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MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

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Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#151

Post by slantyyz »

garren wrote: post #121
RussianCow wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> justify the MacBook Pro's ludicrous pricetag that has some shiny numbers on the tech specs sheet If you think people buy MacBook Pros because of their tech specs, you are missing the point. MacBooks are by far the best general purpose, well-rounded laptops on the market from a build quality perspective. Everything from the screen to the touchpad to sleep/hibernate (and, until recently, the keyboard) is finely tuned…

I have a handful of laptops but by far my most reliable have been my macbook pros. I'm writing this on a mid-2010 mbp that's run like a champ since day one. I also have a 2014 mbp for work, but I really like the 2010. It's not a skinny ultra-portable but it's not a tank either. It only runs hot when I have it hooked up to a large display. Eight years with no notable problems for a daily driver is pretty good in my ey…

In general, I would agree that Macbook Pros are very reliable.

Having said that, it's not like Apple hasn't had their share of lemons. I was unfortunate enough to have an early 2011 15" Macbook Pro. Without getting into too much details, it's a known lemon that has been discussed here on HN many times. My 2011 MBP was the first laptop I've ever had that actually stopped working. FWIW, most of my other laptops were PC laptops that didn't cost nearly as much as the MBP.

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#152

Post by gaius »

vbezhenar wrote: post #120
wukerplank wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness: If you sell a >3000€ laptop, people should expect to get the full value out of it. Maybe it's hard to cool CPUs in thin laptops. But then don't let people pay for expensive upgrades that have no performance benefit.

It depends on workload. If I'm typing code for a minute and then spending few seconds compiling and launching it, it won't trigger throttling, but reducing each compilation from 3 seconds to 2 seconds is certainly a benefit.

“Creative” workloads require sustained CPU tho’ and that’s who Apple claims this is for

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#153

Post by locusm »

slantyyz wrote: post #20
lebrad wrote: post #19

Dave Lee's youtube video is a withering takedown, presented dispassionately. His argument is such a slam dunk that the article concludes with stunned disbelief, speculating that maybe there's "something wrong with the MacBook Pro with Core i9 chip that Lee received". Yes there's something wrong with it, that was the exact point of his video. Do people really think he just got a lemon?

In fairness, Lee criticized the Dell XPS 15's thermals in a video a couple of days ago. Of course, he also posted a video last week about how he was starting to hate Apple products. If you watch a lot of his videos, you'll notice that he almost always talks about thermals, so it's not surprising to see him focus on that aspect of the MBP.

A CPU in a laptop destined for any target market that doesn't even hold base clock speeds should not have made it out of the QA dept.

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#154

Post by gaius »

matte_black wrote: post #129

This problem is easily solved by just having an external cooling solution like a USB fan tray that sits under the MacBook, and only when you are doing some heavy tasks. In normal day to day use most people will not do enough processing to be affected by thermal issues. Keeping the form factor of a MacBook is much more important than eliminating every thermal edge case. People take for granted how much we’ve improved…

This problem is easily solved by just having an external cooling solution like a USB fan tray that sits under the MacBook

So, making it an inch or two thicker?

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#155

Post by wukerplank »

zamalek wrote: post #135
wukerplank wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness: If you sell a >3000€ laptop, people should expect to get the full value out of it. Maybe it's hard to cool CPUs in thin laptops. But then don't let people pay for expensive upgrades that have no performance benefit.

> But then don't let people pay for expensive upgrades that have no performance benefit. The number of people who want performance stats, or at least think they need, far outnumber the amount of people who need performance. It makes absolute sense to sell these lemons, even though it is unethical.

> it is unethical

The only part that matters. Maybe it's even illegal.

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#156

Post by ardis__ »

garren wrote: post #126
corey_moncure wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you taken the Surface Book 2 for a spin? Pricey, but gives the MBP a good run for its money, and does a couple tricks the MBP cannot, such as having an excellent touch/pen surface for a screen. Real ports, including SD card. The outstanding downside is, of course, the abominable Windows 10.

How often do you rely on the touch screen? I know it seems like a naive question, but I have an older surface pro and I rarely used the touch screen. The machine itself was bulkier than an iPad or Nexus9, so I tended to use those instead for tooling around and mindless consumption. The surface pro was pretty much useless for actual work unless I had a second monitor, actual keyboard, and trackpad. I do native Windows…

I have a touchscreen on my dell e7470. I use it daily and I wouldn't want to miss it. It's perfect for like web browsing, navigating diagrams, and presenting. It's not useful for actual coding itself, only for supporting activities. I only use the laptop monitor itself, as soon as a actual monitor becomes the primary monitor, the usefulness of a touchscreen declines massively.

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#157

Post by kart23 »

djsumdog wrote: post #140
slantyyz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, Lee criticized the Dell XPS 15's thermals in a video a couple of days ago. Of course, he also posted a video last week about how he was starting to hate Apple products. If you watch a lot of his videos, you'll notice that he almost always talks about thermals, so it's not surprising to see him focus on that aspect of the MBP.

I have a Dell XPS 15 (2017) and the thermals are really bad. I saw constant throttling in my kernel logs and the laptop sometimes slowed to a crawl when compiling, running a ton of docker containers, using Light Table or even just having a ton of browser tabs open. I finally ditched it a few weeks ago, finally replacing it with a Ryzen 7 desktop. I'll admit my XPS 15 was a factory refurbished model, so maybe I just g…

My old xps 13 with the i5 had great thermals on the other hand, but was still snappy enough for almost everything I threw at it. Didn't like it b/c the screen was just a tad too small for me and I had some problems getting good audio on the machine. Also, coil whine. It was awful.

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#158

Post by firmgently »

tedmiston wrote: post #81
zzleeper wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were the benchmarks run on a cooled room? Some years ago, as a student, I paid $$$ for a Toshiba with 4 cores and hyperthreading, and I could only run them well on the winter or in a very cool room. In the summer it would reach 100C and constantly throttle, so I do think that temperature is a key issue, sp. now with slimmmer laptops

Not sure on an individual basis but the Geekbench numbers are aggregate across all users of the machine. I reached out to the video author to see if he'd be willing to run Geekbench on it in a freezer vs not. https://twitter.com/kicksopenminds/status/101942058846774067...

Two suggestions were made:

1. Run GeekBench back to back (realistic: a prolonged workload... which would show the Mac as being worse)

2. Working in a freezer (completely unrealistic situation... which would make the Mac seem better).

Only one suggestion gets passed on to the video author. Science (Apple flavour).

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#159

Post by jbb67 »

So... they discovered that there is a reaason that desktop computers have a large heatsink with a fan many times larger attached... Don't buy a laptop and expect it's sustained performance to be anywhere near that of a proper desktop computer. It simply won't be

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#160

Post by nickthemagicman »

sehugg wrote: post #88
nickthemagicman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep Its just a million little details that make it such quality. The awesome UI of the OS. The trackpad is the best trackpad I've ever used. Every other trackpad feels clumsy after using one. The fact that it's a TRUE linux machine not just retrofitted Windows linux. The fact that everything just works. The chance of getting a virus is incredibly small. The time saved in troubleshooting is worth the price. Operating…

The fact that it's a TRUE linux machine To be pedantic, a GNU/Darwin/Mach/BSD machine.

Yessir. A flavor of Linux but Linux nonetheless.
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