10 ms·

Why Are Apple and Microsoft Using Such Old Processors in Their New Computers?

55 points by robertwalsh0 10y ago

JamesMcMinn 10y ago
tldr; Apple and Microsoft want to use the high-powered variants, which have yet to be released, whilst other manufactures are happy to use the low powered variants. Sticking with the more powerful, but power hungry CPUs is one of the few things that allow the MacBook Pro to keep the "Pro".
- Tempest1981 10y ago
  High-powered meaning power consumption? Or speed? The new chips use less power, right? Guess I need to read the article. :-) Edit: the new CPUs use less power, but the new GPUs use... more?
  - my123 10y ago
    Only 15W Kaby Lake SKUs were released.
IanDrake 10y ago
When the new skylake hardware came out all the drivers where crap. People with new Surface Pro 4s, Surface Books, Dell XPS 13s, etc... where having all kinds of problems. All these machines work great now, but I wouldn't want to go through that pain again just for the sake of getting a little more performance (for average use).
- jerf 10y ago
  Also, I personally get nervous when asked to buy a crap hardware+drivers combo on the promise that the drivers will be fixed later and the hardware's full power will be released... what guarantee do I have that there won't be a fundamental hardware issue that drivers can't hack around? I've got a machine that has a wireless card with the draft version of the wireless N standard, and presumably some promise that updates could fix it when the real thing came out. The real thing came out, and the card's N support has never worked. Fortunately there's a somewhat-deeply-buried setting for both Linux and Windows that lets you turn it off entirely and have the card degrade into a perfectly-functional b/g card, because once real N networks came out it tries really hard to connect to them. And it almost works. You can get about a megabyte or so over the N network before the connection somehow fails. Then another couple hundred kilobytes about 10 seconds later, and so on. Terrible. How much more concerned about that I would be if I intended to ship a few million such units out. The "fixed drivers in the future" promise isn't that reliable.
dahart 10y ago
What kind of bizarre thinking is this? There is surprise that a laptop released at the end of October is not built with a chip released in September?? WTF? Even if the chip is fully 100% slot compatible, neither MS nor Apple would or could take that at face value. The power requirements are different, that alone is cause for a redesign of the board. The author seems to be living in a fantasy land, it takes time to test, purchase the processors, build the laptops, ship the laptops, and I'm sure I'm missing about 10 other bottlenecks in the process. The Pascal GPU was only released in May, and that is still too soon to have been designed around. Missing are examples of computers that have shipped in high volume using 1-4 months old components. Missing is some realization that if both MS & Apple are doing the same thing, there's probably a good reason.
- Retric 10y ago
  CPU's don't show up from thin air. Partners can release compatible boards on day 1 making the official release date kind of irrelevant.
  - dahart 10y ago
    Laptops don't either, it's highly probable the specs were locked down completely for more than 2 months, chances are the components were already purchased and shipped an in-house before Kaby Lake was available, chances are the components were already purchsed and shipped an in-house before Pascal was available. This makes the release date completely relevant, because there simply wasn't enough time to purchase, stock & manufacture using the new CPUs. I don't know specifics about either Microsoft's or Apple's manufacturing & shipping processes, but I have worked on a product that shipped from Asia, and everything was done, completely done, two months before the product could hit the shelves. Moreover, that two months was the software deadline, the easiest thing to change. The hardware, materials, components, design, that was all done and locked a year before the product shipped.
    - Retric 10y ago
      Intel does not start manufacturing the CPU on release day either. Partners can have access to the 'final' product well before the official release day. The vast majority of companies don't qualify for this, but MS and Apple are not most companies.
VLM 10y ago
Its a form of clickbait in that I assumed the article would explain why the lead time has increased continuously since 1985 or so. Instead there isn't really a story at all. For utter noobs to modern technology: If the pipeline from daydream to press day is X months and a new widget was released Y months ago then if X > Y you don't see the widget on press day. Don't matter if its a jet plane or a nuclear reactor or a laptop.
danjoc 10y ago
I hear the excuse that the chips are too new, but the Razer Stealth has 7th gen Intel. There once was a time when Apple literally purchased the entire world's supply of a part, and everyone else had to wait for more. Apple just doesn't care anymore.
- thoughtsimple 10y ago
  Then the Razer Stealth has a chip that doesn't do Iris Graphics making it inappropriate for the 13" MacBook Pro. And it is a 4.5W or 15W dual core part so it isn't appropriate for the 15" MacBook Pro. Just because one or two 7th gen parts are shipping doesn't mean they all are.
  - danjoc 10y ago
    >Then the Razer Stealth has a chip that doesn't do Iris Graphics making it inappropriate for the 13" MacBook Pro. Razer uses it to drive a 4K 100% Adobe RGB display. Seems appropriate enough to power the lower res Macbook 13" displays.
epberry 10y ago
Is this article seriously asking why Apple didn't put a processor that was publicly announced in September in laptops that consumers could buy one month later? How about asking the author why they didn't write this article on the day of the mac event? I get people's disappointment in the new macs, even though I think it's mostly unwarranted, but this is taking it to an extreme.
crb 10y ago
Many have questioned whether or not Apple could have made a MBP with more than 16GB of RAM given Intel's current CPUs. Gruber's discussion with Apple and subsequent analysis was that Intel don't have a part that they can use (e.g. one that supports 32GB of RAM), which get into the power and weight envelope they considered acceptable, and that envelope trumps all else at Apple. Hitting that power and weight envelope is a hell of a lot easier when you make your own CPUs. (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/10/31/intel-mbp-ram http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/10/31/intel-mbp-ram)
- mhomde 10y ago
  Yeah... so maybe not keep pushing an weight/thinness envelope that few seem to want if they could trade if for performance & battery... at least that's what I'm guessing, maybe the mainstream consumer care about showing mm's of their laptop but I kinda doubt it, at least battery performance seem more important
  - rz2k 10y ago
    I don't understand the thinness, especially for the iMac, but I suspect they've researched how people respond to seeing them in person in stores. I definitely want light though, and I highly doubt a large number of users using a laptop will notice the difference between 16GB and 32GB compared to the storage now being twice as fast. Other complaints include a loss of magsafe? I highly prefer being able to purchase numerous non-proprietary chargers for home, work, car, airplane rather than carrying a brick in my bag. Plus, anyone who wants the power connection to be breakaway can get whatever USB C equivalent there is or will be to ZNAPS[1]. [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1041610927/znaps-the-9-magnetic-adapter-for-your-mobile-devic https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1041610927/znaps-the-9-...
leecarraher 10y ago
alt. title -- "apple and microsoft choose not to rush products to market" Processors will march forward getting better each year, the tick-tock of intel's design process is a staple in the tech industry, so today's best is tomorrows garbage. but unless the plan was to dump your computer after 6 months usage, this shouldn't bother you much. And instead you get a system that is thoroughly tested and thoughtfully designed. I'd take a well designed 2 year old laptop over a flimsy garbage box with the freshest processor any day.

55 points by robertwalsh0 10y ago

tldr; Apple and Microsoft want to use the high-powered variants, which have yet to be released, whilst other manufactures are happy to use the low powered variants. Sticking with the more powerful, but power hungry CPUs is one of the few things that allow the MacBook Pro to keep the "Pro".

Tempest1981 10y ago
High-powered meaning power consumption? Or speed? The new chips use less power, right? Guess I need to read the article. :-) Edit: the new CPUs use less power, but the new GPUs use... more?
- my123 10y ago
  Only 15W Kaby Lake SKUs were released.

IanDrake 10y ago

When the new skylake hardware came out all the drivers where crap. People with new Surface Pro 4s, Surface Books, Dell XPS 13s, etc... where having all kinds of problems. All these machines work great now, but I wouldn't want to go through that pain again just for the sake of getting a little more performance (for average use).

jerf 10y ago
Also, I personally get nervous when asked to buy a crap hardware+drivers combo on the promise that the drivers will be fixed later and the hardware's full power will be released... what guarantee do I have that there won't be a fundamental hardware issue that drivers can't hack around? I've got a machine that has a wireless card with the draft version of the wireless N standard, and presumably some promise that updates could fix it when the real thing came out. The real thing came out, and the card's N support has never worked. Fortunately there's a somewhat-deeply-buried setting for both Linux and Windows that lets you turn it off entirely and have the card degrade into a perfectly-functional b/g card, because once real N networks came out it tries really hard to connect to them. And it almost works. You can get about a megabyte or so over the N network before the connection somehow fails. Then another couple hundred kilobytes about 10 seconds later, and so on. Terrible. How much more concerned about that I would be if I intended to ship a few million such units out. The "fixed drivers in the future" promise isn't that reliable.

dahart 10y ago

What kind of bizarre thinking is this? There is surprise that a laptop released at the end of October is not built with a chip released in September?? WTF? Even if the chip is fully 100% slot compatible, neither MS nor Apple would or could take that at face value. The power requirements are different, that alone is cause for a redesign of the board. The author seems to be living in a fantasy land, it takes time to test, purchase the processors, build the laptops, ship the laptops, and I'm sure I'm missing about 10 other bottlenecks in the process. The Pascal GPU was only released in May, and that is still too soon to have been designed around. Missing are examples of computers that have shipped in high volume using 1-4 months old components. Missing is some realization that if both MS & Apple are doing the same thing, there's probably a good reason.

Retric 10y ago
CPU's don't show up from thin air. Partners can release compatible boards on day 1 making the official release date kind of irrelevant.
- dahart 10y ago
  Laptops don't either, it's highly probable the specs were locked down completely for more than 2 months, chances are the components were already purchased and shipped an in-house before Kaby Lake was available, chances are the components were already purchsed and shipped an in-house before Pascal was available. This makes the release date completely relevant, because there simply wasn't enough time to purchase, stock & manufacture using the new CPUs. I don't know specifics about either Microsoft's or Apple's manufacturing & shipping processes, but I have worked on a product that shipped from Asia, and everything was done, completely done, two months before the product could hit the shelves. Moreover, that two months was the software deadline, the easiest thing to change. The hardware, materials, components, design, that was all done and locked a year before the product shipped.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Intel does not start manufacturing the CPU on release day either. Partners can have access to the 'final' product well before the official release day. The vast majority of companies don't qualify for this, but MS and Apple are not most companies.

VLM 10y ago

Its a form of clickbait in that I assumed the article would explain why the lead time has increased continuously since 1985 or so. Instead there isn't really a story at all. For utter noobs to modern technology: If the pipeline from daydream to press day is X months and a new widget was released Y months ago then if X > Y you don't see the widget on press day. Don't matter if its a jet plane or a nuclear reactor or a laptop.

danjoc 10y ago

I hear the excuse that the chips are too new, but the Razer Stealth has 7th gen Intel. There once was a time when Apple literally purchased the entire world's supply of a part, and everyone else had to wait for more. Apple just doesn't care anymore.

thoughtsimple 10y ago
Then the Razer Stealth has a chip that doesn't do Iris Graphics making it inappropriate for the 13" MacBook Pro. And it is a 4.5W or 15W dual core part so it isn't appropriate for the 15" MacBook Pro. Just because one or two 7th gen parts are shipping doesn't mean they all are.
- danjoc 10y ago
  >Then the Razer Stealth has a chip that doesn't do Iris Graphics making it inappropriate for the 13" MacBook Pro. Razer uses it to drive a 4K 100% Adobe RGB display. Seems appropriate enough to power the lower res Macbook 13" displays.

epberry 10y ago

Is this article seriously asking why Apple didn't put a processor that was publicly announced in September in laptops that consumers could buy one month later? How about asking the author why they didn't write this article on the day of the mac event? I get people's disappointment in the new macs, even though I think it's mostly unwarranted, but this is taking it to an extreme.

crb 10y ago

Many have questioned whether or not Apple could have made a MBP with more than 16GB of RAM given Intel's current CPUs. Gruber's discussion with Apple and subsequent analysis was that Intel don't have a part that they can use (e.g. one that supports 32GB of RAM), which get into the power and weight envelope they considered acceptable, and that envelope trumps all else at Apple. Hitting that power and weight envelope is a hell of a lot easier when you make your own CPUs. (http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/10/31/intel-mbp-ram http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/10/31/intel-mbp-ram)

mhomde 10y ago
Yeah... so maybe not keep pushing an weight/thinness envelope that few seem to want if they could trade if for performance & battery... at least that's what I'm guessing, maybe the mainstream consumer care about showing mm's of their laptop but I kinda doubt it, at least battery performance seem more important
- rz2k 10y ago
  I don't understand the thinness, especially for the iMac, but I suspect they've researched how people respond to seeing them in person in stores. I definitely want light though, and I highly doubt a large number of users using a laptop will notice the difference between 16GB and 32GB compared to the storage now being twice as fast. Other complaints include a loss of magsafe? I highly prefer being able to purchase numerous non-proprietary chargers for home, work, car, airplane rather than carrying a brick in my bag. Plus, anyone who wants the power connection to be breakaway can get whatever USB C equivalent there is or will be to ZNAPS[1]. [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1041610927/znaps-the-9-magnetic-adapter-for-your-mobile-devic https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1041610927/znaps-the-9-...

leecarraher 10y ago

alt. title -- "apple and microsoft choose not to rush products to market" Processors will march forward getting better each year, the tick-tock of intel's design process is a staple in the tech industry, so today's best is tomorrows garbage. but unless the plan was to dump your computer after 6 months usage, this shouldn't bother you much. And instead you get a system that is thoroughly tested and thoughtfully designed. I'd take a well designed 2 year old laptop over a flimsy garbage box with the freshest processor any day.