Ableton Forum

People are so focused on CPU and RAM.
But I stress here the other factors. To slim MBP will heat quickly, some newest Haswells CPU are underperforming. MacOS is now more, pardon me, bloatware with hundreds of connected constant running services. Their constant "upgrade" is not "update". The Finder on my El Capitan is full of bugs, as an example. And they never fix it.
You cannot even change the battery on your Mac anymore.

So CPU is not what I should look at first when buying a new comp.

yeah, you've made your position pretty clear.

underneath, Windows is a horrible mess of backwards compatibility hacks, and i personally very much dislike Windows as an operating system. there are plenty of things to complain about with Windows 10 too.

you might need to accept that some other people are also making informed choices when choosing Apple gear. i know lots of well-informed people that have used Apple gear for professional production for many years—this doesn't mean they are happy with everything that Apple does, far from it.

Artcutech wrote:
here's the specs on the one i got and price

i just ordered one and wondering does it has throttling like video editing people or any other problems?
thx!

jamief wrote:

15-inch MacBook Pro - Space Grey

Hardware:
2.9GHz 6-core 8th-generation Intel Core i9 processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz
Radeon Pro 560X with 4GB of GDDR5 memory
32GB 2400MHz DDR4 memory
2TB SSD storage
Retina display with True Tone
Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
Touch Bar and Touch ID
Backlit Keyboard - British
Accessory Kit
Software:
macOS
Photos, iMovie, GarageBand
Pages, Numbers, Keynote
Logic Pro X

so does it has issues with Ableton (thermal throttle so hard or any other issues) with many external instruments & audio interface plugged in?
i just ordered one with student discount and it might not be returnable
please reply asap
thanks!

Just saw this on Macrumours Apple Says Latest macOS Supplemental Update Addresses Audio and Kernel Panic Issues on 2018 MacBook Pro which seems relevant here. It was posted yesterday.

fishmonkey wrote:early reports coming out are that the MBP chassis can't cope with the heat pumped out by the i9 hexacore chip, and it thermal throttles badly under sustained load...

Artcutech wrote:

fishmonkey wrote:early reports coming out are that the MBP chassis can't cope with the heat pumped out by the i9 hexacore chip, and it thermal throttles badly under sustained load...

i knew right away when loading a pre bounce maxed out midi arrangement and the fan came on almost instantly that it wasn't for me.

How do you think an iMac pro 8- core Intel Xeon W processor with 64 gb of ram holds up under heavy sustained loads fish? do you think 10 core one would make that much of a difference? and have you heard anything about how these hold up?

Did you get this machine and test it for throttling? I got the i9macbook pro and returned it as even after both updates it was under performing. Thinking of the base spec imac pro

As Iw rote somehwere else I got my first Mac in 1998 (tower)... I got my first PB G4 Ti in 2002, since then I had 4 MBP + G5 etc..
Last year I switched to PC... I am not going into details but honestly, Macs are not really for pros anymore. It is just like this.
just to mention numbers, I just run a pèroject without any hickups at 256 samples buffer 53 tracks with EQ+Compressors, and 12 reverbs... on a PC.

It is not only RAM CPU, etc. it is HEAT the problem. and build qualities. I have a MBP from 2009 which was a fantastic machine, it lasted 9 years (and still works). My first g4 ti PB still works from 2002! I have 2 collegues with 1 year old MBP, already went back a couple of times each...

Not to mention how slow OSX has become.

You were warned.

Avoid Apple laptops, if possible.

I have recently bought a $600 Lenovo desktop PC, and it works equally as good as Pro MacBook, and even better: no heat and lagging. It just works without any effort.

8E wrote:You were warned.

Avoid Apple laptops, if possible.

I have recently bought a $600 Lenovo desktop PC, and it works equally as good as Pro MacBook, and even better: no heat and lagging. It just works without any effort.

If you're talking about the cheapest Macbook Pro, maybe, but I doubt it.
This Chicken Little "The sky is falling!" routine has pretty much been an internet forum staple since the first forum was started that allowed Mac V PC debates to happen.

Is anyone really surprised that the first laptops Apple puts out with i9 chips in a maximum core configuration get really hot and throttle down? That's a workstation level set up, and almost anyone buying an equivalent PC laptop would get a stand with fans in it, even if the laptop itself had huge fans. This is the only rude thing I'll say about Apple users, the people buying these top of the line machines aren't the same sort of computer geeks that buy top of the line PC laptops. They don't think, "jeez? that's a brand new brutally fast multicore chip on the bleeding edge, I better take precautions." They expect the first generation to work, first generation of nearly anything tech is a risk. I'd be willing to bet on a stand with cooling fans the i9 doesn't throttle down. In general when a new chip comes out that's not been tested in the field it's best to wait, or at least be aware of what you're doing, whether it's a Mac or PC.

I'm not that invested in it, I have a 2012 Macbook Pro and a 2009 Mac Pro, neither are at the end of their life, can probably squeeze a few more years out of both with no issues.

Oh, and Live sucks CPU wise, it just does. It's only eclipsed by Bitwig Studio for CPU use. Neither hold a candle to Cubase, Logic, or Digital Performer, and none of those come close to Reaper. I can literally run at least twice as many tracks in Reaper as in Live. When it comes to bang for your buck you're using the wrong DAW to be bragging about anything really, Live is the DAW equivalent of a Macbook Air or Netbook. Oh and to further the comparison to Apple, it's near the most expensive, only dedicated post production style DAWs like Nuendo and Sequoia beat it in price.

I find it amusingly hypocritical of people to dog on Apple for being overpriced with a purposefully simplistic user friendly interface, and a long development cycle that means the competition is mostly ahead of them, when that's an almost verbatim description of Ableton Live.

...i'm absolutely happy with my mbp 2016, but if i had to buy a new computer now i'd go for the 6 core i7 mac mini...

i've had a 2018 MacBook Pro 2.6 GHz hexacore i7 for a few months now. so far i'm very happy with it. it smokes my previous top-spec Mid-2014 MBP. i even like the TouchBar, which i wasn't expecting. not a fan of the butterfly keyboard mechanism though.

For those of you who chose the 2.2GHz 6-core.....how is it working out??