prismatics

The retarded marketing department at Intel decided to make this chip useless by capping memory options at 32 GB. Please Apple fix that by going big on your own processor designs, even if it takes time to get things right like SMT.

appneck said:

Really!? Wow. Big news. I thought they removed the speakers :{

They didn't have enough courage to remove them ^^ /s

Dear AppleInsider staff,

thanks for clarifying things on this matter.

I have read some article on MobileGeeks (german page), and they totally don't get the point that Kaby Lake doesn't offer enough PCIe capabilities and CPU cores (up to 2). And beyond that, they didn't even think about the implications of the new CPU-GPU combo that consumes less energy (less battery volume and more battery lifetime at the same time), even their use of Argumentum Ad Populum shows that's it rather a "troll blog".

I think other media will try everything to support their (not) self-fulfilling prophecies.

The comment section shows that the author of the article has not made the cause for the issue clear enough.

Processors today use PCIe to connect everything from Storage controllers, high speed I/O like USB, Thunderbolt and other stuff including SD-Card readers and Graphic Cards (or discrete GPU in case of macbook). And on each processor model there is only a specific number of these lanes available. This means that since Apple has to rely on Intel on this issue, they can't simply change this behavior by putting in a second controller, it's simply not possible because there is no dual core i7 Chip with enough lanes. Thats why Apple has chosen to use the PCH-supplied PCIe-Lanes.

PCH is an additional chip (which is integrated directly in the processor package on some models) which connects to the processor via a seperate high speed bus and it gives you many things included USB, keyboard support, audio and storage interface and additional (about half speed) PCIe-Lanes in one single chip. What I think is the case is that Apple is using these lanes because the processor itself does not supply enough PCIe-lanes.

So obviously, there is nothing to be added from a non-technical viewpoint, because it's not about power consumption or other marketing decisions, it's simply because Intel does not make the chips Apple needs for four Thunderbolt 3 full speed capable ports.