Eight-core 2019 15-inch MacBook Pro crushes mid-2018 model in benchmarks

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited June 2020
An initial benchmark of Apple's updated 15-inch MacBook Pro with an eight-core processor indicates the 2019 revision of the highest-specification model offers considerable improvements on the 2018 equivalent, especially in multi-core performance.




On Tuesday, Apple updated the MacBook Pro lineup with 8th and 9th-generation Intel Core processors, including changes to the 13-inch and 15-inch lineups. The highlight change is a 15-inch MacBook pro that uses the Core i9-9980HK, an 8-core processor clocked at 4.8GHz.

Benchmarks published to Geekbench on Thursday for the "MacBookPro15,3," believed to be the new model, reveals the new processor has given a significant boost to overall system performance. According to the results, its single core test score was 5879, which is a 9.9% gain from the 5348 of the Mid-2018 15-inch MacBook Pro, which used the six-core Intel Core i9-8950HK.






The increase from six cores to eight also made a predictable improvement to the multi-core test results, with the new model achieving 29,184 versus 22620 for 2018, a boost of 29% year-on-year.

According to the system information of the published results, the Mac in question was running macOS 10.14.5, and was equipped with 32 gigabytes of 2400MHz DDR4 memory.

The refreshed high-end 15-inch MacBook Pro starts from $2,799, and is equipped with 2280 by 1800 P3 Wide Color Gamut displays offering 500 nits of brightness and TrueTone support. Options are available for 16GB or 32GB of RAM, between 512GB and 4TB of SSD storage, and either Radeon Pro 560X or Vega 20 graphics with up to 4GB of HBM2 memory.

AppleInsider will be testing the thermal environment of the new high-end MacBook Pro in the next week.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 24
    boboliciousbobolicious Posts: 1,139member
    Impressive speed for sure...
    ...and yet still holding out at this end for such (basic?) 'pro' features as...

    - lower cost non-touch bar option (the mac I actually use)
    - user adjustable non-proprietary storage (benefitting every mac I've owned)
    - user adjustable non-proprietary ram (benefitting every mac I've owned)
    - an HD screen I don't have to squint at (17")

    I know, I know - I'll likely be waiting a long time...

    edited May 2019 Pylonskestralwilliamlondon
  • Reply 2 of 24
    wood1208wood1208 Posts: 2,905member
    Such killing performance is all good for professionals, video editors,corporate development users but for college and high school students what is needed is lower priced GOTO Macbook Pros.
    Pylonswilliamlondon
  • Reply 3 of 24
    bsbeamerbsbeamer Posts: 77member
    Nice machine and specs, but real-life throttling will bring those numbers back to reality.  Guess it's too much to ask for a properly ventilated desktop with any of these modern i9 processors and RX580 or Vega64 or VII GPU?  Seriously, put it in a multi-colored or rose gold iPhone painted plastic box for all I care.  Shouldn't take 7+ years do that... 
    williamlondon
  • Reply 4 of 24
    Impressive speed for sure...
    ...and yet still holding out at this end for such (basic?) 'pro' features as...

    - lower cost non-touch bar option (the mac I actually use)
    - user adjustable non-proprietary storage (benefitting every mac I've owned)
    - user adjustable non-proprietary ram (benefitting every mac I've owned)
    - an HD screen I don't have to squint at (17")

    I know, I know - I'll likely be waiting a long time...

    I thought I read somewhere that Apple is going to produce a 17" MBP that does exactly that.

    But the idea that those things make it "pro" is silly. The idea of "pro" itself is silly.
    johnbsirius
  • Reply 5 of 24
    zebrazebra Posts: 35member
    I bought the i7 MacBook Pro 15" 2018 rather than the i9 knowing that the i7 would likely do as well for volumes of work with minimal throttling.

    I would not buy an 8 core knowing that the i9 with 6 cores does not achieve its performance capabilities except for a few seconds until it throttles down due to excessive heat. The i9 and the new 8 core both require a revised platform to achieve their performance potential. I consider these upgrades a waste of money under the present configurations.
  • Reply 6 of 24
    jgojcajjgojcaj Posts: 48member
    Wow. Amazing. Now includes a lifetime repair for a keyboard. I'm so thrilled and assured that I'll spend $4K and see Apple Genius' four times a month for the keyboard. Whew. What a relief with the 2019 MBPs.
    williamlondon
  • Reply 7 of 24
    zebra said:
    I bought the i7 MacBook Pro 15" 2018 rather than the i9 knowing that the i7 would likely do as well for volumes of work with minimal throttling.

    I would not buy an 8 core knowing that the i9 with 6 cores does not achieve its performance capabilities except for a few seconds until it throttles down due to excessive heat. The i9 and the new 8 core both require a revised platform to achieve their performance potential. I consider these upgrades a waste of money under the present configurations.
    Is there a laptop that doesn't do that to some degree? It's always going to be a trade off between portability and performance.
  • Reply 8 of 24
    GAGGAG Posts: 1unconfirmed, member
    zebra said:
    I bought the i7 MacBook Pro 15" 2018 rather than the i9 knowing that the i7 would likely do as well for volumes of work with minimal throttling.

    I would not buy an 8 core knowing that the i9 with 6 cores does not achieve its performance capabilities except for a few seconds until it throttles down due to excessive heat. The i9 and the new 8 core both require a revised platform to achieve their performance potential. I consider these upgrades a waste of money under the present configurations.
    The new 2019 model might not throttle like the 2018 model. The CPU could be more power efficient or the cooling has changed. Try to se this. 
    johnbsiriuscommentzilladarren mccoy
  • Reply 9 of 24
    MplsPMplsP Posts: 3,911member
    But will the keyboard work in a year?
    williamlondon
  • Reply 10 of 24
    MplsPMplsP Posts: 3,911member
    wood1208 said:
    Such killing performance is all good for professionals, video editors,corporate development users but for college and high school students what is needed is lower priced GOTO Macbook Pros. 
    Yes! When will Apple realize there is a big market for a quality laptop with a 15” screen? It seems they assume that if you want more than a 12” screen you must be doing video or graphics editing.
    edited May 2019
  • Reply 11 of 24
    The previous one had a base clock of 2.9ghz
    This new one has a base clock of 2.4ghz
    both 14nm 
  • Reply 12 of 24
    wood1208 said:
    Such killing performance is all good for professionals, video editors,corporate development users but for college and high school students what is needed is lower priced GOTO Macbook Pros.
    Most college kids aren’t professionals yet & don’t need to buy a Pro.
    randominternetperson
  • Reply 13 of 24
    GAG said:
    zebra said:
    I bought the i7 MacBook Pro 15" 2018 rather than the i9 knowing that the i7 would likely do as well for volumes of work with minimal throttling.

    I would not buy an 8 core knowing that the i9 with 6 cores does not achieve its performance capabilities except for a few seconds until it throttles down due to excessive heat. The i9 and the new 8 core both require a revised platform to achieve their performance potential. I consider these upgrades a waste of money under the present configurations.
    The new 2019 model might not throttle like the 2018 model. The CPU could be more power efficient or the cooling has changed. Try to se this. 
    That's what I suspected. It's looking like a winner.
  • Reply 14 of 24
    mcdavemcdave Posts: 1,927member
    wood1208 said:
    Such killing performance is all good for professionals, video editors,corporate development users but for college and high school students what is needed is lower priced GOTO Macbook Pros.
    You mean a ‘Pro’ for non-Pros?  Not sound marketing.
    randominternetperson
  • Reply 15 of 24
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    You really need to change your definition of “crush”. It’s a 10% increase in single thread, with half of it due to an increase in clock rate. Then, it is only 30% faster in multithread even though it has 33% more cores and a 10% improvement in single thread. 

    Don’t know about you, but Intel is still refining their 14 nm fab, slowly eeking out 10% year over year, adding more cores year over year, while shredding the definition of TDP. Even the top end clock rate might only be achieve through thermal velocity boost, a further technique for taking advantage of processor’s thermal capacitance before it reaches the top end temperature.
  • Reply 16 of 24
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    jgojcaj said:
    Wow. Amazing. Now includes a lifetime repair for a keyboard. I'm so thrilled and assured that I'll spend $4K and see Apple Genius' four times a month for the keyboard. Whew. What a relief with the 2019 MBPs.
    Give it a break.  More people have no problems with these keyboards than those that do.

    The drama queen antics get old.
    chiarandominternetpersonwilliamlondonred oakwatto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 24
    aknabiaknabi Posts: 211member
    sflocal said:
    jgojcaj said:
    Wow. Amazing. Now includes a lifetime repair for a keyboard. I'm so thrilled and assured that I'll spend $4K and see Apple Genius' four times a month for the keyboard. Whew. What a relief with the 2019 MBPs.
    Give it a break.  More people have no problems with these keyboards than those that do.

    The drama queen antics get old.
    Hmmm that statement would be true if 50.1% had no problems and 49.9% did.

    The fanboy antics get old
  • Reply 18 of 24
    MplsPMplsP Posts: 3,911member
    aknabi said:
    sflocal said:
    jgojcaj said:
    Wow. Amazing. Now includes a lifetime repair for a keyboard. I'm so thrilled and assured that I'll spend $4K and see Apple Genius' four times a month for the keyboard. Whew. What a relief with the 2019 MBPs.
    Give it a break.  More people have no problems with these keyboards than those that do.

    The drama queen antics get old.
    Hmmm that statement would be true if 50.1% had no problems and 49.9% did.

    The fanboy antics get old
    Yes - people keep saying "the vast majority of people don't have problems." This may be true, but it doesn't mean that the keyboard is not a problem. if 99% of the keyboards work fine, then the statement is true, but a 1% failure rate is completely unacceptable for a critical component like the  keyboard. If this were the intrinsic nature of keyboards, it would be one thing, but the previous keyboards and keyboards from other manufacturers don't have the same issues, so the new MacBook keyboards are below industry standards in that respect. 

    The other issue is the nature of the problem and the cost/inconvenience to fix it. If it were a non-critical part of the laptop or if one could fix it in 10 minutes with a $2 part it would be annoying but not a catastrophe. The keyboard is a critical component and the fix is $700 and takes over a week. Apple is reportedly covering the cost now but you are still left without a laptop. The flip side of this is that Apple has a big financial incentive to fix the problem - $700 a pop is a lot of money for them to swallow.
  • Reply 19 of 24
    I just ran GB4 on my 2018 i9.

    Single Core score is off as I scored 5598

    Multicore is spot on as I scored 22620

    All early indicators point to this being a nice CPU bump.

    I'm equally as curious about the keyboard refinements.


  • Reply 20 of 24
    williamlondonwilliamlondon Posts: 1,324member
    Commenters here sure are reminiscent of those who took down MacRumors years ago, glad they're procreating.
    watto_cobra
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