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Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

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Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#581

Post by TaylorAlexander »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #509
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #456

Just thought I’d chime in to say I’m loving my Thinkpad X1 with Debian. If you want to install Debian on the X1 it’s pretty easy. Just make sure to fix some of the sleep issues using the (easy) instructions on this page, which in my experience still apply to Debian: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X1_Carb...

"Just make sure to fix some of the sleep issues..." A great example of why people buy Macs, though. Most people don't want to faff around with hackery getting Linux to work properly. And with Windows 10's horrible privacy issues, Macs are still the best choice. They're buying them for the software, not the hardware.

I understand these issues are an impediment to Linux adoption.

However people always say this as if Linux is at fault. Well, mostly the sleep issues exist because the laptop ships with windows, and windows has some fancy sleep mode that involves a specific bios setting.

Linux uses more traditional sleep settings, so when installing Linux one must change that bios setting and then run a command to tell the OS that setting has been changed.

So you didn’t say Linux is at fault, but just to be clear: this is just what you get when the manufacturer doesn’t support your preferred OS.

However as a robotics engineer, I prefer open source over ease of use. I’m not suggesting regular people do this, but sharing the tips with the Hacker News crowd who may also be fine with running a few terminal commands to get a great OS experience on hardware which may be a better value than a MacBook today given their issues discussed in this thread.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#582

Post by coryfklein »

Still only USB Type C ports though on a $2000 machine? It feels like such a rip off. For two years now my primary device has been a MBP with only USB Type C, and for two years now I haven't had a single device I can plug into it without a dongle.

I'm so sick of these fucking dongles. Thank god it still has the 3.5mm port, because it must have taken an act of divinity to prevent that part of the Apple crazy from reaching the MBP yet.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#583

Post by colordrops »

vogon_laureate wrote: post #566

I own both a 15" Macbook Pro 2017 model with touch bar and a Dell XPS 15" 2017 model. Both have their pluses and minuses. Both needed major repairs. Dell needed logic board and screen replaced. Mac needed logic board and keyboard. I mainly use the Mac. It's much quieter, has an amazingly vivid and bright retina display, extremely good battery life, best track pad in the industry and the best speakers on any laptop I'…

Dell XPS laptops are some of the best Linux laptops out there. No need for Windows. I've been using the same model as you with Linux for a while now and an very happy with it.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#584

Post by dwighttk »

golfer wrote: post #261
docker_up wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently was forced to upgrade by 2015 laptop at work because the battery life was finally short enough that I couldn't stand it. I hate dongles. The 2015 Macbook will stand as their last best laptop. Nothing about the 2018 laptop is better, it's only worse. I don't understand why they don't see this. There should really be a huge multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit for their keyboards and fixability to wake…

100% agree. I'm typing this on a 2015 Macbook Pro, and holding on for dear life, even as it has started alerting me about servicing the battery. It's a great machine. I tried using the touchbar on my son's newer MBP. It's awful, and not meant for serious use. His laptop has been replaced once already due to keyboard issue, and starting to show defects again.

weird I'm on an early 2013 MBP (original battery) at 81% health (226 cycles)

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#585

Post by Shank »

vijaybritto wrote: post #308

Apple says the machines are 40% faster. But Intel has patched their ZombieLoad vulnerability this week which is a 40% perf hit. So these machines are going to be as fast as unpatched machines that we have today?!

The 40% performance drop only applies if you turn off hyperthreading, which nobody (including Apple) is doing out of the box. You can consider these processors vulnerable to ZombieLoad and unpatched out of the box. The timeline for development of a new product like a laptop is so long that these have been planned for months prior to the vulnerability announcement, if not a year or more.

If you want a machine that doesn't have ZombieLoad, and is also Intel, you have to wait until they really patch it in new hardware or disable hyperthreading.

"The 40% figure is only with hyperthreading off" source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210107

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#586

Post by wDcBKgt66V8WDs »

burtonator wrote: post #450
cletus wrote: post #125

What a clusterF is modern Mac hardware: - Keyboards with much worse action that are more prone to failure (from dust no less) and require replacing the motherboard to fix... all for a Touchbar no one wants and 0.5mm cut in thickness. - Loss (over the years) of the ability to upgrade the CPU, SSD or memory; - Display failures due to broken ribbon cables; - The USB-C clusterF; and - Loss of MagSafe (this one still hurt…

> Loss of MagSafe (this one still hurts). I will NEVER forgive them for this. Jobs was RIGHT when he said this was a major innovation over everyone else. Now Apple is either saying he was wrong or THEY are wrong. They're not BOTH right. My 2015 is the last MBP I will ever buy and it's aging fast... I think it's hackingtosh from here on out. I primarily use Ubuntu but I have to have a Mac as our app runs cross platfor…

I have a USB-C only Lenovo (well I guess it has USB-A but I never use it, I'm all in bluetooth/USB-C) and a latest gen Mac Air. I've got a USB-C charging cable for each, a dock at home and at the office that is USB-C (and manages peripherals including monitor).

Seriously a "PC" and Mac sharing all the same chargers and docking solutions. This is incredible. I never had a Mac with mag safe so maybe I just don't know what I'm missing, but the practicality of plugging in ONE cable and that same cable works between both machines and I can bring both with me places without fretting about chargers.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#587

Post by bsaul »

mwfunk wrote: post #345
bsaul wrote: post #254

Funny how people used to be apple hardware sold the software after steve jobs decided to end the mac clone strategy. But judging by all the comments out there, it feels now that the only reason people buy mac hardware is because of mac os.

I never had that impression, I always felt like the software sold the hardware. The hardware was always premium hardware with premium prices and correspondingly premium margins, but because the hardware was so good, people who bought it mainly for the software felt good about their purchase, and didn't mind paying extra for higher-end hardware than they might otherwise buy for themselves. This avoids the race-to-the-…

I’m not sure how old you are, but for a very long time mac os was actually almost a liability : you never knew if the software you needed was going to run on that platform. That’s why mac was for a very long time used only in niche markets ( sound and graphic designers, then developers started to use it starting mac os X).

Also, you think to mix hardware with hardware power, but you seem to forget design. The mac renaissance of the steve jobs 2 era started with a new line of cute colored imacs, great advertising, and strong brand recognition. Those kind of things you don’t get with software.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#588

Post by jodrellblank »

skierguy wrote: post #40
swozey wrote: post #14

These used to excite me because I've desperately needed 32gb and faster procs and used to upgrade every 2-3 years but now I just yawn at MBP releases. I'm so unexcited by everything about this form factor other than the fact that it has OSX. I'm guessing I'll be on my 2016 until I finally bite the bullet and quit using OSX if they don't make a more compelling package to spend my $3k on in the next few years. I don't…

I thought the same thing. Now I'm stuck with a $1500 Asus laptop that barely plays Netflix a year and a half later. despite an 7th gen i7 and 16gb of DDR4. Now I'm saving up for a Macbook Pro again, despite my hatred for the keyboard and touchbar.

From this long discussion a couple of months ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19415185 ), this comment is about fans spinning up:

in order to eek out a tenth of a gigahertz for their marketing materials (with rapidly diminishing returns because physics), manufacturers usually set Turbo Boost Power Limits 5-10 (or more) watts too high. Since Turbo Boost usually maximizes a single core's frequency and the heat generated increases exponentially, it creates a very concentrated heat spike in the silicon. Even if the CPU heat sink is good enough to passively dissipate that much heat from all of the cores, the turbo boost hot spot forces the fans to spin up early before the CPU knows how long the boost will be needed (otherwise Turbo boost would significantly reduce the lifetime of the CPU). Combined with random scheduled OS tasks that take a split second of turbo to run a process [..]

This could also apply to thermal throttling of the CPU. Imagine if your laptop is on that edge, with some dust in the heatsinks and fans, then a can of compressed air and an install of ThrottleStop (or other software) to underclock a little and reduce the maximum boost frequency, and thereby reduce thermal throttling, might make it run smoother and faster-on-average.

Or another possibility:

If your fan is spinning up when scrolling in Slack it's likely an indication that Electron (Chrome) is refusing to use the GPU for rendering acceleration. This is likely either due to a driver issue or the driver/gpu being on chrome's blacklist. I had this problem once on a hackintosh and as I recall starting Slack from a terminal with the `--ignore-gpu-blacklist` option fixed it.

If you NetFlix from Chrome, that might be worth a try, or upgrade/downgrade display drivers for testing. ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19415775 )

An i7 that could stream video, should still be able to stream video. If it can't, something has gone wrong, and should be traceable and fixable.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#589

Post by scarface74 »

dharma1 wrote: post #434
swozey wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having one desktop-powerful machine that can turn into a laptop when you unplug it from its dock and go with me anywhere is well worth the extra $100. And I'm saying this as someone with a dedicated desktop just for rendering/games. The desktop gives me customization and upgradability but the fact that I lose portability is huge and I'll never, ever own just a desktop machine. I'd prefer to own a laptop that can do m…

that's the theory, but in real life the macbook won't sustain 5ghz for very long at all, even less so with 8 cores. It simply can't get rid of the heat fast enough and throttles the speed to stay under thermal limits (while still toasting your balls). The situation isn't helped by the GPU inside the same slim mbpro chassis that also gets super hot, it's particularly bad when you run mixed CPU/GPU workloads like rende…

So for GPU intensive workloads at least, it seems to make more sense to get a lower spec’d laptop for the road and an external GPU as a docking station if you need the portability.

Re: Apple introduces 8-core MacBook Pro

#590

Post by biztos »

docker_up wrote: post #176
endymi0n wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only come to the same conclusion. Typing this on a 2018 MacBook 15 inch, and it's a disaster. I still keep accidentally hitting the Touchbar ten times per day while typing (it's not a press-bar, duh), I need a dongle for _everything and their mother_, battery lifetime isn't good, the keyboard is prone to mistyping and double clicks, the screen doesn't get bright enough sometimes, I can't get any higher spec har…

I recently was forced to upgrade by 2015 laptop at work because the battery life was finally short enough that I couldn't stand it. I hate dongles. The 2015 Macbook will stand as their last best laptop. Nothing about the 2018 laptop is better, it's only worse. I don't understand why they don't see this. There should really be a huge multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit for their keyboards and fixability to wake…

If it’s any consolation (probably the opposite) my 2017 MBP, without Touch Bar, has gotten about 2h battery when running a now-typical corporate “pro” stack (docker, slack, Outlook, etc) sind day one. If only running UNIx stuff plus maybe a browser I can push it to 6.

Every time I get out my 2013 MBP (not for the day job) I remember what a computer could be.

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