo boosts are for a single core, right? So when we watch the spikes we don't know at that point how many cores are running and at what speed - so some of the issues might be to do with how the firmware manages the speeds vs cores balance. I don't know enough about the finer details of how this happens to say for sure (i am a developer) but it lends the chance the the management of single core boost vs cores could be wrong causing the ping pong with throttling. I think it's an issue to have a single value when you don't know what the cores are doing - would it not be more sensible to add up the GHz for each core and then graph that for example. 2 6 low core clocks would offer more compute that a single high core?
cheers
Paul
Haha don’t tempt me. Portability is important to me these days compared to when I got my 15” MBP back in 2010...I normally take my laptop to meetings so can’t imagine plonking the 15” in front of everyone.
You have got me thinking about ordering both and then returning one though damn it
I was actually very close to getting a new MBP.
I edit videos every day. Each day I wake up thinking how much time I've left. If I wake up late, I'll be shocked at how many minutes I was late. The type of shock that will make you awake instantly.
Few days ago, I exported 90mins of 4K videos with a Mac Pro quad 3.7Ghz and that took 6 hours.
So I was thinking. What would happen if I get a new 6-core MBP. It would probably take less than 1 hour to export the same videos.
But guess what, I won't be able to use the time saved to create more content. The bottleneck is not processor speed. Bottleneck is I can't record enough footage fast enough for the Mac Pro to finish exporting. And I spend 4 - 5hr daily recording videos, and leave for my 9 hr full time job later.
Benchmarks, specs, Ghz, are just numbers. You have to understand your own workflow and whether the MBP can really bring you the actual time savings. For me, it's what I can do with the time I've saved.
If I'm a 3D artist that creates renders for architecture firms, I would buy the new MBP in a heartbeat. Before I can change the variables for each new render, I have to wait for the previous render to complete.
Haha don’t tempt me. Portability is important to me these days compared to when I got my 15” MBP back in 2010...I normally take my laptop to meetings so can’t imagine plonking the 15” in front of everyone.
You have got me thinking about ordering both and then returning one though damn it
No don’t get both! You might end up keeping both! Hahaha! We men and our toys will always find an excuse.
Get your first choice, the 13 and then give it a try, if it meets your needs then stick to that.
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Okay, I get what you mean but the person was asking about future proofing (which technically means what is the best that he can get) and you tell him to get the quad over the hexa. Bottleneck is the work that needs processed? That’s your scenario not his. And if that is your bottleneck, then that’s yours, just because you are running out of stuff to render doesn’t mean that he is do you get what I mean? Because for the most part, if you can get more work done quicker, then you’ll have more time to do other things, Time is still time, if you have nothing else to do with that spare time, it’s still time that can be spent doing other things if it isn’t earning money.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-explanation-of-apples-engineering-f.2128936/
Anyone tried this? This tool is much more powerful than Volta as it not only have unlocked power limit, but also levels of power limit making you take full advantage of the turbo boost! It boosted the 2.2 i7 chip to 1050~1100 on Cinebench!
Anyone tried this? This tool is much more powerful than Volta as it not only have unlocked power limit, but also levels of power limit making you take full advantage of the turbo boost! It boosted the 2.2 i7 chip to 1050~1100 on Cinebench!
I love people who tell people to get a 2,2ghz i7 instead of paying 300$ more for an i9. (Because the 2,2 is good enough?)
If people want the i9, let them? The i9 is going to be the best machine in the end.
People who buys apple’s MacBook Pro have the money for it. I dont get it how people can get so frustrated over someone spending 300$ more or less. It’s not even your own money?
I rather see people coming with solutions in this thread than people telling other people to buy something else
If people want the i9, let them? The i9 is going to be the best machine in the end.
People who buys apple’s MacBook Pro have the money for it. I dont get it how people can get so frustrated over someone spending 300$ more or less. It’s not even your own money?
I rather see people coming with solutions in this thread than people telling other people to buy something else
If it was me, and I had a choice, I would wait it out to see what happens. As posted before, I doubt there is going to be a cure where Apple waves a magic firmware wand and all the throttling vanishes. It'll be a tweak here and there and maybe some 3rd party tool to also help.
If the situation improves enough, you can live with any potential manual tweaks and these machines deliver what you need, for your budget, then more power to you. Personally I wouldn't buy one as I find them simply too expensive even though my company is paying for them. (I have a Thinkpad on order and from what I've read, it also may have throttling challenges even though its 4 core - we shall see...)
If the situation improves enough, you can live with any potential manual tweaks and these machines deliver what you need, for your budget, then more power to you. Personally I wouldn't buy one as I find them simply too expensive even though my company is paying for them. (I have a Thinkpad on order and from what I've read, it also may have throttling challenges even though its 4 core - we shall see...)
That's basically what I'm doing. After the knee jerk reaction of the screaming around that the sky is falling. I calmed down, and assessed the situation. I also came up with a couple of solutions that are workable for me and I'm happy with how I have my MBP and in time Apple should release a firmware update.