Apple adds more powerful GPU option to its 16" MacBook Pro, new SSD option to Mac Pro Tower

Yes. Everyone who wants a laptop should build a desktop PC. /s

You would if you need to bring your computer places other than your desk.

McArchive, a photograph can be worth 29.95, 175.50 or a million dollars. It has too many variables, and most of them are strongly subjective.
A graphic card has its market value, it's an objective value. What are you trying to discuss?

No they are not the same expensive and/or have better hardware

a £ 6099 "value " laptop

$$$$$$$..."THINK DIFFERENT"... $$$$$$$

You're definitely not alone. Been using my 15" MacBook Pro since 2014, it never missed a beat and is still going strong even for photo editing. :-)

kleeworld:

And I'm still using my HP laptop from early 2011 for photo editing--and it doesn't even have the fastest CPU for that line. Nor does it have the maximum amount of RAM--but I could add both a faster CPU and more RAM if I like. No, I'd not use my laptop to edit 4K video, but 1080p is fine, and rendering video is harder than most photo editing.

Now in all honesty, it had a cooling unit failure which destroyed the GPU and CPU in 2014, but they were easily completely replaced in for free by HP.

Now, don't especially like my laptop's keyboard, but then there's Apple which makes this laptops's keyboard out to be extraordinary.

And finally, my laptop has a true 10 bit screen. No Apple laptop does or did as of June 2020.

And I can still use the first XPS 15 from 2013(?) to edit video when I don't feel like sitting in my studio, while my wife's 2015 Mac Air is basically unusably outdated for anything but light web browsing.

I think it's a little disingenuous to claim Apple has any kind of dominion over computing longevity in 2020.

It all depends on what hardware upgrades you ponied up for when you bought the machine, and at least a few other companies have caught up to Apple's build quality almost a decade ago.

@Jaiyenyen don’t get me wrong Apple makes great products. But in my experience Apple devices aren’t over engineered and now goes for form over function. A good example would be the 10.5 inch iPad Pro Smart Keyboard. It only lasted 10 months before it stopped functioning (Googling it shows its not an isolated incident). I would be quite surprised if the new Macs last any long like yours.

My £800 i7 build from 12 years ago (2008!) still runs like a swiss clock for everything but 30mpx RAW editing - it's still no slouch.

Apple is honestly the worst company. It hurts me to watch people pay eye-watering sums for hardware that is no longer state of the art.

PhotoByHall:

"It hurts me to watch people pay eye-watering sums for hardware that is no longer state of the art."

And it's no longer possible to update CPUs, GPUs, and storage on iMacs, plus it looks like the new Mac Pro tower has locked out certain hardware.

MacBook Pros were never super zippy, for video/animation rendering, and now Apple effectively prevents all repairs and any upgrades to them. I guess you could "upgrade" one by replacing the entire system board with a faster specced one.

I collect old computers. I have a 22 year old laptop that runs completely fine even to this day, that came with Windows 98. I've built a Windows 98 based PC on early 2000s parts just for old games, runs completely fine.

On the flip side, Apple isn't immune to bad build quality. iMac G3s don't last long. iMac G5s have major screen/capacitor issues. My 2011 17' MBP only lasted 3 years before the GPU fried itself. Swollen batteries are common. Frayed chargers are even more common.

Its far from black and white. I`m a dual system user and saw good and bad computers on both sides of the fence.
I.e. my old mac pro (1.1) still works today and so does my dell tower from 2009, but my 2013 maxed out iMac 27 shows worrying signs and I dont think it will last longer.
All my 15'' Macbook Pros were excellent, no issues with any of those.
I cannot say the same about my 13 '' MBS. The one which still works is the one bought in 2011.
I had 2 13'' MBS (mid 2014 and mid 2015) die (main board failure) immediately after the warranty was over. The 2017 13'' MBS had keyboard issues.
The same is true for the windows world.
Had many laptops in the last decade and have issues right now only with the Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen 6.
What I conclude from the above?
First, Apple's reliability and endurance is more of a myth than reality.
Second, you may find good or bad machines no matter the brand.

@dinosnake: Thank you for pointing out the obvious to dinoSnake. You are quite correct, the customers were using very specialised machine to computer interfaces and bespoke software dealing at a low level with the hardware. The Mac was an absurd choice as nobody in these industries uses Macs, ever. I never learned why the accountant demanded a Mac to run Excel, PowerPoint and accounting software, as they're all identical across platforms. It possibly matched his office decor better.

@VSCD, will ARM Macs run any of the professional softwares?

"Sounds like you aren't very bright."

"At least you were able to bash them real good. SMH."

Yep, that's about the standard response I get from them when it gets technical. 😀

C'mon, that 50000 $ Mac Pro should go 8 years in service into the future. They should have used AMD which launched with a pci express version 4.0 bus.

Btw, draft of pci express version 6.0 recently got announced.

@Daniel
What workstation does dell sell for $100k?

@Daniel
That's honest surprise for me. I guess apple started a new trend. But that dell also out specs the apple by a huge margin. The video cards are $10k each off the shelf for $30k. That's a 2 socket mobo made for xeon server chips I can't find a price for, but the 8284 cpus are $15k each. Ddr4 ram for servers 2 years ago was $4k for a 128gb stick @24 sticks is $96k. 10 16tb iron wolfs @$700 for $7k and I'm not going to bother with nvme drives. There's still space for another video card that's not a full sized one. It's nice to see a server with the convenience of a desktop (I'm thinking about ports) but you can't make one yourself for less than stupid money. But you'd certainly save a dollar with AMD

Well my experience with NVIDIA on Mac is that it's a complete disaster, only had trouble with it and was very disappointed with the performance. AMD performs so much better. So I really envy the new MacPro for it's dual Vega option unfortunately it's ruined by it's overpriced and underperforming CPU.

In todays world if you want a Computer to do work on, especially content creation go buy a PC. The Macs are consumer machines meant for consuming content. Weak and outdated hardware, horrible cooling capacity (except the new MacPro) and very bad displays for a beyond premium price.

its a shame apple cant get the top-performing n vidia gpu stuff to work on their hardware

they use the same CPU arch. same memory ,as the rest of the planet that has this figured out

So Apple is happy to provide their customers with an inferior product by not using Nvidia GPUs on their editing/creator focused machines just to spite Nvidia? And it's still grossly overpriced. Sounds about par for the course, unfortunately.

Nothing against AMD, their CPUs are class-leading (especially in the mobile realm, they are dramatically better than Intel's offerings), but most software just isn't optimized for AMD GPUs yet and hasn't been for a long time now.

If Apple really wanted the new Macbooks to stand out, they would use Ryzen 4000 CPUs and they would destroy most of the competition as most other manufacturers this year are sticking with Intel for brand recognition rather than performance.

I'm amazed Apple didn't cosy up to nVidia to use their Quadro line of GPUs. The Quadro brand is already a rip-off of Apple proportions, so together they could have aimed for a $10,000 laptop. It would have been 1/10 speed of a $5000 desktop PC, but anyone stupid enough to spend multiple thousands on a laptop has already lost all sense of reality.

@ lauma - the problem is the software. All the popular software options such as the Adobe suite are specifically optimized for Nvidia GPUs. Hopefully that changes, but that is the reality at the moment.

Also, it is not quite true that Nvidia GPUs are just optimized for games. It's more complicated than that. For example, the GP102 processor in the GTX 1080Ti (and Titan cards) running one of the newer Nvidia divers behaves almost exactly like a Quadro card in creative applications, and is still amazing for games - best of both worlds. The non-Ti/Titan cards are more game-centric but still work well in creative applications.

I'm not aware of any popular creative software that runs better on AMD than Nvidia graphics, or that is specifically coded to perform better with AMD graphics.

@ Strawbale - You can buy windows machines that cost this much, and people buy them. Not saying it's smart, but it happens.

Hmmm. Never heard that one before - Microsoft computer. Or you meant PC? Microsoft licensing PC software on the OS, not the hardware if i am correct. Does it matter how much Dell selling their top of the line $100k workstation? The licensing remains the same.

The funny thing about that post is that when Microsoft decided to start making PC hardware, they did not bother with the low end where PC companies fight for scraps of margin and die (witness how many companies exited the PC market).

Microsoft deliberately chose the Apple business model for the Surface Pro line: High design, high margin, form over function, limited upgradeability. The Surface Pro and Surface Book models that have power comparable to a MacBook Pro are priced in the range of the MacBook Pro.

The Microsoft Surface desktop is an expensive all-in-one that mimics an Apple iMac.

There are no affordable modular box PCs made by Microsoft.

@Daniel L - you do realise Microsoft makes it's own line of hardware now? Look up Surface Studio: https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/p/surface-studio-2/8sbjxm0m58t4

@ DualSystemGuy: Those few are not the ones that made/make Bill Gates the rich man that he is though

@MiniMad Read OP comment. I have one of those, of course i do. MS also had a phone line that failed but NONE of those paid the bill and Bill Gates won't be a Billionaire because of these products, he is rich today because of software licensing.

Nobody cares.

You could get it for free too but it's still a Windows. What's the point?

Daniel L:

What's the point? Well, Windows does run Solidworks, more than really important 3D CAD software. And yes, you need lots of system power to render 3D CAD images.

The big problem with linzdoctor7d's claim is the substitution of a Windows tower for a laptop. They're significantly different markets, powerful towers and laptops.

You probably could. But then you'd be sitting in front of your computer wondering what to actually do with it - you know, something productive and worthwhile. Not to worry - lot's of companies looking for Measurebators.

I'm a Windows Server Engineer by day so I've always liked being able to come home to something different. I still prefer MacOS over Windows despite knowing Windows inside and out but come on Apple, that pricing isn't acceptable.

I don't like Mac enough to pay that kind of premium.

@b656
Old tech is old tech. Do you buy a digital camera because of its resale value? When you take into consideration laptops are basically disposable goods like phones it's even worse. At least you can fix a pc when something breaks in it with a screwdriver. It's going to take a while for people to catch on but why don't apple laptops lose value like every other electronic good? Because of engineering! =/

It's only old compared to the competition. Agree about the price gouging not to mention constant disaster of newer more expensive limited use dongles. Luckily there are cheaper options out there for those.

The software is still so much more pleasurable to use than Windows. That said killing of 32bit is a PITA. I need my old 32BIT software updated to 64BIT.

Do you post the same comment under an article about medium format cameras?

@Tom : I already have an Arca Swiss monorail and a 500 CM from decades ;-)

@Horshack, apart from raw GPU performance and better cooling solution, in what other area does a $900 Windows notebook hold an advantage over this MBP 16?

My experience is that high-tier Macs are about 10% more expensive than high-tier say... Dell XPS 15's, and a lot of that is going up to software engineers and being "Hey look! A Unix that actually works! Mostly! You know, once you've installed Homebrew and spent a couple hours running around in your bashrc".

Apple certainly commands a premium.

However, when you start comparing Apples to Oranges, funny pun right there btw, said gaming laptop with a RTX 2060 mobile, has a 1080P screen, low-grade SSD (or "spinner" even), is cheap plastic build, is a brick in thickness.

It's like comparing a Canon RP with a EF 28mm f/1.8 USM to a Leica Q2...

Both are full frame with 28mm f/1.8, but the latter, has weather sealing, 47MP vs 26MP, has IS, real 4K, is smaller, higher FPS, better optic, etc.

Now one might argue the RP + adapted is more economical and therfor wiser. True.

But like the Leica Q2, the new MacBook Pro, addresses more than just the video card, and when you compare out a similiarly spec'd Windows laptop, that orange costs just as much as the Apple and like the Q2, you're getting that all in a compact, premium-branded powerhouse.

@RLight, I don't disagree, but charging a premium for a graphics upgrade that's equal to the price of an actual competing notebook changes the calculus from Apple's typical "premium" to the realm of the absurd.

The premium gets you access to both a 7nm GPU and HBM2. You're paying for the tech, and probably some premium.

Put this another way, think GTX2060 mobile / GTX1070 mobile performance, but, in a slim form factor with extreme battery life (50W mind you, courtesy of that 7nm and HBM2 combo). Brick power adapter or thick laptop with huge loud cooler and battery not included :)

As I said, it's very Leica Q like. Some premium, but unique offering.

@mosc

//and not getting a right mouse button?//

All Apple computers have a right click mouse button. Even before Apple shipped two button mice you could use a third party mouse or use a single button and toggle right key functionality with the option key.

@Horshack

While the apple upgrade prices are always pretty steep, premium windows laptops like the dell xps series or the razer blade series are also not cheap.

Edit:
Ok I just checked. The most comparable Laptop is probably the new 2020 Dell XPS 17

With the premium display option, 32GB RAM, 1TB NVME SSD storage and RTX 2060 the dell costs 2999$

While a similarly speced macbook with the new GPU but a slightly worse CPU costs 3899$, so about 900$ more

Of course further upgrades make the dell cheaper, as upgrades don't tend to be so overpriced on upgradable windows machines. and going down to 16gb ram makes the difference a bit smaller. Overall it looks a bit worse for the apple than I initially thought. That GPU really is an expensive upgrade

@panther, I don't believe Dell offers the RTX 2060 on their XPS 15 series - it's only on their gaming machines. I bought a Lenovo business-class P53 workstation notebook for $1400 that included an 4K OLED screen, 6-core i7 processor, 16GB memory, 512GB NVMe, and Quadra T2000 graphics. The T2000 is much weaker than the RTX 2060/5600M but more powerful GPUs are available as well.

@Horshack

That's why I said XPS 17 ;) it's a new line they just introduced. It's about the size of the Apple 16" but with a slightly larger 17" display and much more processing power than the XPS 15

@panther, Look at the Asus Zephyrus G14 @ $1450. Fastest mobile processor currently available (8-core Ryzen), 16GB/1TB, RTX 2060 Max-Q, 3.5 lbs, 1080 120hz display, 11 hours battery life.

@Horshack

That's not even remotely a comparable laptop
-ugly as sin
-worse keyboard
-much worse trackpad
-1080p sRGB display that doesn't get bright enough
-worse speakers
-worse SSD
-no thunderbolt ports
-16:9 aspect ratio
-and performance that is only available when plugged into a wall

That's exactly the type of notebook, why macbooks were successful in the first place. The comparable laptops are the XPS and the Razer blades

@panther, And 25% faster. And less than half the cost. And lighter, with longer battery life, and without a history of recall for design defects. But sure, the Macbook is a premium design if you go by looks. And the keyboard is probably better than the Asus after three years of users battling Butterfly key defects.

Btw the XPS isn't comparable to a Macbook - it's marketed that way for sure but they're garbage. I've owned several, both the 15 and 13, and each has had some significant flaw, the most recent being the XPS 13's standby battery drain issue due to their exclusive implementation of Connected Standby instead of S3. Thinkpads are still the only premium business/pro-user class notebooks on the Windows side. And even those are a bit worse than Thinkpads of past.

@mosc - All you did was tell the world you have no idea how Macs work.

For the last 15-20 years, every MacBook Pro has supported right mouse click. If you plug in a two-button mouse, it will work. Or you can Control-click to call up the context menu. Or you can configure the trackpad so that the context menu comes up on two-finger click, bottom left corner click, or bottom right corner click. That is five different ways for Macs to call up the context menu. If a graphics tablet is plugged in you can use the secondary click button on the stylus. That is six ways.

The only difference is that some people don't believe there is a right mouse button unless they actually see a physical line down the middle of the mouse button. But I won't mention any names. :)

@Horseshack, could you please tell me which laptop has RTX2060 and costs $900? I would have expected it to cost a bit more (like around $1400). I wanted to buy a new gaming laptop so for $900 that would be a steal!

@Handsome90, It's the Asus TUF 15. Bit large/clunky for my tastes but Best Buy currently has it for $899:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-15-6-laptop-amd-ryzen-7-8gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-2060-512gb-ssd-fortress-gray/6408464.p?skuId=6408464

Sure. I think the point here is an upgrade to achieve performance similar to an RTX2060 for a cost of $700 would be laughable except that it’s Apple. If it was equivalent to a 2080 it would be a different story.

I’m an Apple fan. I think they make great products. And I have a lot of them across my family. But you pay through the nose for it.

Benchmarks are out...

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Initial-benchmarks-confirm-performance-improvements-of-over-50-for-the-16-inch-Apple-MacBook-Pro-with-an-AMD-Radeon-Pro-5600M-GPU.476881.0.html

Can go toe to toe with a Vega 56 aka iMac Pro? That's impressive for a non-brick laptop anyways.

I wonder if there is a performance difference between using Apple-supplied NAND modules (where the T2 chip does both the encryption and SSD controller tasks) and third-party PCIe NVMe cards (where that task is split between the T2 and the controller on NVMe card)?

Reportedly...yes!

Apple's 'dual NAND' module approach - utilizing the onboard T2 chip to basically handle all of the neccessary functioning of their SSD - which supposedly offers greater stability and better long term endurance over the higher read/write speeds of some of the top-of-the-line retail NVMe SSD.

I've seen a few Mac Pro 7,1 owners reporting much better overall performance after installing their own third party NVMe SSD's than Apple's onboard T2-dual NAND module approach. OWC is selling their own NVMe PCIe
drives that claim speeds of over 6000mps vs the Mac Pro's onboard drives of less than half that read/write speeds.
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/01/03/mac-pro-adding-ssd-storage/