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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

MacBook Pro 16" Configuration

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BrendanLeahy

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Hey - with the new 16" MBP, someone told me 64GB ram isn't worthwhile because laptops can only actually take advantage of a certain amount of memory before the returns diminish - is that true?
 
Depends on what you use it for. 64GB is an ideal amount of RAM for an 8-core system that does moderate workloads supporting an 8GB GPU. What concerns me with laptops, all brands and not just Apple, is the bottleneck becomes thermal in nature. Now that we have 8-core CPUs and can put 64GB RAM in there, I know I can drive it hard enough that it will thermally throttle itself back so it doesn't burn up and we will almost surely need external cooling to use this thing as an actual workstation.

Not sure if I'm going to order one myself. I want to hear what others have to say or get my hands on one where I can really play with it. I don't own a 15" MBP right now. In fact the only laptop I own right now is a 13" MBP from last year. It works for general stuff and it easily goes everywhere and yet I can do 95% of the same stuff on my iPad Pro as well as other things the MBP can't do. So the iPad is my most-used portable computer device that isn't my phone. I gave up on other larger notebooks because I kept burning them up or they fell way short on promises. The last truly great laptop I owned was the first-gen 2012 retina MBP. Had all-day battery life, better keyboard and I could drive it hard all day. The thing was a tank. Ever since the Touch Bar MBP has come around it seems like development has been driven more by form than function. We keep adding more cores, storage, GPU, etc.. all while trying to shrink the overall form factor and battery. Apple seems to have shifted gears a bit this time around. They're offering the maximum RAM supported by the CPU and they have increased the battery size, redesigned the keyboard and improved the screen (which was already really good). I'm hopeful, but very skeptical.
 
As I posted to the Mac Pro thread, not that I wanted to hijack it, but I got to see one this afternoon. I've decided to order one. Nice improvement to the screen and keyboard. Otherwise it feels the same as the previous iteration. It was very responsive running FCPX and Adobe apps. I didn't get much hands-on time, but if you're in the market for a new notebook, especially a MacBook Pro, then this is the one.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
As I posted to the Mac Pro thread, not that I wanted to hijack it, but I got to see one this afternoon. I've decided to order one. Nice improvement to the screen and keyboard. Otherwise it feels the same as the previous iteration. It was very responsive running FCPX and Adobe apps. I didn't get much hands-on time, but if you're in the market for a new notebook, especially a MacBook Pro, then this is the one.
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Hey Jeff - would you advise what specs you went with? I don't mean to copy your exact order (TBs aren't a huge concern for me since I just edit proxies while traveling). I'm just curious about what you decided on based with what you said with thermal throttling - I, too, edit with FCPX and do some photo editing with Affinity, but nothing terribly intense. My 2013 MBPr has just been showing its age on render times now.
 
Thanks for sharing your impressions Jeff, was really hoping to get some info on how the new 16 inch MacBook Pro runs 8K R3D files. Hopefully Jarred or someone from RED can chime in with some extra info. I've been holding out for so long to upgrade my 2012 MacBook Pro retina, I'm really hoping that this new 16 inch plays well with R3D.
 
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David Grigorian said:
Thanks for sharing your impressions Jeff, was really hoping to get some info on how the new 16 inch MacBook Pro runs 8K R3D files. Hopefully Jarred or someone from RED can chime in with some extra info. I've been holding out for so long to upgrade my 2012 MacBook Pro retina, I'm really hoping that this new 16 inch plays well with R3D.
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When Apple can do magic with the used GPU you might be lucky, otherwise it's about 2 times slower than an equivalent Windows laptop with a RTX2080 in it.
 
No idea on R3D performance, but I'm sure there's a noticeable improvement over the previous generation MBP. It's like Misha says, we're waiting to see what comes out of RED in regards to the new Apple products and support for Metal and such. Laptops that have a desktop class GPU are always going to win out for intense GPU operations, but they have their own set of trade-offs. Usually in regards to the overall size and weight.

I pushed the laptop pretty hard today, or at least a handful of us took turns doing so for about 30 minutes. Mostly with FCPX and lots of 4K clips and I thought it handled extremely well. I know that pushing it really hard in Resolve or Fusion, or trying to max out all cores for 8K transcodes, it's going to put a strain on this system. Thermal throttling is going to be an issue for some workloads, there' just no way around that.

I have not ordered yet myself. I intend to... Biggest hangup is that I'm unsure which storage capacity I want. I know I'm going with the top end 2.4GHz i9 CPU and 64GB RAM, 8GB GPU. From there it will probably be the 2TB SSD, but I might go 4TB. 8TB would be awesome, but I'm only willing to throw so much money at this since it's going to be obsolete in a couple short years.
 
There is a big improvement in R3D performance with just the latest FCPX update on any recent hardware, will be even better on the new MBP. For R3D I would definitely recommend getting the top spec you can afford in all categories. Storage would be the one area you may not need to max out as there are many great external options out there for video. Performance for 4k-6k will be quite good on any of the configs, for 8k I would definitely go for the high end CPU and GPU options.

Really hoping Red is able to get an update out to the macOS plugin sometime this year, will just get better.
 
So I pulled the trigger. Max spec in all areas except I went 4TB storage rather than the full 8TB. Should have it within 2 weeks...
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
So I pulled the trigger. Max spec in all areas except I went 4TB storage rather than the full 8TB. Should have it within 2 weeks...
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Few infos which would help:

- At what point does throttling kick in and by how much is rendering speed reduced when it does

- RT performance in Resolve (resolutions, codecs, debayer settings)

- Is keyboard feel improved over office photocopier feel from the first generation
 
I have pulled the trigger as well with...

2.4GHz 8-core 9th-generation Intel Core i9 processor, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz
64GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory
AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 8GB of GDDR6 memory
2TB SSD storage

But actually the big question for me is...

1) is there any real chance that the thermal ablities of this machine could be improved enough to justify the 2.3 to 2.4 CPU upgrade...?...for sustained loads like rendering or dewaveleting in playback

Cause if it is no... and the 8 core will under a sustained load throttle to be just as slow as the 2.3 I should save the money.

and the smaller Qs are

2) I have checked the applications I use and none of them 'need' more than about 24gb of Ram.. should I just get 32gb and stick that money with the probably futile upgrade the CPU money on more SSD? Cause 4TB would be nice...
3) Will any clever 3rd party be able to upgrade the CPU/Memory or SSD at a later date?
 
Bigger Apple stores in major cities should have them on display today, some had them yesterday. The one I played with on Wednesday was being put into the Broomfield, CO - Flatirons Crossing store as a demo. So having my hands on one of these the other day for a bit, here's what I can say...

Keyboard. It felt better to me and familiar, I wasn't sure what to think of it in the moment. Then I realized it is identical to the current Magic Keyboard and I spend a lot of time typing on the one paired with my iMac Pro. So yes, it's a definite improvement. Ultimately I would love just a tad more travel and springiness to these Apple keyboards, but this is a good step in the right direction.

CPU and RAM. The unit I played with had the 2.3GHz CPU and 32GB RAM. Mostly we ran through FCPX stuff and some Adobe software, predominantly Photoshop as far as Adobe was concerned. I don't think Premiere was even loaded up. We tried AE a bit toward the end of the session, but not enough was seen or done there to know how well it handled. FCPX was loaded up with lots of 4K ProRes clips and it all cut like butter. I wish I could have seen how it handled R3D and other formats. The onboard SSD is wicked fast, as expected. They had 2TB on the demo unit. I did not encounter any throttling issues while myself and the others there pushed it as hard as we could with the resources installed on it. For close to 45 minutes straight.

Considering the 2.3 vs. 2.4 CPU... It's a tough call and they're effectively the same CPU. While I have not seen the specifics on these CPUs, typically two in the same series like this with only clock rates differentiating them, they're often produced as the same CPU die and clock rates are finalized through the QC process. In this case, the 2.4 was probably able to run at the 100MHz faster sustained rate while holding thermals within the desired spec. The 2.3GHz units might run a few degrees cooler, but probably not much. I think if making decisions on upgrades, I would make sure I get the 64GB RAM and 8GB 5500 GPU first. Then decide how the 2.4GHz CPU and SSD capacity fit into the budget.

Not so sure about the SSD upgradability as some MBP models have recently been upgradeable in that department. The RAM and CPU however are not upgradeable. We'll know more once these ship to customers and we see a tear-down.

That's really all I can think to say. I'm sure we'll start seeing lots of reports as people are starting to pick these up now. The screen was definitely an improvement over my 2016 model I sold last year. I still wish they would put a true 4K worth of pixels in there and was a little surprised they didn't when going to 16".
 
I have not had a chance to watch, but it seems iFixit already has posted their tear-down today.
 
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