MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by saagarjha » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 7:14 AM UTC

wild_preference wrote: post #55

theabacus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sticking with my 2015 15” until it bites the dust and then probably getting something else if Apple hasn’t figured this out yet. Even there software is degrading. I feel like I’m doing better by not running updates (I know this is not so, for security reasons, but...)

My favorite is the latest Air (years old now) which doesn’t even have a retina screen yet, a perk in my book. I could watch Netflix on my bare stomach with my Air. Latest Pro is quickly too hot to handle. Of course not the only issue but the computer never bounced back from that first impression. The dedicated gfx card doesn’t even seem to run games like Civ 5 better than my Air which I’m guessing is due to all the e…

> Latest Pro is quickly too hot to handle.

When watching Netflix?

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

#172

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 7:15 AM UTC

gaius wrote: post #152

vbezhenar wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[deleted]

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

#173

Post by saagarjha » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 7:19 AM UTC

lgvln wrote: post #22

rasz wrote: post #14

Macs dont even start running fans until you hit >80C.

I think the correct terminology is “don’t start running the fans at high(audible) speeds till >80C.

It really depends on the model. My older MacBook Pros would idle at 2K RPM, while my new MacBook Pro can go all the way down to zero in the winter or with very few things open but generally stay at 1200 RPM during daily usage. All of these are silent, of course.

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

#174

Post by white-flame » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 7:20 AM UTC

MBCook wrote: post #39

symfoniq wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. What ever happened to product differentiation?

To be fair they’ve always been bumping up against this since they don’t like to put tons of fans in their laptops. While this obviously shouldn’t happen, it seems like something you could easily predict might be a flaw if you knew that one had to exist.

They've always been bumping up against this back in the Apple II days, and systems would overheat then, too. All in the name of Steve Jobs emphasizing case aesthetics & not wanting fan noise.

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

#175

Post by saagarjha » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 7:22 AM UTC

ianamartin wrote: post #3

You know, I'm so beat down by the state of apple laptops, I don't even care. I was all ready to spring for a new machine the day these dropped. Until I found out that they max the 13" model at 16 gigs of ram. I'm so pissed. I don't want the 15". That's what external monitors are for. I like the portable to be fucking portable. Jesus. I give up.

Why do you need 32 GB of ram?

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

#176

Post by geezerjay » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 7:23 AM UTC

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.

> or at least think they need,

Irrelevant. If you pay premium for performance expecting to get the level of performance you've paid for then you better get what you've paid for.

Otherwise we're dealing with something very similar to consumer fraud covered with a thin paternalist veil of "corporation knows best".

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

#177

Post by aequitas » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 7:23 AM UTC

arthurfm wrote: post #169

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?

Quinn Nelson (a.k.a. Snazzy Labs) recently did a couple of videos where he replaced the stock thermal paste on a 2017 MacBook Pro with a liquid metal thermal paste [1] and then 3 months later with a standard thermal paste [2]. With the liquid metal paste the CPU temps dropped 10°C, ran 200MHz faster and the MacBook Pro didn't thermal throttle. The standard thermal paste also saw a 7-10% improvement in thermals compar…

When working as intern at an Apple store more than 10 years back the instructions from Apple for reassembly would always tell to put a huge amount of thermal grease on the CPU. So much that it would be squirted out from under the heatblock in large blobs. I always found it odd as I was used to add just as much as was needed without spilling over. Never read any research on it though so I'm curious what was the right approach. I can't image Apple just getting this part of the thermal puzzle wrong when everything else is fully optimized. Or them just skimping a few cents on better grease.

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

#178

Post by rozenmd » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 7:26 AM UTC

aequitas wrote: post #177

arthurfm wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quinn Nelson (a.k.a. Snazzy Labs) recently did a couple of videos where he replaced the stock thermal paste on a 2017 MacBook Pro with a liquid metal thermal paste [1] and then 3 months later with a standard thermal paste [2]. With the liquid metal paste the CPU temps dropped 10°C, ran 200MHz faster and the MacBook Pro didn't thermal throttle. The standard thermal paste also saw a 7-10% improvement in thermals compar…

When working as intern at an Apple store more than 10 years back the instructions from Apple for reassembly would always tell to put a huge amount of thermal grease on the CPU. So much that it would be squirted out from under the heatblock in large blobs. I always found it odd as I was used to add just as much as was needed without spilling over. Never read any research on it though so I'm curious what was the right…

Came here to say this.

Former employees of Apple I know recommend reapplying the thermal paste immediately after getting a MacBook Pro.

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

#179

Post by aparashk » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 7:26 AM UTC

The i9 CPU is a K part, therefore, I would think one could conceivably undervolt/underclock in order to change the thermals on the machine to their liking. Is there such a tool for Mac OS X?

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

#180

Post by cdmckay » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 7:31 AM UTC

aparashk wrote: post #179

The i9 CPU is a K part, therefore, I would think one could conceivably undervolt/underclock in order to change the thermals on the machine to their liking. Is there such a tool for Mac OS X?

What’s a K part?