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

#361

Post by mcphage » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

slantyyz wrote: post #139

mcphage wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do people really think he just got a lemon? Well, other sites have done benchmarks... have any of them reported it being slower than last year’s model?

Dave Lee's tests usually come from a gamer and media creator's perspective. In most, if not all, of his reviews he makes a point to check thermals and throttling related to heat, because that matters to the gaming segment of his audience. As for media creation, he always tests Adobe Premiere for his cross-platform media creation tests while acknowledging that Premiere on Mac is less performant than it is on Windows,…

> The better question to ask is if any of those other sites who did benchmarks did heavy workload testing on the computers for extended periods of time.

I would expect so—benchmarks often have long-running tasks; if a task only takes a few seconds it's hard to distinguish the overhead from the task itself.

But if nothing else—they will do so going forward.

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

#362

Post by Fnoord » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

rozenmd wrote: post #178

aequitas wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They recommend I open up the device myself? Thereby voiding warranty? Isn't that getting more and more difficult?

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

#363

Post by slantyyz » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

mcphage wrote: post #361

slantyyz wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dave Lee's tests usually come from a gamer and media creator's perspective. In most, if not all, of his reviews he makes a point to check thermals and throttling related to heat, because that matters to the gaming segment of his audience. As for media creation, he always tests Adobe Premiere for his cross-platform media creation tests while acknowledging that Premiere on Mac is less performant than it is on Windows,…

> The better question to ask is if any of those other sites who did benchmarks did heavy workload testing on the computers for extended periods of time. I would expect so—benchmarks often have long-running tasks; if a task only takes a few seconds it's hard to distinguish the overhead from the task itself. But if nothing else—they will do so going forward.

>> benchmarks often have long-running tasks

Yes, but depending on who you're talking to, "long-running" could mean a few minutes or several hours.

Throttling doesn't usually have a major impact on tasks that take a few minutes. But on heavy, long running loads, the effect of throttling starts to add up quickly, which is why the i9 MBP couldn't outperform the 2017 i7 MBP until it was stuffed in a freezer.

While the use of Premiere might raise eyebrows, I don't think it matters in Lee's testing, because he ran the same test on both the 2018 i9 MBP and a 2017 i7 MBP. Either way, it was a heavy, taxing, long running task.

I don't think anyone will dispute that the i9 has significant performance gains for people whose CPU utilization spikes are relatively short -- and that might be the majority of people who will opt to buy an i9 equipped MBP.

For content creators and other users who need to tax the processor for long periods of time, however, those users might be better off with the i7 version of the MBP.

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

#364

Post by kowdermeister » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

m_fayer wrote: post #316

kowdermeister wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Loud? it's the quietest machine I ever had. No problems so far (9370 model)

Mine is the 9360 with the i7-8550U. In high performance mode, it's a hair drier. In balanced, the fan is a constant annoying whine if I have, for example, Webpack in watch mode, or am typing code quickly and keeping the IDE's language service active, or if any browser tab has any active JS at all. Basically if the CPU is at a reasonable speed and at 20% load, constant fan noise. It's quiet if I have it in "silent" mo…

Then I'm glad I have the '18 model, despite the USB-C tyranny. I don't know if they fixed stuff, but it's a pleasant experience so far. CPU is i5-8250I with Windows 10 if feels snappy.

https://imgur.com/a/afvqtbQ

The fan is running at around 10%, barely noticeable.

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

#365

Post by thinkythought » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 3:47 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #355

cm2187 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you charge people for a CPU that has been modified or set up so it cannot achieve the advertised specs then it is misselling.

Intel's CPUs are likely not modified (very much). All Intel CPUs automatically downclock themselves when they start to overheat as a self-protection measure. It is up to the case-manufacturer to provide adequate fans and cooling for the chip. Otherwise, Intel's chips are forced to protect themselves and start to slow themself down.

Last i had heard, TDP was a manufacturer configurable item and could be set within a pretty wide range, and the limits would act accordingly

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

#366

Post by bitwize » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

drb91 wrote: post #349

bitwize wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, the MBP is fulfilling Apple's design goals: they are optimizing for thinness, lightness, and battery life, not performance or thermal dissipation. As long as the thing doesn't break (in a way that can't be fixed trivially by the Geniuses at the Genius Bar) everything's fine as far as Apple's business is concerned.

I like how you note the customer needs have no role in the Apple design process.

The fact that Apple is the most successful company in the world seems to suggest that their method of thrilling the customer by subverting and surpassing their expectations beats building what the customer says they want. In the case of laptops, it turns out that lightness and battery life -- portability -- is what people actually want, otherwise they'd just use desktops.

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

#367

Post by thinkythought » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #362

rozenmd wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this. Former employees of Apple I know recommend reapplying the thermal paste immediately after getting a MacBook Pro.

They recommend I open up the device myself? Thereby voiding warranty? Isn't that getting more and more difficult?

This may have changed, but for years the apple warranty was "as long as you don't damage anything, you're allowed to open it". I did some research and at least the manual for my machine still states this, but mine is also from 2012

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

#368

Post by drb91 » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #366

drb91 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how you note the customer needs have no role in the Apple design process.

The fact that Apple is the most successful company in the world seems to suggest that their method of thrilling the customer by subverting and surpassing their expectations beats building what the customer says they want. In the case of laptops, it turns out that lightness and battery life -- portability -- is what people actually want, otherwise they'd just use desktops.

I’d guess the software, as that’s the primary distinguishing factor. I don’t know of anyone who runs windows on a mac, even though that’s relatively easy. However, there’s a thriving hackintosh community.

It’d be easier to tell if Apple offered consumers choice themselves.

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

#369

Post by vivan » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

Tepix wrote: post #329

vivan wrote: post #223

This isn't a problem solely with the MacBook Pro - it affects most of the "ultralight" laptops these days. My XPS 13 (lovely machine, thermal issues aside) has been RMA'd 3 times because it overheated. It still gets far too hot and throttles itself so I've had to underclock it and turn off "turbo" mode. Other users have mentioned that simply repasting the CPU has caused massive improvements in temps, but I'm personal…

Which generation of XPS 13 is that?

9360 so the previous generation. Made the mistake of going with the higher res screen - apparently they have more issues.

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

#370

Post by Const-me » Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 4:31 PM UTC

jbb67 wrote: post #159

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

Not just desktops. A few years ago we had thick laptops with good cooling, too.

Unlike newer thin laptops, they were, and still are, viable desktop replacements. Some of them even allowed upgrading the CPU. I once inserted i7-3612QM in 13” HP ProBook 4340s of a family member (it had an i3-3110M initially) also replacing fan assembly. It runs well under sustained loads, and the performance with the i7 is very close to much newer 15W mobile CPUs such as i7-8550U found in the current 13” macbook pros.

It’s a shame we no longer have these, not Apple, not Windows, nobody.