Shame on you, Apple! – 13” MacBook Pro 2020 Review

[Emily Young]

Apple’s finally embraced Intel’s 10th-gen processors on its 13 inch MacBook Pro, but just how much can it add over the competition – Even from Apple itself?

 

 

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On Apple: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/

 

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[Haro]

That thumbnail is awesome

[D13H4RD]

Ah yes, a 2x hike on the RAM upgrade being a "price adjustment" on the base 13"

 

I know things aren't looking good on the supply chain side, but isn't 2x a bit much? Genuine question here 

[Haro]

Just now, D13H4RD said:

I know things aren't looking good on the supply chain side, but isn't 2x a bit much? Genuine question here

Well there is something that exists for no reason

It is called the "Apple Tax"

[Tamesh16]

I am confused, how come there are 10 nm intel chips in laptops, but they arent being launched until next year (allegedly) 

EDIT: i am seeing now that there are a few 10nm chips launched with 10th gen intel and that is even more confusing, why mix the lithography ?

[Xorvid]

Why not consider developers when you are talking about intended audiences? It seems that only graphic designers are ever mentioned in these videos, but developers are one of Apple's substantial markets.

[Ashleyyyy]

soooo you complain when Apple makes the cpu throttle and you've made an ENTIRE video about why Mac's are slower (throttling), then Apple makes a laptop that OUTPERFORMS a competing pc laptop while still not running at the 100c max intel validates the cpu at, and you are still complaining?

 

what would you want them to do? you praise the XPS for being lighter than the MBP in some configurations so you care about weight too... you cannot complain about everything. 

 

if they clock the cpu slower you will complain it's not exceptional with speed. 

if they make it thicker or heavier you will complain about windows laptops being lighter and thinner. 

if they ramp the fan up too early you will complain about it being noisy under moderate loads. 

 

what option is left over? what do you want them to do? 

Edited June 7, 2020 by Ashley xD

[lewdicrous]

[hishnash]

I do get a little bit sad when reviews compare graphs of the `max cpu temp` and then talk about endurance of the system. 

 

The raw silicon at the centre of your cpu can stay at 100C for years without having any impact on it.

 

The endurance issues you have on a hot system are more about the temperature around the cpu, the solder connecting it to the motherboard, the very very small capacitors and resistors on the back of the cpu socket. These parts are the parts that suffer under extended thermal load (and these parts should not even get close to 100C)!

 

All modern motherboards have lots of temperature sensors, including sensors on the back of the cpu socket, this is commonly known as `CPU Proximity` if you want to talk about endurance of a system long term you need to look at this temp sensor not the max internal temperature of the cpu itself.  
 

[Emily Young]

24 minutes ago, Ashley said:

what option is left over? what do you want them to do? 

Literally all they would have to do for us to not complain is target 90 degrees or less sustained thermal output, which probably wouldn't even require them to drop to base clock (as the Dell does). They did it for the 16" MBP and we like that machine.

 

Also, TJunction isn't the "validated" temperature. It's the maximum temperature. The CPU will go into self-preservation mode if that temperature is reached, and most CPUs drop out of turbo at around 80-85 for that reason. As Intel states, "The goal for a system builder or a do-it-yourself (DIY) end user is to design a platform configuration that keeps the processor under the Tjunction max threshold during heavy workloads to maximize performance of the system." Apple technically manages that here, but not by much, and this is on a brand new system. For a premium machine ostensibly created for pro work, it's not ideal, especially long-term.

 

The CPU can happily perform around 100 degrees all day long, but the components around it (and the substrate) may not be as happy. The problem is with Apple's aggressive boost mechanism that overrides Intel's guidelines. It won't be a problem out of the box (and would be acceptable if the cooler were adequate), but dust buildup, and eventually thermal compound degradation will make this problem much worse, potentially warping the PCB over time (and thereby breaking solder joints) due to extreme thermal cycles.

[hishnash]

13 minutes ago, GabenJr said:

and eventually thermal compound degradation will make this problem much worse, potentially warping the PCB over time due to extreme thermal cycles.

Graph other temp sensors on the system, the max internal cpu cor temperature is a proxy for these other temps but there are temperatures sensors on the cpu socket that are much better indicators of `wear` on the system. 

 

macOS's internal fan curve, and cpu throttling is based on these sensors more than it is based on the max internal cpu cor temp. You can test this if you graph fanspeed vs temp of each sensor. This is why the macOS fan appears to lag the cpu temp since the socket temp lags the cpu temp.

[Kon-Tiki]

I'd like to bring forward another aspect that I feel to have come short in the video. There are a lot of (pro) work fields where you don't have sustained high CPU loads that bring your laptop to thermal "distress". Let me give one example. I'm at a natural sciences faculty at a university and while there are very demanding workloads (CPU, RAM, sometimes GPU) like simulations or the analysis of gigabytes or even terabytes of experimental data that frequently occur, these jobs usually don't run on laptops anyway. For these kinds of jobs there are workstations with more CPU horsepower and RAM or even dedicated compute servers/ compute clusters.

 

What people here from my experience do with their laptops (including me) is writing scrips, preparing presentations (LaTex, MS/ Libre Office), read papers, (in these times especially) do video calls and occasionally programming. "Normal" workloads like writing and running an average Python, Matlab or Mathematica script don't require an Alienware Area-51M type of computer

These tasks often involve only short demands for high computational power, like when compiling a LaTex document or a small auxiliary script. The short term boost performance to me thus seems to be quite a bit more important than the long term computing power.

 

In fact I've very well worked and sometimes still do work on a machine equipped with an i5-2520M from 2011... It gets the job done for most of the things I'd ever want to do for work and is in every respect slower than the MacBook

 

So conclusion time then. While the thermals of the MacBook certainly are a problem for computationally intense jobs/ work fields (e.g. CAD modelling and engineering I would assume) there are also a lot of areas that don't need this kind of sustained high performance or where the work loads are offloaded to dedicated computing machines. I therefore think that the MacBook is not so much a "niche of a niche" product but instead does appeal to quite a number of professionals from different fields, be it for the ease of use of MacOS or whatever people value about a MacBook. That said a MacBook is certainly not the only device on the market for the professional segment and for some tasks a different (Windows/ Linux) laptop is going to be better.

The point I'm trying to make is that the situation for the MacBook Pro does not appear to be so poor to me after all.

 

@GabenJr: While I'm not a MacBook user myself I'd generally (i.e. in laptop reviews) like to have more mentioning of such workflows as well

Other than that you're review videos are interesting and entertaining to watch. Keep up the good work

[Ashleyyyy]

11 minutes ago, GabenJr said:

Literally all they would have to do for us to not complain is target 90 degrees or less sustained thermal output, which probably wouldn't even require them to drop to base clock (as the Dell does). They did it for the 16" MBP and we like that machine.

 

Also, TJunction isn't the "validated" temperature. It's the maximum temperature. The CPU will go into self-preservation mode if that temperature is reached, and most CPUs drop out of turbo at around 80-85 for that reason. As Intel states, "The goal for a system builder or a do-it-yourself (DIY) end user is to design a platform configuration that keeps the processor under the Tjunction max threshold during heavy workloads to maximize performance of the system." Apple technically manages that here, but not by much, and this is on a brand new system. For a premium machine ostensibly created for pro work, it's not ideal, especially long-term.

 

The CPU can happily perform around 100 degrees all day long, but the components around it (and the substrate) may not be as happy. The problem is with Apple's aggressive boost mechanism that overrides Intel's guidelines. It won't be a problem out of the box (and would be acceptable if the cooler were adequate), but dust buildup, and eventually thermal compound degradation will make this problem much worse, potentially warping the PCB over time (and thereby breaking solder joints) due to extreme thermal cycles.

technically you are correct here but apple has done this for how long? a decade? more? my 2012 MBP only engages the fan at 95 degrees, i'm pretty sure your 2011 MBP does the same thing... many of the 2012 13" MBP's and even 2011 13" MBP's still work 8 or 9 years later and haven't died, what would prompt them to change the design? if you wanna fix it you could just install an app and make it ramp up the fan sooner, but that makes it quite loud at moderate workloads, so if they did that stock it would be complained about in a review. if they make it thicker and put a better cooling system in it you'll say that it's thicker and/or heavier than the XPS 13, as you already did in this video. 

 

my point isn't that it's perfect, my point is that apple have addressed the throttling that made you previously no longer recommend the MacBook Pro, and it runs within intel's spec, and there's still a problem? 

[Lord Vile]

Still don't get why these are reviewed as windows laptops. Using chrome for a battery test vs safari is stupid as not mentioning things like final cut. Why run an adobe suite when no one on Mac with a choice would use premiere over Final Cut. 

[Curious Pineapple]

*popcorn acquired*

[Hunter259]

I really wish you guys would cut the complaining down a bit on all laptops that get this hot and instead focus on what the user can do to combat them if you feel unformfortable about the temps. Apple fan curves have been doing this for years. It's not exactly new. Yes they should make it more aggressive. So should a fair amount of Windows laptops. Maybe add, if able to as a lot of windows laptops also lock out fan control, temperature and performance with reasonable custom curves. My old Mid 2014 13" Pro would hit 100 without a custom curve but after was around 85-90 under a full load.

[kirashi]

5 hours ago, GabenJr said:

Apple’s finally embraced Intel’s 10th-gen processors on its 13 inch MacBook Pro, but just how much can it add over the competition – Even from Apple itself?

Dark theme users be findin' it hard to read the black on grey text in the original post.  Otherwise yeah... I predict that more and more manufacturers are going to attempt to cram CPUs (and other chips) into ultra-thin unibody-like designs with little thought as to how they perform under real-world loads.  

 

[AndreiArgeanu]

2 hours ago, Ashley said:

and there's still a problem? 

There are many problem with mac books, whether it is board design or the cooling or just the general experience. The macbook air, even the 2020 models, have this wireless heat-pipe design which can often lead to broken mosfets around the cpu and sometimes even a ticking sound coming from the cpu area, ticking, from a computer with solid-state storage. Or on some macbook pro's the 1.7v data line that goes to the cpu sitting right next to a 52v backlight power line straight under the trackpad with no chokes between the CPU and the data line meaning that if there happens to be moisture there, you could have 52v sent straight to the cpu killing it, I haven't seen any other laptop design that puts a 52v backlight right next to a line that goes to the cpu. Or fuses on the board that are technically there to prevent shorts but they never do. Water ingress indicators turning red, with no liquid being spilt on the macbook or around it, leading to no warranty because, yeah "water damage". Or being quoted 475$ for board replacement when the issue was an inproperly plugged battery or a bad screen connector that wouldn't have been fixed by board replacement anyway. Corrupt T2 chips that can be repaired with another macbook. T2 chips that spontaneously break with no way to repair them because it's hardware failure not a corruption like on the previous case. Not to mention display cables that break. And a lot of this isn't even covered by apple because the little white dot in a macbook turns red from moisture in the air. Louis Rossman covers these common issues and many more found in MacBooks. You can say all you want, about how macbooks are used by more people, so issues surface more easily but I've never heard any widespread issues with thinkpads or Dell XPS, not to mention Linus on 2 occasions left different Dell XPS models out in the rain and in both occasions the device came back fine after some cleaning and drying. Additionally the customer support for a lot of these companies is far better than what Apple offers, again, Louis has covered how apple choses to treat their customers. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of macbooks out there that last 5+ years and have a proper cooling design, I don't mean to say that all macbooks are flawed, but generally speaking while there's lots of Macbooks out there that work well and are great, and there are also equally, Macbooks that are flawed by design. Not to mention, the review they made is their views and opinions on the 13", and they didn't like it, easy as that, if you think the macbook is the best machine ever created, fine, buy it, but don't try to change views and opinions of other people just because you don't agree with them.

[yeahnah]

In my very non-scientific test, I thought I would test the thermal throttling on my own 2020 MacBook Pro (spec 16GB, 2.0ghz 10 gen, 512GB model). This time, however, I would put the fans at full blast in Macs Fan Control a minute before launching a All Thread Frequency Test and a Maximum Graphics Test on Intel Power Gadget. The CPU temperature had lowered to around 37ºC before commencing those tests. To my surprise, the temperature didn't go past 70ºC, and no thermal throttling occurred, with the CPU maintaining 3.30ghz for around 10 minutes. The computer did feel a bit sluggish whilst I tried to use it, as expected, but nothing that was completely unusable. I will say though that the Pro for the three days that I have had it does have the tendency to warm up, most likely due to Turbo Boosting, when not doing anything too demanding. The fan curve does need to be more aggressive, and it must be noted that the fan does turn off completely when not doing anything strenuous, so I have Macs Fan Control set to turn up the fans based on the temperature readings on the CPU PECI. Would be interesting to see what other people are experiencing. 

[Teletha]

am i missing something lol @ 5:56 "a watt per mhz"? so is he saying that the cpu is running @ 32 MHz?

 

 

[captain_to_fire]

 

Dark theme hater

[jakesteele]

How was the battery life test setup? Youtube on Chrome on Windows usually uses less power than Chrome on Mac just because youtube likes to deliver VP8 or VP9 video, and macOS doesn't support hardware VP8/VP9 decode because of patent concerns (even though the CPU supports it), so Chrome on mac uses software video decoding which of course uses a tonne more power. An accurate comparison would be to use Safari which forces youtube to serve h264 which is hardware accelerated.

[williamcll]

Oh no did they not put heat pipes on the Macbook again. 

 

[GDRRiley]

7 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

 Using chrome for a battery test vs safari is stupid as not mentioning things like final cut. Why run an adobe suite when no one on Mac with a choice would use premiere over Final Cut. 

chrome is used more over safari. Everyone who I know who uses a mac mainly used chrome or Firefox.

Final Cut has lost all its advantages other that the ultra quick render times (background rendered) over resolve 16 and PP is catching up. Some people also use PP so that they can link AE clips without having to render a bunch mid project.

[D13H4RD]

8 hours ago, Ashley said:

If they make it thicker or heavier you will complain about windows laptops being lighter and thinner. 

I really doubt people would complain if the MacBook Pro was made slightly thicker. That's what happened to the 16" (even if it's just a fraction) and got praise for it due to the benefits it provides. 

 

A lot of people just seem to agree that some laptops are thinner than they should be.