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To be honest, Apple's MBP CPU upgrades have never been worth it. They are advertised with these big turbo frequency increases that are rarely ever achieved. Eve
by Ambroos 8y ago
To be honest, Apple's MBP CPU upgrades have never been worth it. They are advertised with these big turbo frequency increases that are rarely ever achieved. Even the base frequency doesn't matter because they'll clock far lower if needed to save battery life.
For both the 13" and 15" MacBook Pro's, the performance differences between the base and upgraded CPUs are negligible (always less than 10% increase from the slowest to the fastest CPU for the same size, according to Geekbench). You'll get a higher frequency for a tiny amount of time before thermal throttling brings everything down to the same level anyway. They are not limited by Intel's software settings but purely by the cooling hardware.
For example, the cheapest 13" MBP from 2017 has a 2.3Ghz base / 3.6Ghz turbo and scores 9079. Most expensive one (3.5Ghz / 4.0Ghz) scores 9552. That is an increase under 6% for a price difference that is far, far larger. Madness.
If you buy a MacBook, please don't spend money on CPU upgrades. Thanks.
- caycep 8y agoby that measure, I have always never been enthusiastic about discrete GPU's and the extra heat/battery drain. I hope external GPU's become commonplace, inexpensive and reliable
- lkramer 8y agoI don't own a Mac, so I'm asking out of curiosity, but does this apply when it's plugged in as well?
- dep_b 8y agoYes, it's mainly a heat issue.
- Ambroos 8y agoYes, the cause for throttling is only thermal as long as your battery is over ~5% charged. In fact, while charging performance might even be a bit lower because charging the battery generates some heat as well, further lowering performance.
- JohnTHaller 8y agoWith the new i9, it doesn't matter if it is plugged in. The cooling setup in the laptop is just inadequate to keep it running at speed for more than a couple minutes according to David Lee and other tech reviewers.
- infogulch 8y agoAccording to Lee, the i9 can't even idle without thermal throttling. I get having a chip with a higher max wattage than your cooling can support: that can still be pretty good for bursty workloads. But your cooling being so insufficient that the chip can't even idle? That's where the manufacturer is supposed to draw the line. I'm surprised that Apple even released this.
- JonathonW 8y agoHow do you show that it's "thermal throttling" at idle? Intel processors (at least, when managed under macOS) always downclock themselves when idle, regardless of how much headroom's available. You'll rarely (if ever) actually see the processor running at its quoted base frequency, even when plugged in.
- Karunamon 8y agoWindows too. Just watching the task manager on any recent Intel can show you that the machine spends most of its time way under its rated clock, until you really start loading it up.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- geoelectric 8y agoThe trick with that is that stores carry two setups, generally: stripper base setup and omg everything setup. It's kind of like buying a new car that way. And, of course, the grand majority of it cannot be upgraded after the fact. You can custom order, of course, but if your goal is to take it home today it's difficult to, say, get an upgraded graphics card or more (soldered) memory or larger (soldered or buried) onboard storage without also getting the CPU upgrade with it.