The experience has been so amazing so far, this machine is worth every penny. I just hope the dongle i ordered dosnt kill the wifiYou are on an Apple high. Fun times. I was the same way with my first Mac.
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The No Touch Bar 13 Macbook Version
- Thread starter Abaganov
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That would be frustrating for sure. Hopefully, that won't happen. Looking forward to the retina screen. I have never had a retina screen on a Mac. I was really impressed when I saw it at the Apple store today.The experience has been so amazing so far, this machine is worth every penny. I just hope the dongle i ordered dosnt kill the wifi
I swear this isn't a photoshop... and I swear this is most definitely not a good estimate as well, but regardless... it's what it shows right now. Six bars on brightness, Safari (this being the only tab/window), Calendar, App Store, and Tweetbot running.
and I swear this is most definitely not a good estimate as well, but regardless... it's what it shows right now. Six bars on brightness, Safari (this being the only tab/window), Calendar, App Store, and Tweetbot running.I was going to wait and purchase the touch bar 13' mainly for the performance increase not really the touch bar but it seems like the performance gain is quite minimal looking at the benchmarks that came out today. Might just order a 13' non touchbar and use the spare cash on a bigger SSD/RAM.
In real world usage would you really notice much a difference using the 13'touchbar version vs nontouchbar 13' performance wise?
In real world usage would you really notice much a difference using the 13'touchbar version vs nontouchbar 13' performance wise?
The 2.0Ghz i5 (6360U) is getting around 3720/7200 in GeekBench scores. I got 3705/7239.
The 2.4Ghz i7 (6660U) is getting around 3900/7600 in GeekBench scores. I got 4023/7628.
The 2.9 i5 in the TB model is getting around 3800/7500 in GeekBench scores.
I don't see enough benchmark records yet for the mid grade i5 or top grade i7 in the 13" TB model.
Note that the TB model has a slightly more powerful integrated GPU as well (Iris 550 vs 540)
Both my Non-TB models with Iris 540 got an OpenCL score of around 29000. The few 13" TB results with the 550 appear to be around 30000.
I'm not sure how the differences would affect real-world usage.
I doubt that it would be noticeable. The bench test will sell a lot of Macs, though. As a lot of people live and breath by what the stats show, instead of real world usage.
True. I really wish Apple had released a third model with just Touch ID, and make it $100 more than the base. I would have been all over that. My base model arrives tomorrow (UPS has updated again). Looking forward to putting it through its paces the next 10 days. If I see a great deal on the TB version, I might jump just for the Touch ID.
And the cheapest/oldest Macbook Air is quoted at 12 hours! Sigh. Are they even advertising the fact that their cheapest laptop has 12 hours battery life? For me I do not care about the Retina if it takes a hit on how I use it.
A 12-hour battery life changes how you use a laptop.
No matter what the newer models has, it would not have the revolutionary change of usage that I get with my MBA.
So you essentially spend $300 more for:
- 5% more CPU (cannot even tell)
- 5% more GPU (my gosh)
- a Touch Bar (those folks over TheVerge said the use was quite awkward and it lagged sometimes in Safari. Yuck)
- 2 more ports (might be handy for some, not for me though. The only things I connect to my laptop nowadays are the charger and mouse)
- faster RAM (non-existent real world usage)
- Touch ID is the only thing I find remotely useful
Cons:
- The guys over Ars Tecnica said that they got 6h of battery life on the TB model. It was so bad that Apple sent another machine. But the battery life on the new machine was still 6h. TheVerge reported 7.5-8.5h though, seems to be 2-3 hours lower than the non-TB version.
I'm sorry, but performance/price-wise, the non-TB is obviously a better choice. TheVerge gave the non-TB a score of 8.6, and the TB a score of 7.6.
Had a argument with a guy in another thread, he said "but-but-but my TB MacBook Pro has better CPU! better! GPU! faster RAM!" yada yada.
Dude, my desktop with GTX 1070 and i7-6700K blows your "better CPU", "better GPU" outta the water.
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Pretty much think the non-touch bar is almost always more worth it.
I can't think of a scenario where you will feel the performance difference between the two models, since it seems like the 15w model is hard to throttle. Maybe if you seem to somehow do something both cpu and gpu intensive enough that it actually makes the 15w model lag, but what is the chance that in these circumstances, that even the 28w model isn't enough to not lag? It might be just that you actually need the 15" quad core variant. I think the 28w is in a place which is more power than you need or not enough power that you need. Probably explains the huge popularity of 15w laptops and 45w laptops, but hardly any 28w laptops.
That's the thing about those 28W CPUs.
You are still getting the same dual core, you are getting the same iGPU but with a higher thermal limit.
The higher TDP will help if you are pushing CPU and GPU to the maximum for a prolonged time, but that's not what most people who buy a 13" ultrabook will do. For all other use cases this comes down to a 5% difference on paper and none in real life. As long as you are only pushing CPU or GPU hard and the other one light to medium, the 15W chip will perform the same.
Doubling TDP while gaining most likely nothing is a bad deal compared to tripling TDP to 45W and doubling the amount of cores while slightly increasing single core performance aswell.
By the way:
There are 35W quad core options which have pretty much identical single core performance to the 15/28W CPUs but double the cores. Making the 13" with TB a 35W quad core would've been possible and a clear differentiation between the 13" 'MacBook Air replacement' and the new 13" 'MacBook Pro'.
You are still getting the same dual core, you are getting the same iGPU but with a higher thermal limit.
The higher TDP will help if you are pushing CPU and GPU to the maximum for a prolonged time, but that's not what most people who buy a 13" ultrabook will do. For all other use cases this comes down to a 5% difference on paper and none in real life. As long as you are only pushing CPU or GPU hard and the other one light to medium, the 15W chip will perform the same.
Doubling TDP while gaining most likely nothing is a bad deal compared to tripling TDP to 45W and doubling the amount of cores while slightly increasing single core performance aswell.
By the way:
There are 35W quad core options which have pretty much identical single core performance to the 15/28W CPUs but double the cores. Making the 13" with TB a 35W quad core would've been possible and a clear differentiation between the 13" 'MacBook Air replacement' and the new 13" 'MacBook Pro'.
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My line of thoughts. That's why I have an ultrabook like the non-TB 13 when I'm on the road/traveling, which I use mainly for Office 365, PDF, Safari, Mail, Calendar, and iTunes, and I come home to my robust desktop.
I can bet you if both models got price cut of $300, i.e. this model starts at $1199 and the other at $1499, this model will woo the MacBook Air crowd (which are the largest) even more.
I am not sure about that, there is no space in the 13" for one more fan, I think only the 15" has 2 fans.
Then probably my memory is bad. So you can cross it off and now the non-TB version is even more lucrative!
I'm pretty sure there was a thread somewhere with pictures that showed the 13" TB with two fans... which thread it is I can't remember for the life of me.
Seems like you can get this model with $200 off right now , It's only available for store pickup, tried a few different locations and some had it and some were already out of stock
http://www.microcenter.com/product/472223/MacBook_Pro_MLL42LL-A_133_Laptop_Computer_-_Space_Gray
http://www.microcenter.com/product/472223/MacBook_Pro_MLL42LL-A_133_Laptop_Computer_-_Space_Gray
Other way round, The Verge got a poor Battery time, the other sites got better. You got the sites mixed up.
Also I don't think The Verge's mere scoring is a good way to go about your decisions, but I agree that the spec bump is probably not worth the battery hit.
I think poor battery life is expected due to battery capacity and the use of a 28w CPU. The fact some are getting better/worse is just down to what they are using, but using identical non-display focused work loads, it will be a lot worse than previous generation 13" rMBP 28w.
I think non-display focused work load is key because, the energy saving display may hide some of the battery capacity cut that Apple has applied, but it won't help it when the main source of battery drain is CPU/GPU related. We have to remember we used to have a 74wh battery before - Now 49wh for the 28w model and 54wh for the 15w model (which is a strange decision by Apple to have the higher capacity on the less powerful machine).
I say, buy the non-touch bar model if you need a 13" form factor, otherwise get the 15" - for value for money.
all depends by habits: if you use a lot of Apple default apps, then you'll use TB a lot more than those who download a lot from third party (like Safari vs. Chrome, for example), or if you use it closed and linked to an external screen, which makes the TB useless.
I think that the perfect target of TB Pro are those who use it as a primary permament workstation at home/office, while if you need battery, portability (I don-t see the TB so comfortable to use it "on the go"), or usually make use of an external monitor... then it is better to spend your money on improving the base nTB model.
As me the "old" Air is the 12" Macbook (portability, light, thin, eternal battery), the nTB Pro performances are slightly better than 2015 13" Pro (with much more improvement on GPU)... so why don't we have to call it a Pro?
I think that the perfect target of TB Pro are those who use it as a primary permament workstation at home/office, while if you need battery, portability (I don-t see the TB so comfortable to use it "on the go"), or usually make use of an external monitor... then it is better to spend your money on improving the base nTB model.
As me the "old" Air is the 12" Macbook (portability, light, thin, eternal battery), the nTB Pro performances are slightly better than 2015 13" Pro (with much more improvement on GPU)... so why don't we have to call it a Pro?
I think that all depends by habits: if you use a lot of Apple default apps, then you'll use TB a lot more than those who download a lot from third party (like Safari vs. Chrome, for example), or if you use it closed and linked to an external screen, which makes the TB useless.
I think that the perfect target of TB Pro are those who use it as a primary permament workstation at home/office, if you need battery, portability (or use an external monitor)... then it is better to spend your money on improving the base model.
I think that the "old" Air is the 12" Macbook (portability, light, thin, eternal battery), the nTB Pro performances are slightly better than 2015 13" Pro (with much more improvement on GPU)... so why don't we have to call it a Pro?
People making that claim have not looked into it. They are just looking at specs. The base 13" no TB is closer to a maxed out 13" pro from 2015.
What version of Geekbench is used here? Geekbench 3.4.1? Geekbench 4.0.1? 32 or 64bit ?