Of course, the 15-inch model is quite a bit larger, as the name implies, and weighs an extra pound over the 13-inch version, making it a bit less portable. In our personal experience, the 13-inch version is a lot more comfortable to carry around and use, especially when it's on your lap, or on a cramped airplane seat. The 15-inch version, however, is better for long sessions at the work desk thanks to the larger screen. It is also equipped with an 87-Watt power adapter for the larger battery, to help it charge at roughly the same rate as the smaller model. Despite the size difference, battery life on both devices is rated at the same 10 hours.
Both models come with all of the same new features, like Bluetooth 5, True Tone display technology, an updated butterfly keyboard, and Apple's custom T2 chip. The Touch Bar is literally identical on both models as well. The first major difference that can easily make up your mind is that the base 15-inch model comes with twice the RAM in the base model, and it's faster DDR4 RAM as well. You'll have to pay an extra $200 to get the 16-gigabyte upgrade on the 13-inch, but it's still slower LPDDR3 RAM.
Both base models come with a 256GB SSD and there's practically no difference in speed. Unlike last year, all four Thunderbolt 3 ports on the 13-inch model now run at full speed, but it's packing an integrated graphics chip so it can't drive two 5K displays like the 15-inch version can. Performance There's a huge difference in Geekbench 4's graphics test, and an even bigger difference in the Cinebench R15 graphics test, but that test is also limited by processor performance. Both models come loaded with Intel's 8th-generation processors, but for the first time ever, the base 15-inch model packs a six-core i7 CPU.
There's not a huge difference in single-core performance, since base and turbo boost clock speeds are somewhat similar between the two, but the 15-inch MacBook Pro shines in Geekbench 4's multi-core test, thanks to the extra two cores. Another batch of tests were done by editing video in Final Cut Pro X, which uses both the CPU and graphics together for the most realistic performance results. There is a massive difference when exporting a 1 minute 4.5K Red RAW clip with added effects, with the 13-inch taking 7 minutes and 37 seconds, while the 15-inch took 2 minutes and 11 seconds. For a 5-minute 4K h.264 clip with added effects, the 13-inch model took almost 3 times as long to finish the export, completing in 11 minutes and one second compared to the 15-inch MacBook Pro's 3 minutes and 44 seconds.
Stabilizing a 4K clip also took way longer on the 13-inch MacBook Pro, at 39 seconds versus 14 seconds, making the 15-inch model an obvious choice for anyone who performs a lot of stabilization of video in Final Cut Pro. We also tested the BruceX Final Cut Pro benchmark, and again, the 13-inch model took almost twice as long at 1 minute 24 to the 15-inch's 46 seconds. Based off those tests, the base 15-inch MacBook Pro is the obvious choice for video editors. We also noticed the 13-inch MacBook Pro's 8GB of RAM was constantly consumed, making the situation worse for that model. The eGPU Factor However, there may be a saving grace for the 13' MacBook Pro, in the form of the. It's basically a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure that holds a powerful graphics card and connects to your MacBook Pro to boost graphics performance, and based on Geekbench 4's graphics test, it's much more powerful than the 15-inch MacBook Pro's GPU. In a repeat of the Red RAW export, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with eGPU was more than twice as fast, while the five-minute 4K export was almost three times faster than before.
For the stabilization test, the eGPU helped the 13-inch model effectively match the speed of the 15-inch model, and performed the BruceX benchmark faster than the 15-inch MacBook Pro. Although the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the Blackmagic eGPU doesn't quite match the 15-inch version by itself, it still greatly improves performance compared to the 13-inch model working alone. This combination will cost you $2500, that's $100 more than the base 15-inch model which still has more processor performance and double the RAM. Not to mention, the eGPU is meant to work with an external display, and it's the first one that supports LG's Ultrafine Thunderbolt 3 4K and 5K displays. If you're not planning on buying one of those two monitors, there are definitely cheaper eGPU options out there that pack a similar RX580 graphics card, or you can get a Vega 56 or 64 like the iMac Pro if you're prepared to spend a little money. In summary If portability is a big deal for you, an eGPU may actually be a viable option for great performance at home. If you don't care about portability, the 15-inch MacBook Pro will definitely pack the performance you need for any processor or graphics intensive task.
Final cut pro X is the video editing software designed by Apple and it works exclusively on MAC products. Thus, best laptop for Final cut pro x will be the best MacBook! While minimum system requirements of Final Cut Pro X does not sound too advanced, for the optimal output you should really be careful what MacBook you will use.
On the other hand, if your workload doesn't include graphics intensive tasks like video editing or 3D animation, then the 13-inch MacBook Pro will probably get the job done, albeit at a slower pace than the 15-inch model, but you will also save a fair bit of cash. Looking to buy a 2018 MacBook Pro? Save $75 on all 13' Touch Bars and $100 on all 15' models with coupon code APINSIDER at Adorama when used with this. For the lowest prices across all Macs, please visit our for the latest deals and product availability.
It seems like there’s always some controversy surrounding new Apple hardware. These devices are some of the most popular in the world, which means that they’re bound to get closely scrutinized, perhaps more so than any other tech product on earth. With that said, there’s a brewing in the new MacBook Pro. Of course, throttling on a laptop as thin as the MacBook Pro is to be expected, but issue has been taken with the amount of throttling present in Apple’s high-end 6-core Core i9-powered machine.
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The scrutinization is warranted, especially when you consider that the least-expensive Core i9 MacBook Pro sells for $2,700. If you opt to max out the GPU, RAM, and SSD storage, the price quickly balloons to nearly $7000 after tax. Just how bad is CPU throttling on the 2018 MacBook Pro? Let’s do a brief export test with Final Cut Pro X to investigate further. I opted to use Final Cut Pro X in these tests for the simple reason that it is Apple’s flagship NLE, and many of the people purchasing these machines are creative professionals who work in video. To monitor CPU performance, I used Intel’s excellent Power Gadget software, which is a. Here is my configuration for the test:.
A four minute, 4K video shot at 60 frames per second with a Panasonic GH5. (Not rendered and unoptimized).
Exported with Apple’s built-in Final Cut Pro preset: Web Hosting – H.264 Faster Encode – 3840 x 2160. Same exact setup used with both tests. All other apps, except apps needed for testing, closed. Power plugged in, except for the spoiler: freezer test.
To preface, this test is by no means law, and certain applications and export settings may respond differently. First test: Stock 6-core export Leaving the Core-i9 configured as default, I exported the video in 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Throttling was definitely noticeable during the export, as you can see from the following chart created from Intel Power Gadget log data: Specifically, notice how aggressive throttling is here, with numerous occurrences of the clock speed dipping to 800MHz. According to Intel Power Gadget data, this is in response to a CPU Hot flag.
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(Update: these dips are actually the CPU idling) Like most laptops, previous generations of the MacBook Pro have throttled, but the throttling with the Core i9 can be quite aggressive with Final Cut Pro X exports. Second test: 4-core export I was curious to see how the MacBook Pro would respond to the same test with only 4 cores enabled. To attempt this, I installed Xcode, and utilized the handy Instruments utility to disable two of the cores. I now effectively had a quad-core machine instead of a hexa-core machine. Would it make any difference for my Final Cut Pro export? Surprisingly, yes.
The export completed in just 5 minutes and 12 seconds, 18 seconds faster than the it did when using all 6 cores. Using just four cores (eight logical cores with Hyper-Threading) Keep in mind that the CPU inside this MacBook Pro has the following specifications:. Base clock: 2.9 GHz.
Turbo Boost: 4.8 Ghz. Cores: 6. TDP: 45W For the majority of the testing, the wattage consumed by the CPU stayed around 20W, and overall CPU utilization stayed well below 50%. Third Test: The freezer For the last test, I switched back to the full 6-cores and put my MacBook Pro in the freezer to keep it cool, who made the excellent video that lended such a big voice to this issue. Unsurprisingly, doing so resulted in the best performance out of the three tests.
The video exported in just 4 minutes and 51 seconds, 21 seconds faster than the quad-core test, and 39 seconds faster than the hexa-core test without the extra cooling. The freezer is good for short term performance on the MacBook Pro, but may prove to be an inconvenient/hazardous working environment (condensation is bad, folks). IMac Pro Test Lastly, I wanted to see how my iMac Pro compared, since it has plenty of thermal overhead along with an 8-core Xeon CPU. Would it easily best the MacBook Pro? Just by looking at this graph, you would think so. The CPU basically stays locked at 4.0GHz and above, and as you can see its temperatures remain relatively cool.
However, the iMac Pro actually proved to be slowest on export, coming in at 6 minutes flat, a full 30 seconds slower than our slowest export with the MacBook Pro. Xeon CPUs lack onboard hardware video encoding, dubbed Intel Quick Sync Video. So even though the iMac Pro runs circles around the MacBook Pro from a thermal perspective, it doesn’t really matter in this test.
That’s why you can’t always look at pure numbers when judging a machine. Lots of variables go into measuring the performance, and it differs based on the applications you plan to use. The results of this test are by no means a recommendation to stay away from the high end MacBook Pro. A machine should be judged on all of its merits and further testing is required before I’m able to do so.
That said, the optics aren’t particularly good for Apple; it’s reasonable for users to expect more cores to equal better performance, especially with an app that was built from the ground up with Mac hardware in mind. All blame shouldn’t rest on Apple’s shoulders, though. Intel needs better performing chips from a thermal perspective. It’s one major reason why could prove to be a great thing for future laptops coming out of Cupertino.
What do you think? Is this a serious issue, or is it making a mountain out of a molehill? Sound off in the comments with your thoughts. Update: This “CPU Hot” flag apparently doesn’t correlate to throttling in the normal sense.
John Poole from Primate Labs, creator of the excellent Geek Bench 4, would definitely know and he dropped some knowledge: If the CPU is at 800MHz, the CPU isn’t throttling, the CPU is idle. The test isn’t using the CPU but rather the on-chip hardware encoder. — John Poole (@jfpoole) John notes that at 800 MHz, the CPU is idling, awaiting further instructions. This 800 MHz dip that we see on the graphs is normal in the sense that 800 MHz is an idle frequency.
Yet, this still has all the makings of a thermal issue. The export is faster when there are only four cores being used instead of six. And as shown, the export is obviously much faster when outside cooling is added.
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