kpom

Apple generally ships MacBooks with new Intel chips a few months after other manufacturers. This isn’t anything new. They are one of the largest volume shippers of computers over $1000, and Intel hasn’t been able to guarantee sufficient volumes of the processors Apple uses at the time they announce a new generation. Razer, etc. ship in much smaller volumes, and even companies like HP and Dell ship large quantities of PCs with older or lower-end processors (mostly bulk sales), so while they usually announce flagships running the new generation earlier than Apple, the actual volumes of those flagships they ship is often lower.

That said, this is one reason why Apple is likely going to switch to its own chips.

ajl said:

I think that what it's a so-called Pro computer should be the state-of-the-art in any single component it's assembled with.

It's embarrassing that this entry-level MacBook Pro has a processor that's almost two generations old, along with its slowest RAM – the two most important components on every single computer so far so good, aren't they?

Except the reality is that for CPU-intensive tasks, the 8th gen Intel chips in the Pro hold their own against the 10th gen. The base Pro is still considerably faster than the i7 Air because the Pro chips can easily ramp up to 25W and sustain 3.0GHz Turbo Boost speeds while the i7 Air can’t sustain more than 1.6GHz. At that rate, who cares if the RAM is at 3.7GHz or 2.1GHz? 

AppleInsider said:

Since the 2017 revision, the 13-inch MacBook Pro line has been a tale of two computers, and the 2020 refresh is no exception. But, there are some interesting "updates" in the new model, that puzzle us, and make us wonder why they were made.

Your Geekbench scores on the Ice Lake i5 are way too low. I get 1250/4400 for single/multi-core on my i5. Please re-run them as your posted scores make it sound like the 10th gen offer little if any improvement over the 8th gen.

Also, even the 8th gen i5 is significantly faster than the MacBook Air. Don’t be fooled by Geekbench, which primarily measures burst speeds. The 10W processors in the Air top out at 12W, so they can only Turbo Boost at around 1.5-1.6GHz for extended periods of time. Even the 8th Gen i5 can sustain about 2.9GHz, and the 10th Gen can sustain around 3.0 GHz (and processes 15-20% more instructions per cycle than the 8th gen), so both are much faster for anything CPU-intensive.

Apple has been the main user of the 28W chips for a while now. They are mostly spec-bumped versions of the more common “15W” chips (which can really go up to 25W). 

I think it is important to point out that the 8th generation chips will still significantly outperform the Air’s chips in CPU-intensive tasks since the Air uses lower power chips that max out around 12W, while the Pros will go up to 25W. That said, I agree they should have made the 15W 10th generation chips available.