Why Apple's best MacBook Pro is too powerful for its own good



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Image: Apple

After long awaiting an update of new processors, Apple announced last week MacBook Pro refreshed with Intel's 8th generation Coffee Lake chips, including the consumer notebook high-end of society. processor, the Core i9-8950HK processor with six cores of 2.9 GHz. And in theory, this option seemed to be a great addition to the MBP lineup by giving high-end video editors and graphic artists a bit more performance without the added clutter.

But reports are beginning to come from various sources, including YouTuber Dave Lee and Apple Insider claiming that the performance of Apple's new Core i9 MacBook Pro was not really exceptional and in some cases have been underperforming last year's Core i7 MBP, despite a much higher starting price of $ 2,800

it seems, Apple has simply abandoned the Core i9-CPU of Intel in the existing 15-inch MacBook Pro chassis, but did not do much to improve cooling or thermal management of the system. This means that when users request more intensive tasks, the heat builds up quickly in a Core i9 MBP and, before long, it is forced to throttle the processor to avoid overheating the system, which affects negatively overall performance.

In Dave Lee's tests, he discovered that a 2017 MacBook Pro i7 was displaying a great 4K video in Adobe Premier in just 35 minutes and 22 seconds, compared to a Core i9 Core MacBook Pro 2018, which took 4 minutes and 15 seconds extra to accomplish the same task. Then, to test his theory on the poor performance of thermal impact management, he placed a new MBP i9 in the freezer and made the same clip again, and this time the completion time dropped by more than 10 minutes. (Note: If you are looking to improve performance significantly, do not stick your system in the refrigerator because condensation is very bad for computers.)

Meanwhile, even though the results of Apple Insider were not so drastic, they found that after 10 consecutive passes in Cinebench, the average score for a basic 2018 MacBook Pro with a Core i7 processor was 916, while the Core i9 MBP Plus on average was 906.

In addition, when AppleInsider looked at the actual clock Indeed, the two processors have a very small difference between the two processors, despite the two chips with the same power output of 45 watts, and the Core i9 having a significantly higher base frequency of 2.9 GHz and a maximum turbo frequency. 4.8 GHz compared with a base speed of 2.2 GHz and a turbo frequency of 4.1 GHz.

Patrick Moorhead, founder of Moor Insights and Strategy and former vice president of AMD, also suspects that it's too hot a chip in a too small chassis. Although he has not yet had the opportunity to test the system, he told Gizmodo:

"Processors such as the Intel Core i9 are all made with power limits and maximum heat to maintain a specific frequency.Employers, like Apple, create thermal solutions for their systems, in this case the MacBook Pro, in order to remove enough heat so that the processor can operate at the expected frequency BIOS settings determine when and how much cooling starts

All lightweight notebooks like the MacBook Pro accelerate at some point with the most demanding workloads like video editing, gaming and visualization, how fast it strangles, games, laptops, business performance and laptops from Dell, HP and Lenovo are spe especially designed for these heavy workloads and are generally designed to reduce much, much less. These designs are usually a bit larger because they have more robust cooling solutions. "

This last part makes sense, because while many laptops with i7 chips sport thin, lightweight bodies, laptops tend to look more like the bestial MSI's GT75, which has a much larger casing wider and more substantial fans to help reduce chokes.

This beast is nearly an inch and a half thick, partly to cool the hot i9. Sam Rutherford (Gizmodo) [19659002] There is only a handful of devices currently available with an i9 processor, which was only announced in April. The Dell XPS 15, which is similar in size to the Apple MacBook Pro, also has an i9 option, and there have been sparse reports of suspicions of strangulation for that. We've reached out to Dell to comment.

When we have contacted Apple and Intel for a comment on the performance of the Cor e i9 MacBook Pro, Intel responded with a statement saying "Customer feedback is very important to us and we are working closely with our OEM partners to investigate. We will share more information when they become available. We have not yet received an answer from Apple and we will update if we receive one.

So, for people who are thinking of buying a new high-specification MacBook now that the 2018 models are out, unless something changes, you should probably ignore the Core i9 option for the moment. Not only is a 15-inch Core i7 MacBook Pro just as fast, but it also costs hundreds less.

Do you know anything about the problem that Apple and Intel seem to encounter? You can reach me at [email protected] or contact Gizmodo safely via our SecureDrop.

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