Skylake: is it worth the wait?

[pbasmadj]

I think for me, its the entire package. The chipset will offer some nice improvements on performance, then there's the improvement on battery life, and then hopefully a better GPU. But then there's the expectation (or hope) that apple will completely redesign the MBP.

macOS sierra resources hints on up and coming macs

This.
The current models are so heavy and just... Old. Naturally, one would expect the new pro to resemble the current Macbook designs in store, which, to Apple's credit, do make the other computers look rather dated. One big question is, do people like that keyboard?

 

[robeddie]

This.
The current models are so heavy and just... Old. Naturally, one would expect the new pro to resemble the current Macbook designs in store, which, to Apple's credit, do make the other computers look rather dated. One big question is, do people like that keyboard?

Answer to your last question: NO. The quest for extra thinness and weight loss, which at this point is a law of dimishing returns, is resulting in less powerful machines, no improvement in battery life, loss of ports. I fail to see what this 'MODERN' world or laptops you're so ****ing excited about.

I have several Macs, including an 11 inch MacBook Air and a 13 inch MacBook Pro. Both seem feathery light to me. At no point during my day do I say to myself "dang my arm is so tired from carrying this 3 pound device".

Maybe you have some kind of musculature/degenerative disease that makes it difficult to carry something that's a couple pounds. If so, I feel bad about that. But for Christ sakes don't cheer on Apple to make ALL their computers for the handicapped.

 

[phillytim]

At this point, the next MacBook Pro had better be Kaby Lake based.

I won't buy a Skylake Mac now. I'd rather get the Dell XPS Kaby.

 

[2IS]

The fact you're asking means you don't actually "need" a new one right now. I'm on a 2010 MBA which is painfully slow running Sierra and doesn't support all it's features, but I'm still holding out for the new MBP's because it still gets the job done for everything I actually "need" it to do. I can easily wait to scratch the upgrade itch when it means getting a more efficient and more powerful CPU/GPU packaged in a brand new, redesigned chassis combined whatever other goodies the new model has.

 

[maflynn]

At this point, the next MacBook Pro had better be Kaby Lake based.

Be prepared to wait for 2017. The dell Kaby Lake processor is the 13w version, apple uses the higher power version, so that won't be out until 2017. The impending release everyone is waiting for, will likely be skylake.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

At this point, the next MacBook Pro had better be Kaby Lake based.

I won't buy a Skylake Mac now. I'd rather get the Dell XPS Kaby.

Why not???

The only kaby lake chips released are the crappy little 13-15w ones found in the MacBook Air (they may get Kabylake but I doubt it). The 28w ones with the boosted Iris graphics that the MacBook Pro uses are not due for release for 5-6 months and there still isn't a timeline on 45w i7's with Iris pro graphics at all as far as I can tell so who knows when Kabylake will be ready for the 15 inch pros (although they may go with dGPU's in all 15 inch models and lesser 45w chips.).

But by all means go ahead and buy a computer with Kabylake that will bench less than the current broadwell rMBP 13 and who's graphics are a bit on the anemic side.

 

[Ethosik]

Why not???

The only kaby lake chips released are the crappy little 13-15w ones found in the MacBook Air (they may get Kabylake but I doubt it). The 28w ones with the boosted Iris graphics that the MacBook Pro uses are not due for release for 5-6 months and there still isn't a timeline on 45w i7's with Iris pro graphics at all as far as I can tell so who knows when Kabylake will be ready for the 15 inch pros (although they may go with dGPU's in all 15 inch models and lesser 45w chips.).

But by all means go ahead and buy a computer with Kabylake that will bench less than the current broadwell rMBP 13 and who's graphics are a bit on the anemic side.

I agree. People here are treating even Skylake as a 300% performance improvement and Apple SHOULD use them NOW.

 

[definitive]

It's not worth paying full price for today's model. If you can get it for $600+ off with warranty, then go ahead, but otherwise, wait for the next release.

 

[jerryk]

This.
The current models are so heavy and just... Old. Naturally, one would expect the new pro to resemble the current Macbook designs in store, which, to Apple's credit, do make the other computers look rather dated. One big question is, do people like that keyboard?

Let's hope the Macbook Pros do not resemble the MacBook. I hate the keyboard and want something that can stand up to running at 100% for an hour or more at one time. The Pro in the name needs to mean that it can meet the needs of professional users, and stand up to the stresses they put their systems through.

If some wants light and ultra thin, they should get a Macbook.

 

[pbasmadj]

Let's hope the Macbook Pros do not resemble the MacBook. I hate the keyboard and want something that can stand up to running at 100% for an hour or more at one time. The Pro in the name needs to mean that it can meet the needs of professional users, and stand up to the stresses they put their systems through.

If some wants light and ultra thin, they should get a Macbook.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean taking it that far. I mean more in design cues and aesthetic. As far as the keyboard goes, not thrilled about it either but I guess we will see. To be honest, I think the renders we have seen are probably going to be pretty accurate.

 

[spoonie1972]

How do these new "iCPU"'s handle OpenCL compared to a separate gpu? ie - in AE or Premiere use? Asking because I honestly have no clue about what goes on under the hood.

 

[leman]

How do these new "iCPU"'s handle OpenCL compared to a separate gpu? ie - in AE or Premiere use? Asking because I honestly have no clue about what goes on under the hood.

In short: mediocre to very good It really depends on the task. Those Intel GPUs are really little design marvels, and they pack quite a punch for their size and energy efficiency. Until not long ago, they were probably the most efficient GPU design on the market, but its likely that Nvidia and AMD have now caught up (which is probably also the reason why Intel appears to be slowing down their higher-end GPU pursuits).

Basically, what it comes down to is the memory speed. Again, the Intel GPU is remarkably fast for its size, but it is crippled by the fact that its tied into the slower main RAM. Not only that RAM is quite slow compared to what dGPUs have, but its also tied into the same memory controller and caches as what the CPU uses. What this means in practice is that the Intels will be most efficient with tasks where they can do a lot of work inside the GPU, with only sporadic (and predictable) accesses to main RAM. For example computational heavy filters or other staff where you need to do a lot of work per pixel, but don't need to fetch that much data. On the other side, a dGPU will be faster if the per-pixel operations are lighter. Also, the Intel GPU is better at random memory accesses, so it performs better for ray tracing etc. I do not know whether newest dGPUs (Pascal/Polaris) are still weak in this area, but I'd guess they would be. Its just the consequence of the how GPUs are constructed and what RAM they use (high bandwidth but very very slow access).

BTW, I recommend you to read Intel whitepapers on their compute architecture. Its very interesting.

 

[mctrials23]

Is the keyboard on the macbook the same as the latest magic keyboard. If so, its fine. Took about a week to get used to it and its a brilliant keyboard. Its simply different.

 

[blackberrycubed]

canon lake is the one to wait for! lmao.

 

[hiddenmarkov]

Answer to your last question: NO. The quest for extra thinness and weight loss, which at this point is a law of dimishing returns, is resulting in less powerful machines, no improvement in battery life, loss of ports. I fail to see what this 'MODERN' world or laptops you're so ****ing excited about.

I have several Macs, including an 11 inch MacBook Air and a 13 inch MacBook Pro. Both seem feathery light to me. At no point during my day do I say to myself "dang my arm is so tired from carrying this 3 pound device".

Maybe you have some kind of musculature/degenerative disease that makes it difficult to carry something that's a couple pounds. If so, I feel bad about that. But for Christ sakes don't cheer on Apple to make ALL their computers for the handicapped.

This really. for light options they have the vanilla MB's.

Other makers show trends. Dell will sell the small frame laptops. Medium size with some more performance. Then then there is the beefy alienware (owned by dell now) and "workstation class" options.


Want beefy options, there ya go. Want light and decent specs....there ya go too. Apple is missing this. They make "castrated" vanilla MB and put the goodies in the MBP. makes people have to go MBP. Which would not be problem if....it wasn't having MBP follow a path that limits it potential.


from a design standpoint the anorexia is what is now limiting the MBP. Yay its smaller. And to compensate for thermals, Apple throttles...heavily it seems. most easily seen with gamers. How do you make a MBP game better? Bootcamp windows 10. All the OS throttling in background of Mac OS....gone. Same hardware so a non factor. This effects has been seen on open gl games (valve makes these and some other to try as well). So direct X translation via wrappers and such not a factor.

In its passive set up, the shell has been the main heat control. One big ole heat sink. Smaller the heat sink, less dissipation. Apple is not doing ground breaking metallurgy work here to magically change heat exchange rates.

No air in the body to move. Larger body, throw in some ballsy fans, move some air. Analogous to doing exercise. Do your exercise nothing restricting air flow. Now do it with a plastic bag over your head...but being nice it has some air holes cut into it. One of these will be better. Hint: its not the latter one.

Why I grow leery of apple's advances. Performance has a price. Heat. Moore's law only says CPU's will get better in a nutshell. its says nothing about how you get those advances though. Heat says hi....I am a factor Moore did not mention lol. Smaller and quieter...barring some kick ass advances apple is not sharing, nor seems to be implementing, not the way to fight this increased heat.


How do most counter that? Larger size and fans that move serious air. Latter makes noise. Contentious for some apple users. See that in the MBP threads. OMG, I did this and that and my fans started getting loud. Is my system broke? Nope, you are doing actual computer intensive work now, this is normal.

threads with the people using thermal monitoring almost as fun. Is this normal? very normal, chill. Your temps I envy....I have been pegged at higher temps for hours when I slam my MBP with more intensive video processing.

Like one time a bit back on 1.5 hours of footage from shoot in a club that in an academic sense had lighting. meaning yes, there was some form of light to not be in total darkness. And that's about the best I can say about it. What I want to say about that lighting would have the profanity filter for this forum melt down it was so horrendous. had to work noise removal like a fiend in post processing.

fans and thermal reporting....fans wide open throttle for hours on end and I turned off reporting for the monitor app I use. Yes I know the CPU and GPU (have a plug in that can use 1 AMD core on the mid 15 dgpu, NVidia cuda would be the same...I just forget atm what AMD calls theirs) is running hot, 100 notifications not needed thank you lol.