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Why Apple and Microsoft Are Using Last Year's Skylake Processors In Their New Computers (gizmodo.com)
Apple released new MacBook Pros yesterday that feature Intel's year-old Skylake microarchitcure, as opposed to the newer Kaby Lake architecture. Two days earlier, Microsoft did the same thing when it released the Surface Studio. Given the improvements Kaby Lake processors have over Skylake processors, one would think they would be included in the latest and greatest products from Microsoft and Apple. Gizmodo explains why that's not the case: In the case of the new 15-inch MacBook the answer is simple. "The Kaby Lake chip doesn't exist yet," an Apple rep told Gizmodo. Kaby Lake is being rolled out relatively slowly, and it's only available in a few forms and wattages. The 15-inch MacBook Pro uses a quad-core processor that has no Kaby Lake equivalent currently. That particular laptop really does have the fastest processor available. The same goes for the Microsoft Surface Studio and updated Surface Book -- both also use a quad-core Skylake processor with no Kaby Lake counterpart. But the Studio and Surface Book are also using much older video cards from the Nvidia 900 series. Nvidia has much faster and less power-hungry chips (the 1000 series) available based on the Pascal architecture. Microsoft's reasoning for going with older video cards is nearly identical to Apple's for going with a slower processor in its 13-inch MacBook Pro: the Nvidia 1000 series came out too late. The major intimation was that Kaby Lake and Pascal came so late in the design process that it would have delayed the final products if they'd chosen to use them. New technology, no matter how amazing an upgrade it might be, still requires considerable testing before it can be shipped to consumers. One minor bug, particularly in a system as engineered as the Surface Studio or MacBook Pro, can turn catastrophic if engineers aren't careful. In the case of Microsoft, it's frustrating, because that old GPU is significantly slower than the Pascal GPUs available. It's a little less frustrating in Apple's case, largely because of the old processor microarchitecture that Apple elected to shove into its new 13-inch MacBook Pro. Apple went with a new Skylake dual core processor that draws a lot of power -- more so than any Kaby Lake processor available. It then uses all that extra power to ramp up the speeds of the processor. Which means it is capable of pulling off speeds that can actually match those of the fastest Kaby Lake processor out there. The only downside to this decision is battery life.
The dark side of this relationship between manufacturor and user is that the provider might want to sell both product lines rather than just the first one. "consumers on both sides of the tracks will have the unquenchable desire to have the latest flangle". In both cases, there may already be plenty of CPU horse power, so that even last years model works fine . Sorta feels like the cable industry letting go of the Triple play. Sometimes we users just dont need a new version. Or they will down-spec the initial to make the next rev required?
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
No, FOTU. Fear Of The Unknown
Current chipsets have enough power to make any device seem very quick to the average users. Only the super high-end buyers would even be able to name the latest. Why risk using a brand new chip?
How many incremental units do you ship because you used the latest new chipset v. downside risk of potential issues with a chip that has not been tested in a full market release?
It's math. Nothing complicated about it.
It's just a shame that the Macbooks are capped at 16GB RAM, no 32GB option. For battery life reasons.
Perhaps if nVidia would quit changing BGA pinouts, companies would be more likely to substitute their newer processors.
Of course if they did that, companies might also substitute a competitors part instead. Then nVidia would end up having to compete on price/performance. And no one wants that.
This doesn't matter to me at all.
What matters to me is:
1) Moderately powerful discrete GPU options
2) Anti-glare LCD panels
3) Ports (you know, things like USB 2.0/3.0, Ethernet, headphone/microphone jacks, DisplayPort, etc)
4) More than 16GB of RAM
5) User replaceable batteries, OR a built-in battery of sufficient capacity this doesn't matter
6) Keyboards with a reasonable amount of key travel (0.5mm or whatever it is on the nMBP is hardly sufficient)
7) Apparently, I can add "keyboards with a reasonable amount of physical keys" to this list as well
A quad core CPU would be nice. Beyond that, I don't really care because anything "i7" is already fast enough for me. I don't need the latest greatest CPU the moment it comes out. It would be nice if the rest of the machine were kept up to date though, in terms of GPU options and other stuff, so that when I do decide to purchase a machine I'm actually getting something indicative of modern day technology (even if the CPU is a generation behind). Situations like the MBP (where everyone waited for this "major update") and nMP are pretty much inexcusable for a company with $200B in the bank.
Anyway this is all meaningless drivel. Apple designed a laptop to run 10 hours. Double the memory, add more power hungry graphics chips, and you get maybe 5 hours if you're lucky. So then Apple gets flamed for having Dell/HP battery life. Well they will get flamed by Slashdot nerds no matter if they invented time travel and warp drive. But for the rest of the normal population, they want longer battery life, not minuscule speed bumps with a CPU change.
not meaningless at all, 5 hour battery life is fine.
my macbook is only unplugged for two or three hours for meetings anyway.
oh, that's not your use pattern? so fuck you, you can get an 8GB or 16GB one
Did they really need that much text to explain the situation? I feel like that paragraph contained a lot of words, but said very little.
nVidia already competes on price and performance... AMD is just not a great competitor, and basically nobody else is bothering to try.
There is no way in hell a system designer is going to substitute a newer part, unless they can:
(A) do it without a redesign/board relayout
(B) do it in a way that lets them back out of the decision when the newer part screws up horribly
If you object to the "when" in option "(B)", then you can object by making the part not fail, when I have the option of backing out the part choice. If you don't fail, I don't back out the part choice.
It's really very simple.
When you see Apple users excusing poor design decisions as good ones you know the Apple of Steve Jobs is gone. Not only considering it a good one saying it is the superior choice (well because of reasons).
iPhone users have been justifying Apple's poor design decisions for years, including back when the Turtlenecked one was alive:
* Battery life is essentially capped to less than a day, and every improvement in power saving has been offset by a cut in phone thickness, instead of giving us the option of a battery that lasts longer. "Thinner is better."
* Remember antennagate? "You're holding it wrong."
* iOS upgrades that break functionality. "You just have to learn it."
* Pulling USB mass storage support so that people can't copy music. "[crickets]"
* Crippling Bluetooth to remove standard protocols and behaviors. "Apple invented wireless ear buds."
Source? That would be very surprising..
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
And it was a disaster. Drivers just plain weren't ready. BSODs for months, epic fail. Thankfully, Apple is smarter than that.
My understanding is that RAM becomes fragmented during use and the OS typically makes no effort to remedy this since on most (all?) computer systems RAM access is fast and uniform regardless of fragmentation.
Anyway, to achieve the power benefits of shutting down the second bank, the OS will need to run a RAM fragmentation and consolidation routine to clear that bank before it can be shut off.
I'm not making excuses for Apple, it's an interesting idea. Does anyone know of other hardware that does anything like this already?
> Pulling USB mass storage support so that people can't copy music. "[crickets]"
What do you mean?
> They could wait 6 more months and create a modern notebook.
But why? The latest Macbook Pros had Broadwell and Haswell. It's not unreasonable for the 2016 models to have Skylake. Next year's refresh will probably have Kabylake, or Cannonlake, depending entirely on what exists for their needed spread of things. They refresh every year, going to whatever processor is best. Why delay for half a year to match Intel's (ever changing) cycle?
"Apple and Microsoft use Skylake processors in new computers due to Kerby Lake unavailability"
There, a headline which explains everything you need to know about the summary and the article, and is one word shorter to boot.
Yeah, about 4W at full load. Is that "a lot" these days?
Also, from what (little) i've read about Kaby Lake the improvements from Skylake are minor - power consumption is in fact expected to be identical.
What do you use more than 16GB of RAM for, exactly? I switched to a Macbook Pro 15" from linux a couple of few ago. I had tried a Mini when they first came out and knew that OS X was RAM-hungry, so I upgraded my MBPro to 16GB when I ordered it. With a browser, garageband,spotify, and other apps all running at the same time I see no slowdowns whatsoever. And this is a 2014 model. I would think the newer ones are even more efficient.
I've been using an 8 GB 2015 MacBook to edit Photoshop files running into the hundreds of megabytes, my biggest files are in huge resolutions that weigh in at around a gigabyte and I can't say I've been pining for 16GB. I'm sure it would probably help but I don't think it would make a truly massive difference. Solid state discs and USB3 have done more to speed up my work because they've massively cut the time it takes to load, save and, in the case of USB3, transfer files than any CPU upgrades have done.
> Pulling USB mass storage support so that people can't copy music. "[crickets]"
What do you mean?
The closest I can get is his Chevy can beat your Ford any day.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Somewhere in the bowels of 1 Infinite Loop I'll bet there's a mockup of a MacBook with an A10 processor. Or multiple A10 processors. Running a crude port of macOS. But because that would mean another round of porting legacy software over to the new chips it won't happen until they can get a good emulator experience. Seems to me that's where things should be headed, just basing on what's come up over the last few years.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
You sound like the engineering version of the salesman that says "Well I've sold this feature to the client, so you make it work" regardless of how hard it does everybody else's job. Marketing will have a harder time trying to sell new features, accounting might find they can't charge as much of a premium so margins are shit, but the system designer has decided there's "no way in hell" we're replacing that CPU/GPU. Maybe if it's capacitors on a board but when it comes to headline features I expect those choices are made a couple pay grades above the system designer. Obviously you need to inform them what it'll cost in time, resources and risk and to push back when they make unreasonable demands for changes - like do we all - but I doubt it's really "that simple". Anyone who doesn't see that the interests have to be balanced probably won't be employed very long, at least not in a position where they get to decide anything.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You are articulate and sound very well educated. You large vocabulary is impressive. The use of a maximum of two syllable words is astute. You must have a well paid, highly technical, white collar job and are definitely not a janitor or drive thru worker. English certainly must be your first language.
I speak and write at the level of my audience.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
One word: "daughtercard".
Whine about thin form factors not allowing for it all you want, but you're wrong.
So because you can't get your shit together and keep you BGA layout the same, I have to make up for it by making a separate carrier card that rearranges the pins so that they are the same again on an edge connector?
It's not goddamned rocket science.
I agree: if you want a PCIe interface, then export one at the BGA level, and don't make me add cost to my product because you are too lazy to route the pins yourself.
Or, you know, I could just use your older product that I know already doesn't suck, and you can just wait a year to 10 months for the product referesh to start selling your chips.
Pick one.
Obviously you need to inform them what it'll cost in time, resources and risk and to push back when they make unreasonable demands for changes - like do we all - but I doubt it's really "that simple".
They got that: having a different BGA is going to cost them 9 months (minimum) of not selling their chip on Microsoft Surface or Apple MacBook products.
1) Moderately powerful discrete GPU options
15" MBP is a Pascal based GPU, not the most powerful but fairly powerful. 4GB at max.
2) Anti-glare LCD panels
They have been since forever. My 15" from 2013 has anti-glare stuff on the screen.
3) Ports (you know, things like USB 2.0/3.0, Ethernet, headphone/microphone jacks, DisplayPort, etc)
It has four ports that are any of those things you want plus more, with a very high rate of transfer.
4) More than 16GB of RAM :Not impossible you know. It will just cost a lot more. Since the OS is less bloated than Windows and uses memory compression tech now, it's sort of like having a 32GB Windows laptop though...
5) User replaceable batteries, OR a built-in battery of sufficient capacity this doesn't matter
It's (b) already. If you must replace it (though why you would, I don't know, I've not had to in three years of service from my current laptop) you can do that yourself with some effort, or just take it to any Apple store and have them do it on-site for a small fee.
6) Keyboards with a reasonable amount of key travel (0.5mm or whatever it is on the nMBP is hardly sufficient)
This is frankly a stupid ask, it's not the travel (at least not all), it's how the keyboard feels to use.
7) Apparently, I can add "keyboards with a reasonable amount of physical keys" to this list as well
I'm sorry, what number is greater than "infinite + 13?"
Because the TouchBar can be sets of ANY keys desired, along with all of the old FN keys (and ESC) simply by holding down the FN key that already exists unused on every Mac keyboard to date.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A standard headphone jack (cuz bluetooth audio sounds like shit even on mediocre headphones)
iPhone 7 ships with a standard headphone jack (via dongle) or superior digital audio interface if desired (which the included WIRED headphones use)
An SDCC card (cus the vendor trumpets xx gig storage, without mentioning 3/4 xx storage is crapware you can't delete)
iOS has a low and predictable memory footprint and does not ship with crapware.
Nougat, cuz it's been out for a month or two now
From personal experience you do NOT want to get nougat in the phone, it's a bitch to clean out of ports.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Multiple virtual machines. Running lots of applications simultaneously, as a multimedia developer will sometimes do. Editing very large images or 4K video. Developing and building large software packages. Those are all tasks that can benefit from having more than 16GB RAM.
Right now, those users are a small subset of the total user base. But they do exist.
A minor catch: Apple laptops are the only ones that will run Mac OS. If somebody is already thoroughly entrenched in that environment, switching to Windows or Linux would be a major upheaval. And if that person happens to be a Mac or iOS developer, a Mac is the only option.
Yup. The only downside. In a portable device. Idiots.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
New MacBook Pros Max Out At 16GB RAM Due To Battery Life Concerns
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Seriously... I do have 32GB in my Mac Pro, but I rarely use more than 17GB, and that's including cache, etc. that could easily be freed without a substantial impact. That's with a couple of browsers, iTunes, Eclipse, Xcode, email, Twitter client, Slack client, Skype, OneNote, RSS reader, database IDE, and a smattering of other stuff running at once. I upgraded my (much older) MBP to 16GB, and RAM has never been the bottleneck.
Nah... We did that for Steve too. Reality Distortion Field was a thing...
Apple users are a bit more willing to look at realistic real world compromises and determine that trading one thing for another makes more sense for some of us. I can't charge & listen to wired headphones on my iPhone 7. I used to do that on my 6. Like twice a year when I had to travel on Amtrak. Now I'll do something different and accept the improvements that the 7 gives me at the cost of not being able to do something that I very seldom did.
We can also acknowledge that our chosen supplier needn't make products that appeal to 100% of the entire market. I'm certain there are some users who frequently want to charge and listen to wired headphones at the same time. The iPhone 7 is a poor choice for them. Likewise for those users who want a portable device with huge processing capability, the new MacBook Pro might be poor choice. Apple chose to prioritize battery life over performance for a portable device. I'm sure based on significant market research, they found that was the better compromise for the majority of their customers.
Making a product that focuses on maybe 70% of use cases (to completely make up a number), but does those things very very well is much preferable to me than trying to make a product that does everything for everyone. I'm looking at my iPad and my (work provided) Surface 4 as I type this. One of them has a layer of dust on it because it tries to do too much and manages only mediocre success at many of them. The other I use daily for the tasks that it focuses on being excellent at and happily use a different device for other tasks that it's not as well suited for.
There's a lot to be said for being excellent at a few things versus being so-so at a lot of things. As a customer, I often spend more money to buy several devices (watch, phone, tablet, laptop, desktop) to do different tasks. The physical form factors of each of those devices mean they're each more or less suited to certain tasks. It's good that the market can provide less expensive devices or devices that can do more tasks, even if they're not able to do all of them as well as several more focused devices might. If you don't like Apple's choices in that regard, buy something else.
BT keyboard is one of those weird things that's useful occasionally. I've enjoyed reactions from people, "How do you text so fast???" when I would pair a BT keyboard to my iPhone before iMessage could bridge over from a laptop with a real keyboard. I like my BT heart rate sensor for running too...
If Kirby inhales you, does he get a cute little Guy Fawkes mask and the ability to troll forums?
the point is customers should be able to buy the amount of ram they want for their usage pattern.
Not brand loyalty, it's correct tool for the job. Windows is the wrong tool for my job.