The IT Nerd

If you have been lusting after an i9 MacBook Pro, and you’ve seen the coverage of the processor throttling issues that have been the topic of conversation for the last week or more, Apple says that they’ve fixed that. How you ask? Well they released an update that is aimed at addressing this issue. Because they claim, this was a bug. Which is plausible. But I still find it odd that this issue slipped out to the public. In any case, if you’ve dropped the cash to score one of these i9 MacBook Pros, then download away.

Since I have been toying with the idea of getting one, and it seems that they’ve also address the #KeyboardGate related issues as well, I’ll wait for new benchmarks on the i9 MacBook Pro to appear before I plunk down my credit card.

You may recall that I wrote a story about a noted YouTuber that ran some tests on the new MacBook Pro with the i9 processor and found that it ran slower than the previous model due to thermal management issues. Well, GeekBench ran tests of their own and came up with some interesting results. I encourage you to read the full report here, It is kind of geeky (and I guess I should expect that seeing as it is GeekBench that we are talking about here), but it is a worthy read. For those of you who want to get to the point, here it is. The issue could not be replicated by GeekBench because of the way their test was run versus what the YouTuber did. Here’s why:

So what’s going on here? Why does this test not replicate the throttling seen in other tests? Part of the issue is the test themselves. Premiere uses both the CPU and the GPU, while Geekbench only uses the CPU. If the GPU contributes significant heat, then that will cause the CPU to throttle more aggressively. It’s possible the decrease in performance observed in Premiere is due to a combination of new AMD GPUs with new Intel processors, or to the new AMD GPUs themselves. 

My recommendation? If your work doesn’t involve long-running tasks that are CPU- and GPU-intensive (such as Premiere) then the new MacBook Pro should provide a considerable increase in performance. Otherwise, it might be wise to wait until more performance data is available.

What this implies is that game players, video editors or anyone else who uses a new MacBook Pro with the i9 processor might have something to worry about. Other people with different use cases may not. Very Interesting. And clearly worthy of more investigation to find out the use cases where performance will be what you expect to be, and where performance will suck.

A leaked Apple document confirmed something that they previously denied. The new MacBook Pro keyboards do address the issues related to #KeyboardGate. Here are the details wia MacRumours.com:

In an internal document distributed to Apple Authorized Service Providers, obtained by MacRumors from multiple reliable sources, Apple has confirmed that the third-generation keyboard on 2018 MacBook Pro models is equipped with a “membrane” to “prevent debris from entering the butterfly mechanism.”

That by itself is kind of mind blowing for the reason that these sorts of leaks do not happen. But what makes it really interesting is the fact that iFixit has done a much deeper dive, exposing the keyboard to debris to test it out and confirmed that this membrane does work. Though it’s not perfect. But clearly it’s a substantial improvement over previous MacBooks.

If I am a lawyer involved in one of the three #KeyboardGate lawsuits, this is clear cut evidence that will likely bolster my case. I wonder if Apple is considering that and circling the wagons accordingly?

There’s a video from YouTuber Dave Lee that certainly caught the attention of many potential MacBook Pro buyers because it drops quite the bombshell. In this video, he reviews the i7 and i9 version of the MacBook Pro, and discovers that the i9 version appears to have thermal regulation issues (or put another way, it can’t manage heat properly) that require the i9 processor to throttle back to such a degree that it is actually slower than last years model which only had an i7 processor when doing anything that requires sustained CPU functions. His theory on why this is is that the case that Apple uses likely creates an environment that forces the i9 CPU to slow down so that it doesn’t fry itself. Something that he confirmed when he put the MacBook Pro in a freezer and found that by doing that, it actually performed significantly better.

Here is the video in question.

My take on this goes something like this. This is something that Apple would have tested inside their test lab. Or at least you think they would have tested it inside their test lab. Thus they must have known that this was an issue before they released this MacBook Pro. Assuming that is true, then you can’t call this a “pro” level computer because anyone who runs anything like Final Cut, Mathlab, or anything else that pushes the CPU for an extended period of time is going to want to get the i9 processor because that should give them the best performance. But based on what I see here, it doesn’t. Considering that fully spec’ed, this MacBook Pro can run as high as $10,000 that’s a #EpicFail.

Now Apple hasn’t made a statement on this. But they need to in my opinion as they’ve really shot themselves in the foot here. And they need to explain how they will address this as this story is getting legs and you can bet that others are working to confirm what Dave Lee has found. That won’t be good for Apple and their attempts to win the hearts and minds of “pro” users.