Author Topic: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design  (Read 15180 times)

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Offline NiHaoMikeTopic starter

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2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« on: July 19, 2018, 12:58:46 am »

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/8zv74u/you_cant_make_this_shit_up_the_core_i9_macbook/
The latest i9 ends up slower than an i7. While Apple is well known for "pay more, get less", this time they make a higher end version of a product perform worse!
Based on a teardown video I looked at, the aluminum bottom doesn't seem to have a thermal pad to help cool the CPU. Maybe it's time for someone to try adding some and repeating the tests...
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Offline Fsck

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #1 on: July 19, 2018, 01:06:09 am »
My i7 in an XPS15 thermally throttles, basic engineering says an i9 in a thinner space will definitely throttle.
Hell, the short term turbo for my laptop is 78W.
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Offline bitseeker

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2018, 03:19:33 am »
Even the power bricks for Macbook Pros and iPads run ridiculously hot. Maybe it's a feature. :-DD

From time to time I feel like disassembling my Apple power supplies and putting them in properly ventilated enclosures.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2018, 03:21:11 am by bitseeker »
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Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2018, 03:24:37 am »
They did this way back with their iMacs. Those came with shiny i7s, but could do only about 30 seconds worth of full load before being throttled. They did sell you the i7 you asked for, but the usefulness has to be questioned.
 

Offline NiHaoMikeTopic starter

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2018, 04:41:16 am »
I also remember the "trash can" Mac Pro being criticized for bad thermal design, something Apple was bragging about!
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Offline optoisolated

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #5 on: July 21, 2018, 04:06:06 am »
Intel's TDP For that mobile i9 is 45W. There is zero way this is a fair representation IMO.
https://ark.intel.com/products/134903/Intel-Core-i9-8950HK-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4_80-GHz

How in the world can you run 6 cores at 4.9GHz and expect 45W TDP? It's not possible. They have to have been expecting that the processor would be doing naff all for 99% of the time, and only doing 1/2 second spikes. But all the tests that you see on youtube showing it doing mediocre workloads and throttling massively. I have yet to see any reports of it going above 4Ghz for any amount of time, inside or outside of a freezer.

The main concern is... How did this get past Intel's QA, and worse yet, How did it get past Apple and Dell's QA processes? Surely, someone noticed this was an issue??? How could they not???
 

Offline WackyGerman

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #6 on: July 21, 2018, 06:18:08 am »
Turn the air condition down to -30 degrees celsius and the problem is solved  >:D
 

Offline Fsck

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #7 on: July 21, 2018, 06:37:33 am »
Intel's TDP For that mobile i9 is 45W. There is zero way this is a fair representation IMO.
https://ark.intel.com/products/134903/Intel-Core-i9-8950HK-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4_80-GHz

How in the world can you run 6 cores at 4.9GHz and expect 45W TDP? It's not possible. They have to have been expecting that the processor would be doing naff all for 99% of the time, and only doing 1/2 second spikes. But all the tests that you see on youtube showing it doing mediocre workloads and throttling massively. I have yet to see any reports of it going above 4Ghz for any amount of time, inside or outside of a freezer.

The main concern is... How did this get past Intel's QA, and worse yet, How did it get past Apple and Dell's QA processes? Surely, someone noticed this was an issue??? How could they not???

turbo is listed as single core turbo though. (I don't know what it turbos to with all cores) Actually, in my XPS15, the i7 8750 thermal throttles pretty horribly at stock voltage. You have to undervolt it to really see it shine. I like seeing it power/current throttle though.
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Offline kripton2035

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #8 on: July 21, 2018, 06:47:56 am »
these computer are clearly been designed for north alaska , north russia , and extreme south atlantic users...
 

Offline abraxa

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #9 on: July 21, 2018, 07:51:27 am »
The main concern is... How did this get past Intel's QA, and worse yet, How did it get past Apple and Dell's QA processes? Surely, someone noticed this was an issue??? How could they not???

Well, that's marketing for you. You wouldn't believe how many people buy things based on how they look on paper because they don't have a clue. An i9 looks better on paper than an i7, so there you go. Also, don't underestimate the brag factor ("I have an i9! It has more megahurtz than your i7!").
 

Online wraper

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #10 on: July 21, 2018, 08:32:53 am »
these computer are clearly been designed for north alaska , north russia , and extreme south atlantic users...
Too warm. For using in Antarctic, outdoors only.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #11 on: July 21, 2018, 10:03:47 am »
That’s a bit rubbish. They appear to have lost it. My 2013 i7 MBP will run flat out without throttling. It does however make a hell of a lot of noise.

Gone back to a desktop PC however. Much less hassle and doesn’t burn your dick off.
 

Online Brumby

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #12 on: July 21, 2018, 10:57:38 am »
First choice of Antarctic expeditions, perhaps?
 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #13 on: July 21, 2018, 11:03:01 am »
Apple have lost the plot since Steve Jobs rests in peace.

My MBPs 17 i5 and i7 also throttle and the fans kick in hard when I forget to open and clean the radiators' fins, about once a year.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2018, 11:06:19 am by GeorgeOfTheJungle »
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Offline jpb

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #14 on: July 21, 2018, 11:15:57 am »
I wonder how well the i9 (and the Xeon equivalent) fair in the 17inch workstations such as the
Dell 7730, HP Z book 17 G5 and probably the Thinkpad P72 (if it appears - there is a P52 but the P72 hasn't yet been announced I think).

I would guess that these top end CPUs, like the 100W plus P5200 GPU, are only feasible in the laptops that are essentially lugable desktops.
 

Online 2N3055

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #15 on: July 21, 2018, 12:05:08 pm »
Did anybody notice something funny here...

In video he says "the Macbook is going to inherently be slower, that's normal, Adobe Premiere is not as well optimized for Mac OS as is for Windows, but that has nothing to do with Apple..."

And then this graph. That shows that if you are using Apple Adobe Premiere on  MacOS  it is 4,5-5,3 times SLOWER that running on 2300 USD Win laptop..



That means that a person doing video editing on a Win PC will be able to do same amount of work in ONE DAY as the person using MacOS in ONE WORKWEEK (5 working days). On PC that is 2-3 times less expensive...

Or that you could run Premiere on 10 years old WinPC and still be faster...

"the Macbook is going to inherently be slower, that's normal, Adobe Premiere is not as well optimized for Mac OS as is for Windows, but that has nothing to do with Apple..."   See, I don't care whose fault it is . Using that program on that platform is unacceptable with such margins of slowdown.
Tough luck, it is unfair, but I would switch to Win platform if that is the difference, if Premiere is my main tool.

And no, you don't get used to crappy keyboard... It just keeps on being crappy.

Not to mention that thermal design being nonexistent in Apple laptops is their trademark. Nothing new here.
 

Offline optoisolated

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #16 on: July 21, 2018, 12:31:02 pm »
What kind of crazy person says that Premiere is designed to work better on a PC? That's bananas! Adobe stuff is always Mac First, PC second. |O
 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #17 on: July 21, 2018, 12:38:24 pm »
On the Mac you're supposed to use Apple software: Final Cut. Adobe's been castigating Mac users for a lonnng time already, ~ a decade, it's the same with Photoshop.

Hint: Who killed Flash?
« Last Edit: July 21, 2018, 12:52:34 pm by GeorgeOfTheJungle »
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Offline optoisolated

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #18 on: July 21, 2018, 12:39:39 pm »
That sounds like Apple... Linus' test on FCP sure didn't show the i9 in a positive light.
 

Offline TheAmmoniacal

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #19 on: July 21, 2018, 01:09:20 pm »
Intel's TDP For that mobile i9 is 45W. There is zero way this is a fair representation IMO.
https://ark.intel.com/products/134903/Intel-Core-i9-8950HK-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4_80-GHz

How in the world can you run 6 cores at 4.9GHz and expect 45W TDP? It's not possible. They have to have been expecting that the processor would be doing naff all for 99% of the time, and only doing 1/2 second spikes. But all the tests that you see on youtube showing it doing mediocre workloads and throttling massively. I have yet to see any reports of it going above 4Ghz for any amount of time, inside or outside of a freezer.

The main concern is... How did this get past Intel's QA, and worse yet, How did it get past Apple and Dell's QA processes? Surely, someone noticed this was an issue??? How could they not???

Intel has been changing their "definition" of TDP several times lately, as they've had to compete with more cores their architecture struggle with power usage and heat. Intel themselves are to blame, I'm sure Apple designed the MacBook with a 45W TDP power dissipation, but the chip is much more in reality.
 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #20 on: July 21, 2018, 01:25:23 pm »
TDP is at base frequency with all cores "active under an Intel-defined, high-complexity workload", you can only have turbo boost in short bursts and in only a few cores at once at most.
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Offline Fsck

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #21 on: July 21, 2018, 01:27:22 pm »
Intel's TDP For that mobile i9 is 45W. There is zero way this is a fair representation IMO.
https://ark.intel.com/products/134903/Intel-Core-i9-8950HK-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4_80-GHz

How in the world can you run 6 cores at 4.9GHz and expect 45W TDP? It's not possible. They have to have been expecting that the processor would be doing naff all for 99% of the time, and only doing 1/2 second spikes. But all the tests that you see on youtube showing it doing mediocre workloads and throttling massively. I have yet to see any reports of it going above 4Ghz for any amount of time, inside or outside of a freezer.

The main concern is... How did this get past Intel's QA, and worse yet, How did it get past Apple and Dell's QA processes? Surely, someone noticed this was an issue??? How could they not???

Intel has been changing their "definition" of TDP several times lately, as they've had to compete with more cores their architecture struggle with power usage and heat. Intel themselves are to blame, I'm sure Apple designed the MacBook with a 45W TDP power dissipation, but the chip is much more in reality.

Notebookcheck: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-2018-Much-more-performance-with-a-few-clicks.317552.0.html
Apparently they didn't put in turbo power limits, so thermal throttling occurs unchecked. Turbo boost kind of throws TDP out the window, the system will turbo as hard as it can, constrained by the cooling performance and settings, whichever bottlenecks first.

This size/thickness of laptop is really not designed for the power output capability. My XPS15 has a 130W power supply, I thought it was just for the battery charging speed, but if you really push it with prime95 and furmark simultaneously, you can actually pull 130+W from it hwinfo had me at 160W of system power consumption before I ended the excessive stress test, and then thermal throttling occurs due to the excessive power use.

I also did the VRM heatsinking to the case "mod" using thermal pads, and it definitely is a nutroaster.

Also, look at https://ark.intel.com/products/129948/Intel-Core-i7-8700T-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4_00-GHz , it's a desktop part but good as a comparison chip.
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Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #22 on: July 21, 2018, 01:35:07 pm »
Turbo boost kind of throws TDP out the window, the system will turbo as hard as it can, constrained by the cooling performance and settings, whichever bottlenecks first.
AFAIK, that's how turbo boost has always worked: die temp is the negative feedback.
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Offline Fsck

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #23 on: July 21, 2018, 01:37:22 pm »
Turbo boost kind of throws TDP out the window, the system will turbo as hard as it can, constrained by the cooling performance and settings, whichever bottlenecks first.
AFAIK, that's how turbo boost has always worked: die temp is the negative feedback.

you're supposed to have an upper power limit, and turbo time limit so the cooling system can set up.
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Offline Berni

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Re: 2018 Macbook Pro terrible thermal design
« Reply #24 on: July 21, 2018, 01:42:17 pm »
Throttling at stock CPU clock? Now that's a fail alright |O

Yes you can't expect turbo boost to keep pushing it on a sustained load in a laptop but this is getting out of hand.

Oh and anyone saying turbo boost is just for bursts its not true. The only limitation to turbo boost is the TDP limit and die temperature. In my desktop i can run my i7 4790K at its 4.4GHz boost speed on all 4 cores with a sustained load. However to do that it has a big ass 3rd party air cooler on it and the TDP limit in bios had to be lifted to 150W (Its a 80W chip otherwise). Technically its overclocking since i mucked with it in bios, but then again the CPU is still running within original manufacturer speeds at its own will, i just told it to not hold back on power consumption because my cooling solution can handle it.
 
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