Apple Software/Firmware update addresses throttling issues across all Macbook Pro 2018 Models

"Following extensive performance testing under numerous workloads, we've identified that there is a missing digital key in the firmware that impacts the thermal management system and could drive clock speeds down under heavy thermal loads on the new MacBook Pro," noted an Apple spokesperson. "A bug fix is included in today's macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Supplemental Update and is recommended."

"We apologize to any customer who has experienced less than optimal performance on their new systems," Apple added. "Customers can expect the new 15-inch MacBook Pro to be up to 70 percent faster, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar to be up to [two times] faster, as shown in the performance results on our website."

Apple moved quick even for them on this one and a new update is available to address the throttling issue.

What type of performance it will yield will be interesting to see and to see if it matches the results of notebookcheck which estimated a top consistency of ~1000 in CB15 performance wise.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...n-2018-macbook-pros-with-free-software-update

"Free" software update lol.

 

I bet they are limiting the chip full potential so it does not throttle lol. What a waste.

 

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

HAHAHAHAHAHA

What kind of insanity is apple trying to pull here :'D

Is this going to be an i9 with a TDP of 10 watts?

 

It went from being 2Ghz@99C to 2.8Ghz@96c

People over r/apple are celebrating and thanking apple for their I9 CPU going from 860 in CB to 1000.

 

Here's Dave Lee back with an update on the patch for the i9 Macbook.

 

Still trash.

 

You know I watched the video. That's really unnecessary.

The Macbook Pro now runs how it should. Dave Lee explains that it runs at similar clock speeds to the XPS 15. So another thin an light laptop on the Windows side is showing that's about what you can expect from the i9 in a laptop that thin.

The real take away from this should be that Apple did something to fix a problem. It never should've been released that way, but atleast it's fixed. And it was because people spoke up and called Apple out. This is a good thing.

That being said, since the i9 can't stretch it's legs to its full potential in such thin laptops they honestly shouldn't be in anything other than thicker laptops that can cool them properly. That includes windows laptops. So where is the hate for the XPS 15 with an i9?

 

The I9 they are selling can't beat a stock I7.

The XPS throttles less. Even then I still consider the laptop ****.

The GS65, the aero 15x, RB2018 proved that adequately cooling top tier hardware is possible in thin chassis. Apple, the most profitable company on air has the financial resources into making a laptop that can cool an I9 8950HK probably without losing the thin chassis. But why invest money if the sheep will defend this corner cutting 1 heatsink design that apple has been rocking since 2016?

 

I'm curious to know if the firmare includes unvervolting the CPU .. Can someone with the i9 run windows and check the performance and CPU voltage ?


Still, its still bad. There are thin and light laptops with the basic i7-8750H with better performance than booth the i7-8850H and i9-8950HK inside those Macbooks . And with much more powerfull graphics ..

 

No, Just no, look at the Asus running at friggn 4.8ghz meanwhile the mnacbook pro, which costs like 100% more only runs at 2.9ghz, the difference is massive. Even the I7 8750H castrated edition is faster than the I9.

The funny part is, they actually undervolted the CPU. Meaning this is what you get, 2.9ghz, done, end of story. Meanwhile smaller notebooks in the thin and light segment at least get low 3ghz on a much cheaper price with an "inferior" cpu. At this point apple is scamming the people out there.

 

Okay, what? You can't be serious. The Asus is a 10+lb, 51mm, 17" device. No surprise that this laptop is slam dunking all the others with thermals. I get that thermals are a concern, but they always are with this i9. Just like with every other manufacturer, Apple can't violate the second law of thermodynamics.

Another thing, do you have a source that Apple undervolted the MBP? Cause that just seems like a random theory being thrown out right now. I would expect Apple randomly undervolting every single MBP would be problematic as well. Silicon Lottery, and all. We would've seen instability and crashes by now if that were the case. This is why other manufacturers don't do this.

Also, the Asus costs $3,700. You can upgrade the MBP to an i9, 32GB RAM, and max GPU for $3,300. So the "costs 100% more" bit is completely inaccurate.

The XPS 15 is probably the closest comparison, where the i9 throttles below base clock without any adjustment.

I think we can all agree that a thicker chassis and a more active fan curve is something most consumers won't mind. Thermals are an important part of a professional grade laptop. This comparison or expectation is bonkers, though.

 

Yes I am serious.
Look at any review after the patch and check the wattage + voltage, then tell me it's a theory.

Also the whole argument here is that the I9 is nerfed to crap levels, even thinn and lights 8750H outperform the I9 significantly, if you can't see a problem with that then enjoy companies scamming the living hell out of you. There are people who care, you apparently don't.

 

I don't see a source listed about undervolting, nor can I find a source about it. Matched with the fact that undervolting every laptop can lead to problems, I'm not convinced that what Apple has done is undervolting.

With the i7, I honestly can't find any sources or even a basic comparison video between the two after the patch, so I'm reserving judgement. If the i7 truly outperforms the i9, then the i9 version is certainly useless.

My last post focused mainly on how the Asus comparison was unreasonable, and the silence on similar devices also thermal throttling.

To close this post off, it's extremely bold of you to assume that I somehow don't care if the i9 performs worse than the i7. I mentioned in my previous post that I think thermals are a very important part in professional machines.

 

Undervolting can lead to problems? Unless you do a very heavy undervolt which only causes bluescreens at best, there is literally no problems that will happen when you undervolt.

Silent? You call the Macbook on fuill fan speed silent? You either never had a macbook or never had a macbook when trying to do some heavy load on it. The high pitched fans are insanely loud. My MSI GT 72 isn't even as loud as my stupid macbook :'D

Also it's not unreasonable, because the point was, that the I9 can't really be called an I9 at this point, since it's throttled down to under 8750H performance.

 

You dont need a heavy laptop to outrun the MB pro ...
And yes, the i9 is getting the same performance as the i7.. They are basically limited to the same clock speed . even the low end i7-8750H can get better results
Here is a small summary

 

Sorry, a bit of miscommunication here. I meant that, if you undervolt every single laptop on some umbrella undervolt, a few of those laptops will notice crashing and instability. These are the problems I was talking about. I'm not implying your Macbook will break.

For silence, I only meant that other manufacturers aren't getting nearly as much backlash for having their i9's throttle even under base clock sometimes, such as the XPS 15. I wasn't commenting on fan speeds. Though this point is moot right now since this is a Macbook thread after all.

I still believe comparing the cooling system from a thin 15" to a thick 17" is unreasonable. Though, it still is the manufacturers job to make it work decently if they want to make it work on a 15" form factor, I'm not debating that.

I see. I think I saw Appleinsider get similar Cinebench scores with their i9. If the i7 scores are also true, then the i9 in the MBP is truly a lost cause. That's a shame, but also embarrassing for Apple. This should have been thoroughly tested before being sent out to market.

 

No, you can undervolt any 6700HQ around -125mv and they will run stable. 7700HQ -150mv and so on.
Also the reason why the macbook is getting way more backlash is simply because of the pricing. The XPS is FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR cheaper than the macbook, tho it's still not OK to run a I9 in that pathethic state.

Most thin and light gaming notebooks cool far better and are around the same or quiter than the macbook, there is no excuse for them to run the I9 this pathethicly.

 

No, just no back at you. You’re comparing a mammoth sized laptop to a thin and light. If you were making the comparison to the XPS 15 with the i9 I might take what you have to say seriously.

Your argument is like saying all gaming laptops suck, because a gaming desktop is better and cheaper.

 

No, my argument is that an I9 should perform like an I9, not "depends on what notebook you'll buy it will perform even worse than castrated I7s".

You don't even understand my argument. So no, just no, stop it.

stop defending apple's and other manufacturer's practice in missleading people into believing when they purchase overpriced junk that they get good performance with an "I9" CPU, while the difference in performance is downright ridicolous.

The I9 in the GT75 will stomp the living hell out of the poop9 from the macbook. Apparently you people think it's fine to place an unlocked 6core chip into a thin and light garbage that can barely handle 30W.

Whats next? All notebooks have I9 CPU's and now you want to roll dice figuring out which one actually performs? You want to spend hours uppon hours figuring out which notebook doesn't, so you can find a notebook which will cover your CPU needs while back in the days you could just look at the specs and know, "Ah, this one will not suffice" or "This one has the performance I need!".

 

The real takeaway is an i9 doesn't belong in anything that isn't a desktop or desktop replacement. It's a bad joke. Unless Apple decides to use vapor chamber cooling with a gallium-indium TIM along with proper VRMs that can power an i9, all these macbook "pro" will be dead in 4 years or less. PC manufacturers aren't exempt from this either. Nobody can feasibly stuff an i9 and have it perform like a proper i9 without serious thermal and power considerations, which nobody seems to properly think through on these thin and light "ultrabook" platforms

 

It’s time to call out laptop manufacturers for their ******** CPU throttling

 

Amen. This whole TDP bs at base clocks is going absolutely out of control.

 

This hits it right on the head. Heat kills and the obsession for thin and light just doesn't mesh with trying to cram hot and heavy CPUs in these small form factor laptops.

 

"The situation is not quite as good for the 15-inch model. The fluctuations are also much smaller compared to the factory settings, which improves the short-term performance in particular. The first Cinebench Multi rund now determines 1064 points instead of 953 points. However, the performance drops in the following runs and we can eventually see the limitations of the cooling solution. The last runs of the loop determine score below 1000 points and it is getting closer to 950 points. We will have a closer look at the sustained performance over the next few days, but it seems that the manual adjustment of the TDP is the better choice, at least for sustained workloads." - Notebookreview

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple...e-performance-with-a-few-clicks.317552.0.html



Even with Apple's "fix," the manual route will smooth out performance and keep a steady end to end ~1000 CB15 state.

Back to the drawing board Apple....

 

meanwhile castrated 8750H in thin and lights reach ~1.1k points at start and drop to around ~1000ish later on. Nice I9 apple.

 

Well there's always this:

https://medium.com/be-expert-101/my-macbook-is-too-hot-89afa1a0079a



I'm not sure there is a brave soul yet who would rip apart their Macbook Pro 15 2018 and go this extreme, but I'd love to see some results with this and a proper liquid metal application to see how much they could get out of a newer model.

 

There's not enough volume or mass in that design to buffer the heat while it's being expelled by those little bitty fan's.

Quite often with thin notebooks like that the re-pasting, even with LM, doesn't generate much of an improvement.