Waiting for the 2020 MBP

[c0ppo]

It almost bothers me when a lot of laptop reviewers like Dave 2 D keep harping on about AMD chips without looking at the whole picture.

Could you please give some examples on where Intel actually beats AMD? I'm sure you can find some, but they are gonna be in minority.

In real world, Intel will use almost two times TDP just to be slightly behind AMD.
AMD is cooler, and more powerful. With more cores.

And on desktop they are just crushing Intel. It's not even a competition anymore, it's just beating on a dead horse.

Now, Intel is big (!!!). Intel will make a comeback sooner or later, that's granted. But in the meantime, AMD took desktop, is taking servers from Intel, and now, they are even better on mobile (laptops).

Until Intel wakes up, I see no reason to purchase anything with Intel chips.

 

[senttoschool]

It is true benchmarks can show Intel lagging behind AMD - but one of the reasons Intel are on 14nm and AMD managed to go to 7nm (and maybe 5nm soon) is due to the complexity of Intel’s architecture - and it isn’t all needless complexity as it providers a hell of a lot of optimisations for various workflows. This is why you’ll see some of the new Zen 2 chips seem to show massively better scores on benchmarks but when it comes to real world use, you’ll see they trade blows. If Intel were seriously lagging behind, you would have seen AMD beat Intel in most real world benchmarks which they don’t.

It’s a complex area in the end and direct comparisons are, excuse the pun, comparing Apple’s and oranges.

It almost bothers me when a lot of laptop reviewers like Dave 2 D keep harping on about AMD chips without looking at the whole picture.

What is good however is competition and AMD are now providing worthwhile chips in the foray - it’ll be interesting to see how things develop going forward.

Complex areas meaning AVX512 instructions? Very few applications use this instruction and if it does, it kills battery life and uses drastically higher power.

Maybe Intel Quicksync? But applications can easily optimize AMD's Renoir APU to do the same. If Apple asks, I'm sure Adobe would optimize for AMD Renoir.

Otherwise, AMD APUs/desktop CPUs are easily better in just about anything a Mac user does.

The problem with Intel mobile chips is:
If you want an efficient 10nm CPU, Intel only provides up to 4 cores.
If you want a powerful 8-core CPU, Intel only has 5-year old 14nm chips at 2x the power of AMD.

On top of that, AMD's integrated graphics are vastly superior to Intel's.

And AMD is cheaper.

You can see why most Youtubers ding Apple for using Intel. Intel makes Macbooks hotter, slower, and more expensive.

In fact, Apple is using the worst CPU + GPU combo with Intel + AMD. Apple should be using AMD + Nvidia.

 

[09872738]

In fact, Apple is using the worst CPU + GPU combo with Intel + AMD. Apple should be using AMD + Nvidia.

Amen! Perhaps ARM is going to change the game, for now 👆🏻is very true indeed

 

[scouser75]

My concern is that I'll spend around £2,500 on a top of the range MBP with an Intel chip. Then ARM will be released and in about 2-3 years my MBP will be unsupported with software and I'll be forking out again. Apple these days has a tendency to do this!

 

[Falhófnir]

It is true benchmarks can show Intel lagging behind AMD - but one of the reasons Intel are on 14nm and AMD managed to go to 7nm (and maybe 5nm soon) is due to the complexity of Intel’s architecture - and it isn’t all needless complexity as it providers a hell of a lot of optimisations for various workflows. This is why you’ll see some of the new Zen 2 chips seem to show massively better scores on benchmarks but when it comes to real world use, you’ll see they trade blows. If Intel were seriously lagging behind, you would have seen AMD beat Intel in most real world benchmarks which they don’t.

It’s a complex area in the end and direct comparisons are, excuse the pun, comparing Apple’s and oranges.

It almost bothers me when a lot of laptop reviewers like Dave 2 D keep harping on about AMD chips without looking at the whole picture.

What is good however is competition and AMD are now providing worthwhile chips in the foray - it’ll be interesting to see how things develop going forward.
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I don’t think you are wrong.

Well if performance is on par, AMD H chips still have a lower 35W TDP* to get that equal performance, so in that space, they are still ahead in perf. per watt; less sure on U series I think Intel have really focused their efforts here with Ice Lake, though it's not much of a CPU leap over 9th gen, mainly graphics focused. Apparently Tiger Lake is supposed to be closer to the sort of generational improvement we were seeing pre Broadwell (and an even bigger leap in iGPU performance than ICL!) so when that arrives and is put through its paces we will get a better idea of where Intel actually are. It's then just a case of which company (if either) can actually sustain their trajectory.

* and actually seem to behave themselves better on this rating than Intel's latest chips

My concern is that I'll spend around £2,500 on a top of the range MBP with an Intel chip. Then ARM will be released and in about 2-3 years my MBP will be unsupported with software and I'll be forking out again. Apple these days has a tendency to do this!

That's always been Apple's way with silicon transitions!

 

[senttoschool]

My concern is that I'll spend around £2,500 on a top of the range MBP with an Intel chip. Then ARM will be released and in about 2-3 years my MBP will be unsupported with software and I'll be forking out again. Apple these days has a tendency to do this!

Or you can see it as you'll be getting the last (and greatest) x86 Macbook and be able to run legacy apps and Bootcamp into Windows.

 

[Ma2k5]

Could you please give some examples on where Intel actually beats AMD? I'm sure you can find some, but they are gonna be in minority.

In real world, Intel will use almost two times TDP just to be slightly behind AMD.
AMD is cooler, and more powerful. With more cores.

And on desktop they are just crushing Intel. It's not even a competition anymore, it's just beating on a dead horse.

Now, Intel is big (!!!). Intel will make a comeback sooner or later, that's granted. But in the meantime, AMD took desktop, is taking servers from Intel, and now, they are even better on mobile (laptops).

Until Intel wakes up, I see no reason to purchase anything with Intel chips.

Complex areas meaning AVX512 instructions? Very few applications use this instruction and if it does, it kills battery life and uses drastically higher power.

Maybe Intel Quicksync? But applications can easily optimize AMD's Renoir APU to do the same. If Apple asks, I'm sure Adobe would optimize for AMD Renoir.

Otherwise, AMD APUs/desktop CPUs are easily better in just about anything a Mac user does.

The problem with Intel mobile chips is:
If you want an efficient 10nm CPU, Intel only provides up to 4 cores.
If you want a powerful 8-core CPU, Intel only has 5-year old 14nm chips at 2x the power of AMD.

On top of that, AMD's integrated graphics are vastly superior to Intel's.

And AMD is cheaper.

You can see why most Youtubers ding Apple for using Intel. Intel makes Macbooks hotter, slower, and more expensive.

In fact, Apple is using the worst CPU + GPU combo with Intel + AMD. Apple should be using AMD + Nvidia.

If you look at user reviews
/forums of these new AMD laptops which have gotten rave reviews on YouTube (sponsored?), a lot complain around fan noise and heat, so we can talk about perf per watt or otherwise, but complaints about unbearable heat/noise on the Ryzen 5/7 laptops while still not performing as well at certain workflows/gaming doesn’t exactly scream Intel needs to catch up to me.

In the end I have no reason to prefer Intel or AMD or Nvidia, but there is no AMD product out there which makes me think I need to jump now.

Zen 3 (due this year) will probably be the real test for AMD, if they do well, it might convince more people to get in bed with AMD.

 

[scouser75]

Or you can see it as you'll be getting the last (and greatest) x86 Macbook and be able to run legacy apps and Bootcamp into Windows.

Almost! Legacy apps become unsueable after a few Mac OS versions. I found that after el capitan I was unable to use a lot of legacy apps.

Compressor and motion used to work absolutely fine before. But one morning they stopped working.

 

[senttoschool]

If you look at user reviews
/forums of these new AMD laptops which have gotten rave reviews on YouTube (sponsored?), a lot complain around fan noise and heat, so we can talk about perf per watt or otherwise, but complaints about unbearable heat/noise on the Ryzen 5/7 laptops while still not performing as well at certain workflows/gaming doesn’t exactly scream Intel needs to catch up to me.

In the end I have no reason to prefer Intel or AMD or Nvidia, but there is no AMD product out there which makes me think I need to jump now.

Zen 3 (due this year) will probably be the real test for AMD, if they do well, it might convince more people to get in bed with AMD.

Source on unbearable heat noise and still not performing as well as Intel? Basically, source on Intel having better performance per watt than AMD 4000? Let’s see if this is true.

My guess is that it’s not. It’s well known that laptop manufacturers are putting AMD chips inside their worst chassis right now for various reasons. The best AMD laptop right now is the Asus G14 and that’s only a midrange laptop. No premium laptops yet.

I think we will see more premium AMD laptops later this year or next year.

I choose to believe in data over he/she said. And the data points to an overwhelming win in perf/watt for AMD.

Let Apple have a crack at AMD 4000 APUs.

 

[Ma2k5]

Source on unbearable heat noise and still not performing as well as Intel? Basically, source on Intel having better performance per watt than AMD 4000? Let’s see if this is true.

My guess is that it’s not. It’s well known that laptop manufacturers are putting AMD chips inside their worst chassis right now for various reasons. The best AMD laptop right now is the Asus G14 and that’s only a midrange laptop. No premium laptops yet.

I think we will see more premium AMD laptops later this year or next year.

I choose to believe in data over he/she said. And the data points to an overwhelming win in perf/watt for AMD.

Let Apple have a crack at AMD 4000 APUs.

If you re-read, you’ll see I didn’t say Intel has more performance per watt, far from it.

G14 is actually one of the rave reviewed laptop which has noise/heat complaints - and you are right it isn’t a premium device like say the Dell XPS or Razer or MacBook but the premium line are even more form over function with their pursuit of thinness - you’d need to look at something like the Precision 7000 series for premium performance.

I don’t see the AMD inside an XPS 15 fairing any better than inside the Asus, probably worse.

This isn’t me ******** on AMD by any means or to say Intel > AMD, it’s just more that I can see why manufacturers will wait it out to see if they should jump ship. 2021, if Zen 3 does well, I think will be when we might see more Ryzen options. Also by then, hopefully since licensing is now sorted (I think) we will have native Thunderbolt with AMD, while now you either don’t have it at all or have manufacturers using bridges to make it work.

 

[DanMan619]

Almost! Legacy apps become unsueable after a few Mac OS versions. I found that after el capitan I was unable to use a lot of legacy apps.

Compressor and motion used to work absolutely fine before. But one morning they stopped working.

All that means is eventually you would need to stop updating MacOS. It's less of a problem than people think it is. If you have old softwares you need to use then you need to keep at least one system on the older OS that can run it. Businesses do this all the time, most people doing big/important work projects know you don't upgrade in the middle of projects as that usually causes issues. Just because a new MacOS comes out doesn't always mean you have to update to it, that's what made Compressor and Motion stop working, they didn't just randomly stop working overnight. You had a version mismatch between the version of Compressor/Motion and the version of MacOS you were running. You could buy the last Intel Mac, and long as you didn't try to update it past the last compatible versions of softwares that run on the last compatible MacOS it gets, you could still use that machine perfectly fine for years. Then when you need to update, that's when you'd be in the market for a shiny new ARM Mac.

 

[Pman17]

My concern is that I'll spend around £2,500 on a top of the range MBP with an Intel chip. Then ARM will be released and in about 2-3 years my MBP will be unsupported with software and I'll be forking out again. Apple these days has a tendency to do this!

I'm in the same spot. I have a few apps I made on my soon to be obsolete 2012. The apps aren't very profitable as they are for a niche group, only $1K per year and expecting to double in a year. I'm worried I'll hit a gap in my software updates if I wait for the ARM Macs as Apple should be dropping macOS support for my Mac. I don't wanna have to spend $3,500 on an Intel Mac that will last 2-3 years due to an ARM transition when my current Mac is 8 years old and still working great. Tomorrow will be exciting and nerve-racking.
Kinda praying for Apple to surprise us with another update support for the 2012.

 

[senttoschool]

If you re-read, you’ll see I didn’t say Intel has more performance per watt, far from it.

G14 is actually one of the rave reviewed laptop which has noise/heat complaints - and you are right it isn’t a premium device like say the Dell XPS or Razer or MacBook but the premium line are even more form over function with their pursuit of thinness - you’d need to look at something like the Precision 7000 series for premium performance.

I don’t see the AMD inside an XPS 15 fairing any better than inside the Asus, probably worse.

This isn’t me ******** on AMD by any means or to say Intel > AMD, it’s just more that I can see why manufacturers will wait it out to see if they should jump ship. 2021, if Zen 3 does well, I think will be when we might see more Ryzen options. Also by then, hopefully since licensing is now sorted (I think) we will have native Thunderbolt with AMD, while now you either don’t have it at all or have manufacturers using bridges to make it work.

Come on now.

Just look at this.

This is a 35W AMD Chip vs a 45W Intel chip.

The AMD chip destroys Intel's more power-hungry chip in performance across the board despite using 10W less.

You're telling me this is a small difference?

The AMD is at least 1-2 generations ahead in efficiency.

Wait for premium AMD laptops. Right now everyone is still putting AMD chips in budget chassis. But let's make it clear here, AMD's chips are significantly more efficient than anything Intel has got right now.

 

[Ma2k5]

Come on now.

Just look at this.

This is a 35W AMD Chip vs a 45W Intel chip.

The AMD chip destroys Intel's more power-hungry chip in performance across the board despite using 10W less.

You're telling me this is a small difference?

The AMD is at least 1-2 generations ahead in efficiency.

Wait for premium AMD laptops. Right now everyone is still putting AMD chips in budget chassis. But let's make it clear here, AMD's chips are significantly more efficient than anything Intel has got right now.


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16 thread beating 12 threads, colour me surprised.

Also, very selective benchmarks, many missed out like the Excel test which makes you wonder why a 16 thread AMD isn’t crushing Intel, hmm? Or MATLAB. Like I said, many real world workflows suddenly look meh considering 16 threads. Even when it beats it it is marginal considering the 25% thread count difference. AMD haven’t blown Intel away, for if it had you can be sure everyone would have jumped on it. It has of course done very well on the perf per watt side of things. I don’t believe all the big manufacturers haven’t extensively had access to these a long time ago or done thorough testing to come to their decisions.

Anyway, not sure why you ignored the heat/noise issue.

 

[senttoschool]

16 thread beating 12 threads, colour me surprised.

Anyway, not sure why you ignored the heat/noise issue.

What don't you understand?

The AMD chip is using less watt which means less heat. The noise is simply a product of the chassis, not the chip in this case.

It doesn't matter if it's 16 threads. It's using 10w less.

It's all about the watt... It's just physics. In theory, a chip will always produce the same amount of heat if you feed it the same wattage. The wattage is converted to heat. Intel chips can't bend the laws of physics.

Plenty of Intel chips overheat and run noisy too. Just look at all the threads on this forum complaining about heat and noise.

 

[Ma2k5]

What don't you understand?

The AMD chip is using less watt which means less heat. The noise is simply a product of the chassis, not the chip in this case.

It doesn't matter if it's 16 threads. It's using 10w less.

It's all about the watt... It's just physics. In theory, a chip will always produce the same amount of heat if you feed it the same wattage. The wattage is converted to heat. Intel chips can't bend the laws of physics.

Plenty of Intel chips overheat and run noisy too. Just look at all the threads on this forum complaining about heat and noise.

When did I say Intel doesn’t run hot and noisy, they absolutely do? My point is that AMD haven’t solved the issues of Intel chips (I’ve also edited my original reply) to a degree for it to be worth it for manufacturers to move to them.

 

[senttoschool]

Also, very selective benchmarks, many missed out like the Excel test which makes you wonder why a 16 thread AMD isn’t crushing Intel, hmm? Or MATLAB. Like I said, many real world workflows suddenly look meh considering 16 threads. Even when it beats it it is marginal considering the 25% thread count difference. AMD haven’t blown Intel away, for if it had you can be sure everyone would have jumped on it. It has of course done very well on the perf per watt side of things. I don’t believe all the big manufacturers haven’t extensively had access to these a long time ago or done thorough testing to come to their decisions.

It's not a selective set of benchmarks. It's very comprehensive from compression to video editing.

Yes, AMD trails slightly in Excel. Why are you just selecting one benchmark? Didn't you literally just accuse a reviewer of using selective benchmarks?

MATLAB is right there in the image. You don't see it? AMD won by 11.8%.

When did I say Intel doesn’t run hot and noisy, they absolutely do? My point is that AMD haven’t solved the issues of Intel chips (I’ve also edited my original reply) to a degree for it to be worth it for manufacturers to move to them.

AMD chips run cooler, perform better, and are cheaper. This is a fact. We're haven't even talked about the significantly superior graphics benchmarks of the 4000 series yet.

Laptop manufacturers need time to integrate AMD chips. In addition, AMD has been seen as the budget option. For people like me who look at benchmarks, buying AMD is a no brainer. To normal people, they still see AMD as the budget option. It'll take time to get the message across to normal people that AMD is significantly better. This means manufacturers can't take the risk right now by going all in on AMD.

 

[Ma2k5]

It's not a selective set of benchmarks. It's very comprehensive from compression to video editing.

Yes, AMD trails slightly in Excel. Why are you just selecting one benchmark? Didn't you literally just accuse a reviewer of using selective benchmarks?

MATLAB is right there in the image. You don't see it? AMD won by 11.8%.

I didn’t criticise the reviewer but your chosen screenshot. It is to highlight that even with 25% thread advantage, it can trail or marginally beat Intel in some professional use cases, it isn’t me being selective but rather highlighting how Intel can be for some workflows better optimised. Now imagine those same benchmarks with a like for like thread count. Although not the main focus on many tech forums, due to my career background there are some areas where AMD optimisations (and not the chips performance) which made it a no go for some professional use.

AMD chips run cooler, perform better, and are cheaper. This is a fact. We're haven't even talked about the significantly superior graphics benchmarks of the 4000 series yet.

Laptop manufacturers need time to integrate AMD chips. In addition, AMD has been seen as the budget option. For people like me who look at benchmarks, buying AMD is a no brainer. To normal people, they still see AMD as the budget option. It'll take time to get the message across to normal people that AMD is significantly better. This means manufacturers can't take the risk right now by going all in on AMD.

I don’t think that is the reason companies don’t adopt AMD I mean, Apple use AMD GPU’s, I don’t think consumers think it’d bad or even have some notion that “AMD bad for CPU’s but for GPU it’s fine”, I bet many don’t know anything about it.

If Apple switches to AMD, people will just believe whatever Apple is doing is best.

 

[higgalls]

Why is there this big debate on here regarding Intel vs AMD? Apple are not going to AMD, so there is no point in discussion for what people are hoping for a 2020 MacBook Pro.

 

[c0ppo]

If you look at user reviews
/forums of these new AMD laptops which have gotten rave reviews on YouTube (sponsored?), a lot complain around fan noise and heat, so we can talk about perf per watt or otherwise, but complaints about unbearable heat/noise on the Ryzen 5/7 laptops while still not performing as well at certain workflows/gaming doesn’t exactly scream Intel needs to catch up to me.

In the end I have no reason to prefer Intel or AMD or Nvidia, but there is no AMD product out there which makes me think I need to jump now.

Zen 3 (due this year) will probably be the real test for AMD, if they do well, it might convince more people to get in bed with AMD.

AMD chips that are currently in use are in low to mid end devices. Most of those are thin. And in one example, their chip maintains 35W TDP while beating Intel i9 that uses 80W in turbo boost. More than double of AMD.

Those are facts. Now you said some bold claims about 'real world' where Intel is ahead of AMD. I've simply asked for some examples. You still haven't posted any?

 

[Ma2k5]

AMD chips that are currently in use are in low to mid end devices. Most of those are thin. And in one example, their chip maintains 35W TDP while beating Intel i9 that uses 80W in turbo boost. More than double of AMD.

Those are facts. Now you said some bold claims about 'real world' where Intel is ahead of AMD. I've simply asked for some examples. You still haven't posted any?

I did, Excel is one. But there are others where Intel wins if you follow the review mentioned earlier between i7-9750H to 4900HS.

But I agree with sentoschool, maybe this should be moved to talking about the move to ARM since AMD is definitely out the picture for Apple.

 

[senttoschool]

I did, Excel is one. But there are others where Intel wins if you follow the review mentioned earlier between i7-9750H to 4900HS.

But I agree with sentoschool, maybe this should be moved to talking about the move to ARM since AMD is definitely out the picture for Apple.

I didn't say we should move it out. In my opinion, it's relevant to this discussion.

AMD doesn't win every benchmark or win in every app vs Intel. AMD's single-thread performance generally trails *slightly* but it easily wins in performance/watt, multi-threaded apps, cost, and graphics.

Sure, you might get one off apps like Excel or very specific professional apps that have optimized for Intel over the last 15 years. But the fact remains, AMD chips are just better for more people.

You can't argue that. The data shows.

And no one is ignoring heat/noise since those are not related to the CPU. It's related to budget laptops that manufacturers are putting out due to various reasons, one of which is that AMD is still seen as the cheap option for non-tech people so they don't want to take the risk. Another is that this is the first time AMD has made a competitive mobile chip so perhaps they want to wait to make sure AMD can deliver another before investing in better AMD laptops.

Yes, I absolutely want an AMD APU in an Apple laptop. I refuse to buy a Macbook that uses a 5-year old 14nm chip. And I think Apple has had enough of Intel's garbage as well.

 

[c0ppo]

OEMs couldn't release a premium laptop with AMD chip this fast. Just last gen of AMD chips was bad, way worse than Intel. Now things have drastically changed, we can expect premium laptops with AMD chips next year at latest.

And as far as heat goes, i9 can draw up to 80-90W during powerboost. AMD stays on 35W, and still manages to beat Intel fairly easily. Now, that means less heat, more battery, and having more powerful CPU. I'm not sure about Excel, but lets say it's true, that Intel CPU is better in Excel than AMD.

In that case, if you're not using Photoshop, Illustrator, coding, Blender, gameDev, etc., and you're using only Excel, Intel is a better choice than AMD.

But if you are using almost anything besides Excel, well, than simply wait for AMD chips, since their mobile chips seem to compete with intel desktop offerings, while Intel mobile chips are a complete mess and a joke at this moment.

 

[scouser75]

All that means is eventually you would need to stop updating MacOS. It's less of a problem than people think it is. If you have old softwares you need to use then you need to keep at least one system on the older OS that can run it. Businesses do this all the time, most people doing big/important work projects know you don't upgrade in the middle of projects as that usually causes issues. Just because a new MacOS comes out doesn't always mean you have to update to it, that's what made Compressor and Motion stop working, they didn't just randomly stop working overnight. You had a version mismatch between the version of Compressor/Motion and the version of MacOS you were running. You could buy the last Intel Mac, and long as you didn't try to update it past the last compatible versions of softwares that run on the last compatible MacOS it gets, you could still use that machine perfectly fine for years. Then when you need to update, that's when you'd be in the market for a shiny new ARM Mac.

My compressor and motion were the ones that came on the original dvd. I reinstalled them and the oldest versions still.didnt work.

Also, are you suggesting running 2 OS's on my Mac? I wasn't aware this was possible.

 

[valar]

Why shouldn't anyone buy the current 16" MBP and wait for the new? And when will the new versions arrive, late 2020, early 2021?