Apple fixes 2018 MacBook Pro thermal throttling issues with firmware update

[WYP]

I wonder how this fix will impact thermals and produce more fan noise.



Read more about Apple's firmware fix for their 2018 MacBook Pro thermal throttling issues.

 

[looz]

It's almost certainly adjusting the CPU power limit, which used to be the Intel default value, which exceeded what VRM could handle.

Reddit thread on a fix a user came up with.

With the core counts going up I suspect the thermal capacity and VRMs of a device becomes just as important a stat as the CPU it contains - since newer CPUs are designed to adapt to worse thermals. Case in point on desktop side is i7 8700, which in some OEM builds has a base clock of 2.2GHz. It can Turbo much higher, but if thermals or VRMs aren't up to snuff, well there we go.

And since Intel's chips already run hot when you "overclock" them to the max single core boost clock across all cores, I guess CPUs with 8+ cores will not be feasibly overclocked without delid solely due to thermal concerns. Low base clock with high single core boost is a disappointing direction.

 

[AlienALX]

Well at least they have, or at least were able, to do *something*. It was not acceptable, not by any means.

Thing is, if people really are using these things in place of desktops (and they are, the new mac pro thing is stupid and breaks down a lot) then they really need to be up to the task. IDK why they don't get serious, and make them a bit heavier and able to cool themselves. Serious video editors wouldn't give a crap IMO. Especially if they were getting their work done faster.

 

[Peace Ð]

It's almost certainly adjusting the CPU power limit

We're talking about decreasing overall performance here, as well, right?

 

[NeverBackDown]

We're talking about decreasing overall performance here, as well, right?

If it doesn't throttle as much under heavy load no. That's what the vague answer they gave suggest they did.

More testing needs to be done to conclude.

 

[demonking]

Well a fix only has to fix the issue at hand.
Next fix is to not put a laptop on your lap so as not to grill your testicles. Lol

Have a feeling this was a bodge job, needed a hardware fix (as it ran fine in a freezer) so the i9 was working exactly as Intel meant it to. Let's see how long it is before some of these start dying.

 

[Peace Ð]

If it doesn't throttle as much under heavy load no. That's what the vague answer they gave suggest they did.

More testing needs to be done to conclude.

Yeah, but how do you get it to not throttle as much? I, as a non-overclocker, would think you have to either decrease the voltages or set up different thermal parameters so it either throttles later (which seems impossible) or has a higher acceptable limit of throttling (which seems not so healthy for the silicon).

Decreasing the voltages should usually result in less performance. I mean, we're not talking about that magical AMD GPU that performed better under lower volts.

 

[AlienALX]

According to Apple it was an instruction in the BIOS causing it. As yet I have not seen any one actually test the laptop again.

We will see. Lowering the volts does not necessarily mean you will lose performance, it may just allow the CPU to run at the same clocks on lower voltages, thus run cooler.

Again though, we shall see when some one tests it.