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Apple’s top-of-the-line portable Mac gets some choice new components
The new 13in and 15in MacBook Pro models, an external graphics box, and plenty more
Don’t turn the page in horror at the huge price above just yet – the latest 15-inch MacBook Pro doesn’t have to cost nearly the same as an entry-level iMac Pro. That price is for the rather high-end specification that Apple provided for testing, which includes some expensive build-to-order parts. In fact, the only upgrade Apple left out was its 4TB SSD option. You don’t have to pay top dollar to get great new components though, as the two off-the-shelf specs cost £2,349 and £2,699. So, still pretty pricey, but at least not firmly in the realm of only being justifiable as a business expense. An improvement that might be a big deal if you spend a lot of time writing documents or programming is Apple’s third-generation butterfly keyboard mechanism. It’s marketed as quieter than previous versions. Indeed, we found it less clickety-clacky, which is great if you ever work in a fairly quiet office or public space. Complementing that is True Tone, which adjusts the display’s colour temperature to be easier on the eyes, based on ambient light around you. A teardown by iFixit revealed there’s now a silicone membrane between the key caps and the butterfly mechanisms under them. iFixit also ran tests to see whether this has any effect in stopping stray particles making their way into the mechanism and jamming it – said to be a cause of keyboard troubles and the repair programme Apple introduced for some previous MacBooks.
However, precisely because Apple doesn’t make claims about this, and as its long-term effectiveness will only become clear once it’s under many more hands, we can’t say for sure that it’ll be more durable in the long term. If you’re interested in reading about iFixit’s test, head to bit.ly/ifixitkbd.
Processor power-up
For this refresh, Apple has upgraded the MacBook Pro to Intel’s 8th-generation Core processors, using versions that have six cores instead of the four found on previous 15-inch MacBook Pros. Before we get any deeper into this, let’s address a misstep Apple made when it shipped this hardware, which it quickly fixed with a software update.
Without the update, these Macs were prone to the Core processor’s performance being throttled under a heavy, heat-producing workload. The test results quoted in our
reviews of both MacBook Pro sizes reflect performance with the update installed, and it really does make a significant difference. It slashed 32 minutes (about 26% of the time) off the 13-inch model’s time to finish our HandBrake HEVC export.
It doesn’t matter which 15-inch MacBook Pro you choose, they all have six cores. Like older versions, you get a Core i7 processor as standard. For £2,349, it’s a 2.2GHz model that can turboboost its clock frequency as far as 4.1GHz when just one core is busy. The £2,699 version’s base clock speed is 2.6GHz and turboboosts up to 4.3GHz.
On either of those models, you can pay more to replace the Core i7 with one of Intel’s new Core i9 processor line. This also has six cores, with a base clock speed of 2.9GHz and turboboosts up to 4.8GHz. Beyond clock speeds, the difference lies in built-in cache.
You may be familiar with the concept of caching from web browsers and creative apps. If not, it’s an area that’s set aside for data that’s thought will be needed again soon, so it’s kept in this special area to ensure speedy access. Core i7 processors have 9MB of level 3 (L3) cache, while the Core i9 has 12MB. What’s held in this special area isn’t something you have control over – it’s all about optimisation in the background.
It’s £270 or £350 to add the Core i9, but look at its results in HandBrake, which makes heavy use of all cores, and GeekBench’s single-core test, which measures performance with Intel’s Turbo Boost tech in action. They show the Core i9 pulling way ahead of Core i7 processors in previous models – note that Apple didn’t give us the latest Core i7 to test.
In HandBrake, the saving on exporting just a (roughly) half-hour video is appealing. If your work can benefit from a better central processor, it can pay for itself like a better graphics processor does for some video apps.
Blazing-fast storage
Responsiveness comes from more than just the Mac’s brain. The speed of its storage is critical to avoid stalling. Back when this MacBook Pro chassis debuted in 2016, Apple included an SSD capable of reading data at over 3GB/sec. It’s a little more specific this
time, saying that the rate of reading is up to 3.2GB/sec. (Note the phrase “up to”, which is common with storage in particular.)
The 2TB drive supplied to us came up just a little short. It peaked at 3.1GB/sec, but that isn’t really a concern. More impressive is that writing data – typically tougher – peaked at that rate too. Mean average rates we saw were lower – 2.5 and 2.2GB/sec, respectively. That’s normal and still great news for performance.
If you ever use macOS’s option to reopen windows at login, you’ll notice the speed. While not an instant resume, like on an iPad, it’s still leagues better than an iMac that’s bogged down by a hard disk.
The £2,349 MacBook Pro’s 256GB SSD is comfortable if you mostly work with words. A 512GB SSD – £180 as an upgrade and standard on the £2,699 model – is one of the more affordable and appealing upgrade options available. The 1TB option (£540 or £360, depending on your starting point) is where things start to get expensive, but it’s a nice convenience if you can stretch to it.
The 2TB drive is hard to justify unless it’s necessary for your kind of work, costing £1,260 or £1,080. It’s the biggest contributor, on top of the Mac itself, to the huge price at the start of this review. There’s also a new maximum capacity: a 4TB SSD. Again, only creative pros will seriously consider this, as it costs an eye-watering £3,060 or £2,880 to add.
Memory also has an increased maximum capacity. Though the 15-inch models still come with 16GB memory as standard, they can be upgraded to 32GB at the time you buy.
Previously, the lack of this much memory was bemoaned by software developers and high-end visual creatives. Now it’s a feature on which the 15- and 13-inch models diverge.
The latter still maxes out at 16GB (of 2,133MHz LPDDR3). The larger models use 2,400MHz DDR4, contributing to the performance gains.
Battery life on this 15-inch model fared a little worse than our 13-inch review unit. Our test plays the BBC News channel on iPlayer, which ran for 8 hours and 23 minutes – below the 10 hours Apple states for iTunes video playback or wireless web browsing. Notably, though, the 13-inch model beat Apple’s figure in this test. The spec Apple submitted for review may have worked against it, thanks to greater power draw of its 32GB memory.
Graphical gains
Both 15-inch models have Intel UHD Graphics 630 for lighter tasks. For apps that need a graphical boost, the discrete graphics processor leaps into action. In the £2,349 model, that’s a Radeon Pro 555X with 4GB of memory. At £2,699, or for an extra £90 on the base model, it’s a 560X, also with 4GB. Again, we were given the more costly option to test.
For a real-world graphics test using pro apps, we used the same DaVinci Resolve project as in our Razer Core X review (see page 84). The 560X’s time to finish this test represents a 21% reduction over the time taken by the 4GB Radeon Pro 460 in our late 2016 MacBook Pro. If you spend a lot of time rendering video using the graphics processor, this is a big deal even two years on.
The degree of improvement varies from app to app, though. Rise of the Tomb Raider’s built-in benchmark gave less than 5 frames per second difference between the 560X and the 460. The 560X manages to deliver a frame rate that is, on average, above the desirable comfort level of 30fps, though you have to bear in mind that it will dip below that – as far as 7.5fps in its toughest test scene.
When you consider this is the peak of MacBook Pro graphics processors, and compare it to what a high-end iMac or external graphics processing unit (eGPU) can deliver, you begin to see why Apple is keen on conveying the benefits of eGPUs when you’re using a MacBook Pro at a desk.
Before buying, make sure you check whether your key apps make greater use of the central or graphics processor, and choose build-to-order parts to suit. The built-in graphics processor delivers small gains on previous 15-inch MacBook Pros. But in many ways, this update does a lot right, building on the strong foundations Apple laid a couple of years ago. Storage performance is top-class, and it’s good to have the 32GB memory option.