How big of a improvement will be...

[alex_cape]

I've been putting off for a while an upgrade to my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013) - 8 GB -
2.4 GHz Intel Core i5

I guess my question how big of an improvement would be an upgrade to an i7 15inch (2017)
2.8GHz quad-core 7th-generation Intel Core i7 processor (this one)
What is the timeframe for new MacBooks to be released?

I do graphic design, mostly Sketch and Photoshop.

thanks in advance for your help,
Alex

 

[vemac575]

It'd be night and day. I have a 13" specked out 2014 retina, and now a 15" specked out 2017 touch bar. It wont matter for someone who reads emails, but if you're doing a lot of what you stated, it's not even close.

The new Macs may, or may not be getting boosted up to 32gb RAM. Supposedly it's most likely not going to happen as the chip does not support it. Not sure there is any other reason to wait, if you really need to upgrade.

 

[leman]

The new Macs may, or may not be getting boosted up to 32gb RAM. Supposedly it's most likely not going to happen as the chip does not support it. Not sure there is any other reason to wait, if you really need to upgrade.

Improvements in CPU and GPU are certainly a good reason to wait, for most users more then 32GB at least

 

[vemac575]

Improvements in CPU and GPU are certainly a good reason to wait, for most users more then 32GB at least

Not if it's not a big increase. The RAM is the only big thing coming to Macs anytime soon, if even this year, from everything I read. Music production requires the top specs so it's my job to stay current. People who use as much power as I do, know that even a supposed 20% increase in CPU, in real use, isn't that big of a jump, at all.

So to this user, he needs to decide if his need for an upgrade outweighs the possibility of wether 32gb RAM will show up, or not. If he needs an upgrade badly, and things are looking like there will be no 32RAM this year, which is what it looks like, then there is no reason to wait.

But it's up to him...

 

[alex_cape]

Improvements in CPU and GPU are certainly a good reason to wait, for most users more then 32GB at least

Right now I'm at 8GB and is killing my multitasking
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It'd be night and day. I have a 13" specked out 2014 retina, and now a 15" specked out 2017 touch bar. It wont matter for someone who reads emails, but if you're doing a lot of what you stated, it's not even close.

The new Macs may, or may not be getting boosted up to 32gb RAM. Supposedly it's most likely not going to happen as the chip does not support it. Not sure there is any other reason to wait, if you really need to upgrade.

Is the 32GB rumored to be standard or an upgrade?

 

[vemac575]

Right now I'm at 8GB and is killing my multitasking
[doublepost=1520876177][/doublepost]

Is the 32GB rumored to be standard or an upgrade?

Well IF there will be a 32GB model in the second half-fourth quarter, it will either be a redesign, or an upgrade. I don't see anything that would lead to it being stabdard for a non redisign.

 

[alex_cape]

Well IF there will be a 32GB model in the second half-fourth quarter, it will either be a redesign, or an upgrade. I don't see anything that would lead to it being stabdard for a non redisign.

As in right now there's no way to have more than 16GB, right? Is the memory user upgradable on the 15in because is not on my 13 retina

 

[Samuelsan2001]

As in right now there's no way to have more than 16GB, right? Is the memory user upgradable on the 15in because is not on my 13 retina

Nothing in the 2016/2017 touchbar mbps is upgradeable. 16gb is the Max RAM.

 

[leman]

People who use as much power as I do, know that even a supposed 20% increase in CPU, in real use, isn't that big of a jump, at all.

I guess it depends on what you do. Anyway, next gen will most likely bring a 50% increase of CPU cores, along with increased clock. And most likely a HBM2-equipped GPU in the 15" model, which could mean as much as 30-50% faster GPU depending on the workflow.

The RAM is the only big thing coming to Macs anytime soon, if even this year, from everything I read. Music production requires the top specs so it's my job to stay current.

If your access patterns are random, consumer-level CPUs can't utilise that much RAM effectively due to cache misses. I suppose in music, you are really using RAM as a sort of high-performance preload buffer, so that you can access a large set of samples etc. quickly, when they are needed. So even fast modern SSDs are not fast enough to load such data quick enough? Or is this a software issue (inefficient disk access code)?

 

[alex_cape]

I guess it depends on what you do. Anyway, next gen will most likely bring a 50% increase of CPU cores, along with increased clock. And most likely a HBM2-equipped GPU in the 15" model, which could mean as much as 30-50% faster GPU depending on the workflow.

Wow that increase would merit the wait then

 

[vemac575]

I guess it depends on what you do. Anyway, next gen will most likely bring a 50% increase of CPU cores, along with increased clock. And most likely a HBM2-equipped GPU in the 15" model, which could mean as much as 30-50% faster GPU depending on the workflow.



If your access patterns are random, consumer-level CPUs can't utilise that much RAM effectively due to cache misses. I suppose in music, you are really using RAM as a sort of high-performance preload buffer, so that you can access a large set of samples etc. quickly, when they are needed. So even fast modern SSDs are not fast enough to load such data quick enough? Or is this a software issue (inefficient disk access code)?

1st

I agree, but they say that the newest chips Apple seems to be aiming to implement will have less of an increase, which leads most to beleive that Apple will just skip those chips, which makes some think that Apple will no even bother with 32GB this year. Given all data, I am compelled to believe that Apple could release more RAM, at the end of this year, but on the weekest chip possible. I wouldnmt be surprised in the slightest, if they made hype over some great new Macbook, and it was nothing more than thinner.

For the second part, what you're stating, seems to be the technical sensibility of the matter, but its actually not the case. The reason why we use so much ram, its not really samples, but plugin interface. Of coarse that would encapsulate samples, but its mostly the interface of the plugin.

As to the disc access, I've found that faster and more disk in out reads and writes, is more beneficial than an extrea 16GB RAM. Both would be ideal, but if I had to choose, I'd take 2TB of flash memory with 16 RAM, over 500GB of even an SSD (SATA) with 32GB RAM.
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Wow that increase would merit the wait then

Yes that would, for sure, but go read into it and it's unlikely it will be that much, this year. So if you can wait till next year, definitely wait. Of coarse I am just going on the data, so maybe it will happen this year.

 

[impulse462]

Whether or not there is actually hexaxore in the 15” this year, there won’t be 32gb RAM (most likely). The bigger upgrade would be waiting for 32gb lpddr4 and the 6-core.

From what I read photoshop is pretty GPU intensive so wait a little later this year to see the new GPUs.

 

[leman]

I agree, but they say that the newest chips Apple seems to be aiming to implement will have less of an increase, which leads most to beleive that Apple will just skip those chips

Who is "they" I'm probably one of the more active members in the relevant sub-threads on these forums and what you are saying is very much news for me. Apple traditionally uses best-performing CPUs money can buy (within reasonable thermal bracket), and I don't see any reason why this should change. We might even end up with Xeons this time.

... which makes some think that Apple will no even bother with 32GB this year.

The main reason for this being that Intel doesn't support LPDDR4

The reason why we use so much ram, its not really samples, but plugin interface.

If this is the case, you probably suffer significant hidden performance penalties due to badly designed software...

 

[vemac575]

Who is "they" I'm probably one of the more active members in the relevant sub-threads on these forums and what you are saying is very much news for me. Apple traditionally uses best-performing CPUs money can buy (within reasonable thermal bracket), and I don't see any reason why this should change. We might even end up with Xeons this time.



The main reason for this being that Intel doesn't support LPDDR4




If this is the case, you probably suffer significant hidden performance penalties due to badly designed software...

All credible sources...

I know...

And No

 

[gobikerider]

Wow that increase would merit the wait then

The new intel processors used in 15" MacBook's are going to be hexa-core chips with hyper threading. That combined with a faster gpu is going to be an incredible upgrade even over 2017 models.