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The New MacBook Pro Features 'Fastest SSD Ever' In a Laptop (macrumors.com)
Last week, Apple refreshed the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models, bringing newer Intel processors and quieter keyboards. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro also just so happens to feature the fastest SSD ever in a laptop, according to benchmarks from Laptop Mag. Mac Rumors summarizes the findings: The site's tests were performed on the $2,499 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar equipped with a 2.7GHz quad-core 8th-generation Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, Intel Iris Plus 655, and a 512GB SSD. A file copy test of the SSD in the new MacBook Pro, which Apple says supports sequential read speeds of up to 3.2GB/s and sequential write speeds up to 2.2GB/s, led Laptop Mag to declare the SSD in the MacBook Pro "the fastest ever" in a laptop. Higher capacity SSDs may see even faster speeds on disk speeds tests. A BlackMagic Disk Speed test was also conducted, resulting in an average write speed of 2,682 MB/s.
On a Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark, the 13-inch MacBook Pro earned a score of 18,055 on the multi-core test, outperforming 13-inch machines from companies like Dell, HP, Asus, and Microsoft. That score beats out all 2017 MacBook Pro models and is faster than some iMac configurations. 15-inch MacBook Pro models with 6-core 8th-generation Intel chips will show even more impressive speeds. With that said, the 13-inch MacBook Pro didn't quite measure up to other machines when it came to GPU performance. "The 13-inch 2018 MacBook Pro uses Intel's Iris Plus Graphics 655 with 128MB of embedded DRAM and was unable to compete in a Dirt 3 graphics test, getting only 38.8 frames per second," reports Mac Rumors. "All Windows-based machines tested offered much better performance."
On a Geekbench 4 CPU benchmark, the 13-inch MacBook Pro earned a score of 18,055 on the multi-core test, outperforming 13-inch machines from companies like Dell, HP, Asus, and Microsoft. That score beats out all 2017 MacBook Pro models and is faster than some iMac configurations. 15-inch MacBook Pro models with 6-core 8th-generation Intel chips will show even more impressive speeds. With that said, the 13-inch MacBook Pro didn't quite measure up to other machines when it came to GPU performance. "The 13-inch 2018 MacBook Pro uses Intel's Iris Plus Graphics 655 with 128MB of embedded DRAM and was unable to compete in a Dirt 3 graphics test, getting only 38.8 frames per second," reports Mac Rumors. "All Windows-based machines tested offered much better performance."
I just brought my Mac in for 'service'. 2 year old machine, my keyboard had the known issues, my USB-C ports were failing, and then it stopped charging altogether. Fortunately the SSD seemed to be the one thing that was still working. The IO board was gone, and they acknowledged that the keyboard and ports needed replacing. Now, cheers to Apple for giving me an entirely new laptop body; but what happens when the same failures happen in two years and I DON'T have Apple Care? Total bullshit.
It's one hell of a display, though... I'm looking at it now, and it beats the crap out of any other laptop display I've seen.
Linux enables me to spend a great deal more on a laptop or a workstation actually. I see this anemic little SSD and chuckle. So what if it's "fast". I would rather have more storage.
I can get 2.5TB of SSD storage on a Linux laptop.
My old bruiser has 2.5TB of conventional storage. My "outdated" bruiser probably still has a better GPU than this Apple toy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
A 5 year old computer is slower than a new one? I' m shocked.
Some research turns up that:
In other words, the files weren't copied. A hard link (similar to a shortcut for you Windows users) was created. The whole story is an error by non-techie journalists who noticed something wildly odd in their test results, and rather than spend 30 seconds researching it online like I did, decided "it must be because it's Apple!" and published it. The reality distortion field is alive and well.
Apple has been using Sandisk NAND lately as a bid to try to reduce dependence on Samsung. Both Sandisk and Toshiba SSDs (also used frequently by Apple) regularly benchmark slower than Samsung SSDs.
You could have bought a $500 laptop, tossed a $100 SSD in it, and been equally blown away.
I have an SSD and it boots instantly. Apps and game levels are near instantaneous. Speed isn't my problem. With games taking up 100GB now, even my 500GB SSD is constantly running out of space. When I do upgrade, I'll get a fast replacement, but size, not speed will be my primary requirement,
I'm not impressed by the Mac displays....they used to be very good but now they're just on par with offerings by every other manufacturer. I use a Mac at work and sitting next to a $500 laptop from Acer or Dell or anyone else it looks pretty much the same.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
My work laptop also has SSDs, and it doesn't install Windows 10 into a VM that fast - and it's a Lenovo W530; not exactly a slouch.
You're on the wrong side of the PCIe attached storage divide. The W530 has a weedy 6Gb/s SATA-III interface (my W510 has weedier SATA-II). The good Samsung drives can manage about 5x SATA-III speed on writes and more on reads.
Actually looking that up, I notived that the benchmark for the supposed "fastest SSD in a laptop" almost exactly matches the Samsung 970 EVO drive benchmarks.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well, yeah, because every decent manufacturer buys the same panels from Samsung that Apple is using. I don't know why anyone ever thought Apple's displays were some special magic that nobody else had access to... it's not like they make them in-house.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
But the counterargument is - who the hell needs a 4K or 5K display in a 13" laptop. Which could also be said of the "fastest SSD in any laptop".
We've long passed the time when desktop/laptop hardware improvements actually improve the experience of using the device - and we're rapidly approaching that time for mobile devices too. There may be some use cases that demand the best/fastest/highest resolution hardware money can buy - but it's not your average MacBook user's use case.
Which, I guess in a way is a shame. Improvements in commodity hardware led the way to improvements everywhere. Server hardware got cheaper because they could use RAID arrays of the same commodity hard drives that desktops - and later laptops - used, benefiting from the economies of scale that apply to consumer hardware, even though servers didn't sell at anywhere near those levels. But that party's over - and since most server platforms today scale horizontally, they have other ways of improving performance than relying on raw horsepower improvements.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I want magsafe so my toddler won't destroy my mac while crawling around, a few usb ports I can use without a dongle, my F-keys, and a sane keyboard.
I think the real reason is because MacBooks have kind of become the Windows of the laptop world, you get them because it's what everybody else has so it's the safe bet. They're everywhere across airport lounges to university campuses and they can run macOS, Linux and/or Windows, they have very limited configuration options so they are easy to manage, when they do break you can just take them into the official shop for repair rather than having to send them off, Apple has left the high performance and lowend markets to their competitors and provide a middling product for the majority. There isn't really a compelling reason to get one but there's not really a compelling reason not to either, they even mitigate the relatively poor value proposition with 0% interest financing options.
These days the people who don't have them are the people who either don't want them or are at the very low end of the price bracket that is really dominated by Chromebooks. In recent years the quality value proposition has died off too, they used to be way more reliable but my last 3 macbooks have had to go in for repair from creaky chassis to dead USB ports to rattling fans which really comes from poor quality control but at least when they do go wrong it's easy to get them fixed. For high performance computing there are way better options but for your average user the MacBook "Pro" covers pretty much everything.