Logic Pro Help

Am I losing it or are the specs on these things just bonkers? The top-spec 13" Macbook Pro has single-core performance to match the iMac Pro. Of course, it's a $2500 13" laptop, but considering I paid almost $2k for my current iMac 7 years ago (!!!), it doesn't seem like such a terrible deal. I've been holding off on an upgrade for a while now (I can brew a pot of coffee in the time it takes to reboot or open a project, for one), but the lineup didn't seem like that big of an improvement, until now.

Anybody producing on a Macbook Pro (of any generation, screen size)? I mostly stay in one place, but there have been times where it would have been great to have taken it with me. Worth the big pile of cash?

If your gripe is about the lenghty boot time, opting for an SSD drive is an obvious route...

Can you even get one without an SSD anymore? Problem is I have a 21.5" iMac right now, and adding an SSD is much harder than on the 27" of the same vintage.

i've always worked on macbook pros (currently, a 2015 i7 13"), and am pretty happy (i also do FCPX on this mac). so, the newer machines should kill compared to my mac; get an i7 absolutely, and 16gb ram. i have 512g ssd, but even a 256 would work (if you're will to store a lot on an external).

my point is... the processor & ram will matter. and all macbooks now only have ssds...

Been waiting for this new arrival, but has anyone tested the new 2018 MacBook Pro with Logic? Although the spec sounds great on paper, I have read of problems already, concerning thermal issues which are 'throttling' CPU performance. https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobil ... al-issues/

yeah, im probably skipping this gen.
had preorder on i9 and cancelled it for now...

fisherking wrote:

i've always worked on macbook pros (currently, a 2015 i7 13"), and am pretty happy (i also do FCPX on this mac). so, the newer machines should kill compared to my mac; get an i7 absolutely, and 16gb ram. i have 512g ssd, but even a 256 would work (if you're will to store a lot on an external).

my point is... the processor & ram will matter. and all macbooks now only have ssds...

yeah they should. but they don't because they overheat.

Ploki wrote:

fisherking wrote:

i've always worked on macbook pros (currently, a 2015 i7 13"), and am pretty happy (i also do FCPX on this mac). so, the newer machines should kill compared to my mac; get an i7 absolutely, and 16gb ram. i have 512g ssd, but even a 256 would work (if you're will to store a lot on an external).

my point is... the processor & ram will matter. and all macbooks now only have ssds...

yeah they should. but they don't because they overheat.

i would too, wait for the next generation, if i were going for the i9; otherwise, a 2018 macbook pro is still a powerful machine...

fisherking wrote:

Ploki wrote:

yeah they should. but they don't because they overheat.

i would too, wait for the next generation, if i were going for the i9; otherwise, a 2018 macbook pro is still a powerful machine...

it is, but so far only 2.2 performs as it should. both 2.6 and 2.9 need undervolting/TDP limit to get better performance.
and compared to similar design factor (thin) windows machines, they underperform.

the bigger issue with i9 seems to be VRMs overheating, which is even worse.

it's pretty clear these machines were designed with 10nm process in mind in my opinion.

Ploki wrote:

fisherking wrote:

i would too, wait for the next generation, if i were going for the i9; otherwise, a 2018 macbook pro is still a powerful machine...

it is, but so far only 2.2 performs as it should. both 2.6 and 2.9 need undervolting/TDP limit to get better performance.
and compared to similar design factor (thin) windows machines, they underperform.

the bigger issue with i9 seems to be VRMs overheating, which is even worse.

it's pretty clear these machines were designed with 10nm process in mind in my opinion.

not arguing that at all...

fisherking wrote:

Ploki wrote:

it is, but so far only 2.2 performs as it should. both 2.6 and 2.9 need undervolting/TDP limit to get better performance.
and compared to similar design factor (thin) windows machines, they underperform.

the bigger issue with i9 seems to be VRMs overheating, which is even worse.

it's pretty clear these machines were designed with 10nm process in mind in my opinion.

not arguing that at all...

apparently a fix was released that sorts it out?

Yeah, supposedly the fix improves performance significantly on the i9. I wonder about the 6-core i7, though, since performance is similar-enough without sending the price totally into the stratosphere (it's a 5ish% spec-bump with a 10-15% price bump).

I'd like to consider the top-spec 13-inch, for portability, but once you upgrade to 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD, you're within $100 of the bottom-spec 15-inch. The single-core performance is a wash (the 13-inch Geekbench score is only 4% higher), but the extra pair of cores in the 15-inch gets you 20% better multi-core benchmarks. Logic likes strong single-core performance, but I would think the extra 4 virtual cores would make a difference in larger projects.

uncleozzy wrote:

Yeah, supposedly the fix improves performance significantly on the i9. I wonder about the 6-core i7, though, since performance is similar-enough without sending the price totally into the stratosphere (it's a 5ish% spec-bump with a 10-15% price bump).

I'd like to consider the top-spec 13-inch, for portability, but once you upgrade to 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD, you're within $100 of the bottom-spec 15-inch. The single-core performance is a wash (the 13-inch Geekbench score is only 4% higher), but the extra pair of cores in the 15-inch gets you 20% better multi-core benchmarks. Logic likes strong single-core performance, but I would think the extra 4 virtual cores would make a difference in larger projects.

i9 also has better single core performance tho. The performance bump since fix seems larger tho, i saw geekbench results for i9 in 25k for multicore and 5,6k for single.
Top i7 2.6GHz is ~5300/23700 and top i9 5900/25500. Which is more of in the 10% vicinity than 5% (same as the price)

lately when i run out of CPU in logic, all threads are pretty much used.