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Comment by ef4 | Hacker News Reader

If you've got the previous generation of macbook pro and are wondering whether you should upgrade, here's an alternate suggestion:

I took my 2014 retina macbook pro to the Apple Store and got a "topcase replacement" (because my keyboard was beat up with overuse and starting to get flaky). That had the side benefit of giving me a completely new external case, so it looks brand new again. And it includes a brand new battery. And I got a new display for free, because there's a recall on that generation of retina displays for delamination issues.

It feels like I just bought a new laptop at one fifth the price. And the specs on it are still competitive with the 2016 models: 16GB ram, 3ghz core i7. Only the very highest 2016 configuration even beats it, and that by only a little.

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> 3ghz core i7

I hope Apple hasn't succeeded in reducing processor comparisons to these two useless tidbits of information...

Based on just "3GHz core i7", a chip could either be painfully out of date or current top of the line.

> Based on just "3GHz core i7", a chip could either be painfully out of date or current top of the line.

This has always bothered me too. I suspect that the ambiguity is intentional on the part of Intel and/or Apple marketing (though I'm not savvy enough to know why exactly).

Linus mentions it in one of his videos. The idea is that Intel doesn't want you worried about the generation, only whether it's i3/i5/i7. I guess this helps them mask over the fact that, year on year, CPUs aren't really getting any faster in single-threaded performance.

How does that makes sense? Isn't it beneficial to Intel that you WANT the latest gen regardless of how little it progressed from the previous gen?

Laptops are much more expensive than CPUs. I'm not likely to buy a whole new laptop just because Intel introduced a new generation.

However, if my laptop is old and slow, and I'm already in the market for a new computer, I can easily be convinced to buy the computer with the "bigger numbers". Buying i7 instead of i5 only a small part of the full price, so why not?

Yes, and they way they do that is by obscuring the performance and hoping you'll assume processor speed is still advancing as quickly as it did in the 90s and early 2000s.

Why is single threaded performance important?

When I think about my daily work - it is very multi-threaded:

* parallel builds

* video running in chrome

* a zillion tabs open

What I really care about is battery life.

Because the UI is single threaded, I think. i.e. the actual drawing of a button press or menu call up.

Because a lot of things still aren't or can't be multi threaded, most notably game engines.

I think I'd argue that game engines are implementing and running multi-threaded engines a heck of a lot these days - to the extent that if a game _is_ heavily using a single core, you'll see complaints.

I would be exceptionally surprised to see any of the higher-budget games running on a single thread. Low-budget indie games less so.

Personally, I've found that a good benchmark for "what is happening in most games" is the lowest common denominator - consoles.

Having said this, you might be arguing that it's hard to split everything out equally in a game - but it's far more likely that threads are created for the stuff that can be - physics calculations, sound, etc. (the stuff that might have, in the past, be split out to dedicated hardware)

The latter, from what I understand most engines are multi threaded only in the sense that multiple threads are running stuff, one thread for sound, one thread for simulation etc, and that the graphics processing (still the bottleneck in most games) is still mostly single threaded, at least until it get's to the GPU.

> CPUs aren't really getting any faster in single-threaded performance.

They are, though slowly. The skylakes are a bit faster than the broadwells are a bit faster than the haswells, etc.

Yeah there's a massive difference between the Haswell i7 (2015) in my workstation at home and the Sandy Bridge i7 (2011) in my workstation at the office.

The old CPU's sharing a name with the new CPU's makes them sound like they're still up-to-date. Which I guess is great for making you feel better about your old device? This seems potentially detrimental to sales though, so I still don't understand the impetus for marketing them like that.

By the same logic, you could complain that VW sells people new Golfs that have nothing to do with the original VW Golf from 1974.

It's an entirely usual thing to maintain marketing names between generations because the marketing name is rather a description of the target audience than of the concrete feature set or technical specs.

Yeah, I still have a Nehalem at work and it's nuts how much slower it is than my Haswell at home (which is getting a little old itself).

Linus Torvalds?

There's some YouTube tech review guy whose name is Linus.

Probably Linus Tech Tips, the YouTuber

Linus Sebastian

No, Linus van Pelt.

Sibling poster stefantalpalaru you appear to be hell banned

No, it's a famous youtuber specializing in hardware news/reviews: https://www.youtube.com/user/LinusTechTips

I wish they'd just start using i73970 or i57600k or whatever, thats what most hardcore users look at anyway

Slight sidetrack: there's no TDP there either.

We know that i7 in this case refers to the laptop class processor because of the article. If taken out of context, then this information is even more useless.

Even at the same generation, a laptop class i7 is roughly on par with a desktop class i3.

For anything above Haswell the only things that matter are core count, frequency and whether it has hyperthreading. There haven't been any notable improvements to per-core perf since Haswell.

I also have the same impression. Looking at various Passmark CPU benchmarks Hardwell has been the last big upgrade (but also only when considering battery usage). Since Haswell I have seen any major must have big improvement. It would be great if Intel will develop a true 4 core i7 processor with TDP like 18-28W... I also have the feeling Intel is getting lazy (since the have the monopoly on mobile desktop CPUs). Especially when comparing speed of innovation to ARM mobile phone processors.

Really? I was under the impression that even across the generations there still isn't much of a speed up.

There's very significant variance in # of cores, cache size, and TDP. The specific GHz number no longer matters as much as all of them combined.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/core-...

All 13" rMBP are dual core, all 15" rMBP are quad core.

Microarchitecture governs single-thread performance as well. For most users I suspect single-thread performance (oversimplified as: IPC + GHz?) and cache size will be the largest distinguishing performance features. Developers may care about larger core counts for large builds.

I took my MacBook Pro in for a battery replacement and got the same thing. They replaced the keyboard, logic board, and battery all for $300. I was told though that my computer was manufactured in a narrow window of time where the battery and logic board and top plate were all fused together in some way that they had to be replaced together. In other words, depending on when your computer was made your mileage may vary.

I paid for battery replacement on my 2012 MBPr (the first generation) and got the top case replaced free because "they changed the design of the battery and it wouldn't fit in the old top case"

edit: mandatory bitching about people who put Apple on a pedestal - AppleCare only covers the battery up to 1000 cycles. Mine was at 1080 cycles. Time to open the wallet.

Ehh, that's still better than what used to happen when they had removable batteries. Back then it was 300 charge cycles and I constantly had batteries that would give service errors well below that, but because they were over a year old they were out of warranty. I'm glad to hear the 1000 cycle internal batteries are doing much, much better.

So, they replaced recalled components and a battery and charged you $300?

Am I missing something, or did you pay $300 for a battery replacement you may or may not have needed and recall rework you should have received (one would think) for free?

I'm in pretty big 'luck' as well: my screen is starting to show the delamination issue ('staingate') as well. Coupled with that I'm also having excessive coil whine under load (even hearable when I'm chilling in bed downloading a torrent). What I'm wondering is: this is an 'early 2015' model. Its early 2017 now. Do they still have the 2015 model screens and logic boards in stock or will they just give me a free 2016 model?

One great thing is I have Applecare on this one so I won't have to pay a penny for sure..

They may do either, depending on the state of your system. If the system's had a lot of warranty repairs and is still regularly breaking, or it would be very expensive to fix, they'll just replace it. That judgment call'll be made when you go into the store and get it assessed. The more things you complain about, the more likely you are to get the '16 or a refurb '15 new.

This one's already a '15 refurb. We'll see. Shittiest thing is that I don't have an Apple store in my university town or hometown, only APRs, and I can't miss my Macbook for too long (I do AI, so yeah..), so if they want to send it out for repairs for a long time, I'm fucked.

On another note: what I actually meant with my comment is that I'm kind of amazed Apple still has parts for a 2yr (and presumably 3yr according to OP) old laptop, since they usually push their old stock out pretty aggressively. They either must have giant warehouses full or still have the factories churning out old parts??

> I'm kind of amazed Apple still has parts for a 2yr (and presumably 3yr according to OP) old laptop

Much of this is legally required (and as well, they can get a higher price for new devices when the older ones hold their value). If you check the Apple web site you'll see that how far back they will fix your device varies by jurisdiction (country and even state): https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

They definitely have such parts. Have had my MBP repaired 2-3+ years in multiple times. Remember apple care is 3 years so that would be a minimum.

I assume largely they stock pile them in advance, be interesting to find out for sure how that works.

I just had the screen on my 2013 fall mbp replaced, via insurance because I dropped it. Didn't realise that they admitted the delamination issue, my MBP was ugly as sin (and convinced a number of friends to buy Dells).

Apple replaced the screen (for delamination issue), logic board (to fix random shutdown issue), and battery (due to its charge renention below a certain threshold) for my late 2013 13inch Macbook Pro, few months back.

Wow I have this problem and didn't realize it was so widespread. I assumed it was my fault!!! Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. Just signed up for an appointment.

How do you request a top case replacement? How much does it cost and how long do they take to do it?

I'm not entirely sure if you can just request a top case replacement, but I just had my battery replaced and the top case replacement was included in it. It took them around 10 days to complete considering it was after Christmas.

I paid €378 last month. It was done in an hour. It was an 2013 MBA. They replaced the battery for free. Don't have Applecare.

I think they are about £200

How do I find out if my rMBP (mid 2014) is covered? I'm having trouble finding info on this recall.

Edit: I think this is it. https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

That's the 'DGPUgate' where the 650M would crash or desolder or something. We (also '14 rMBP) can have the protective coating on the screen flake off which looks pretty bad, but mine hasn't yet.

One of the bottom rubber feet has come off on my 2015 Retina MacBook Pro and as far as my research showed, they fix this by replacing the full bottom cover. Has anyone had this done to their MBP?

Yes, it was pretty nice, they covered it even though it was likely my fault and I didn't have coverage for that, only took them an hour or so on a busy day, but they had to order in the part which took a few days, if I recall. A side effect is that I don't have my serial number printed on the case anymore, a tech wrote it on the inside of the case for future techs to find.

You could DIY -- https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-and-MacBook-Pro-Uni...

Amazon has third parties that sell feet with sticky stuff on it that can work ok. I contacted Apple support and they charged me less than $20 for a kit that included glue and new feet (I couldn't find that kit anywhere for sale publically).

I did the same thing and it was truly like having a new laptop. The following week I dropped my freshly refurbished MBP. So, now I have a new 2016 MBP. :/

I have a 2012 model and did exactly the same thing, but also replaced my internal ssd drive with a 512gb capacity from OWC. The screen and casing were all replaced under the delaminating recall so it only cost me a few hundred dollars for a new battery.

hard to find information about this, so would also like to know.

When did you take your machine in? The recall expired in October 2016? (sadly I just learned of it, even though my late 2013 model had those issues)

I've had two of those on AppleCare due to trackpads sticking slightly. I'm sure they could be made to stick somehow.

Hadn't heard of the recall. I don't have a problem with mine[0], but that worries me.

[0] Mid-2014 rMBP 13"

It'a not a big issue at all. I have moderate delamination issues in the top right of my screen (just on the black bezel) but it's not affecting my ability to use the computer so I've left it as is.

Was this with Applecare? How much did you pay for the topcase replacement?

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