This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Apple MacBook

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo with KGI Securities is predicting that Apple will refresh the MacBook Pro this year, with both Kaby Lake processors and a substantial RAM upgrade. Apple's decision to stick with 16GB of RAM and Intel's older Skylake processors were both criticized when the MacBook Pro refresh launched in late 2022, though Apple later antiseptic that it had continued to use 16GB of RAM considering that was the highest-chapters available when using LPDDR3.

If Ming-Chi Kuo is correct, information technology must therefore follow that Kaby Lake (or at to the lowest degree, certain Kaby Lake SKUs) are compatible with LPDDR4, even though no such compatibility is currently listed on Intel spec sheets or public-facing documentation. Now, all Kaby Lake chips are listed equally supporting some combination of DDR4, LPDDR3, and DDR3L, with no mention of LPDDR4. If you aren't familiar with the difference between the three segments, the post-obit chart from Synopsys lays out the DDR3 specification differences — the values volition be unlike for DDR4, only the basic idea is the same. DDR4 draws the almost ability, DDR4L is a ability-optimized variant of DDR4, and LPDDR4 is its own unique animal with dramatically reduced standby power consumption.

DDR3-DDR3L-LPDDR3-Comparison

Cnet start reported this story, but we disagree with ane aspect of its coverage. It reports that upgrading to Kaby Lake and adding more RAM "could potentially address one criticism some had of the new MacBook Pros: their non-much-improved battery life." In reality, Apple volition be hard-pressed to maintain equivalent battery life, much less improve information technology. Information technology's truthful that moving to new process nodes tends to better ability consumption, and adopting LPDDR4 over LPDDR3 should also give Apple tree a boost — but that boost will exist undercut by doubling the corporeality of RAM in the system.

Equally the graph below shows, it took multiple production generations and roughly four years to shift from 40nm DDR3 to 20nm DDR4. LPDDR4 is expected to consume roughly 62% as much power as LPDDR3, which means 32GB of LPDDR4 will depict more ability than 16GB of LPDDR3, unless Apple cuts clock speeds or uses particularly binned LPDDR4 RAM for minimal ability consumption. DRAM, however, remains powered upward when the system is online — which means having 32GB of it will toll Apple tree some theoretical battery time compared to 16GB.

DDR4-Improvement1

Predicting Kaby Lake'southward battery touch is fifty-fifty more hard, because so much depends on other aspects of the organisation. In an age when software improvements and hardware-decode assist for diverse GPU tasks take an enormous impact on organisation longevity, and when high-resolution screens oftentimes draw more than power than the CPU in virtually configurations, we can't predict whether Kaby Lake will be a footstep forward for Apple. We could also see the debut of a new battery chemistry or blueprint — Apple was supposedly working on this characteristic for the electric current crop of MacBook Pros, but was forced to drop it at the last infinitesimal when some aspects of the engineering couldn't pass design review.

The long and curt of information technology is this: An Apple tree MacBook Pro built in 2022 with the same 16GB of RAM (only using LPDDR4) and a Kaby Lake processor compared with the aforementioned Skylake arrangement from 2022 should use less power and have correspondingly amend battery life, assuming two batteries of equal size. Double the RAM, and you'll reduce or eliminate the improvement. Introduce new, more ability-efficient display applied science, or a new bombardment chemistry, and you may well wind upwards with a net improvement again. Presumably both systems will employ Intel's Tall Ridge Thunderbolt chips, since in that location's no new Thunderbolt 4 controller scheduled for this year.

All of this is predicated on the idea that Kaby Lake will back up LPDDR4, even though such support hasn't been formally confirmed still. Our queries to Intel on this topic didn't results in whatever information suggesting Kaby Lake is LPDDR4-capable. If it turns out that KBL tin't support LPDDR4, either Apple won't expand available RAM on the Mac Pro or it'll use conventional DDR4 to become in that location. This seems unlikely with LPDDR4 already in production for mainstream systems, merely it would farther reduce the chances of Apple turning this into a net battery life win without substantial use of other power-conserving technology to make up the difference. Alternatively, Apple could pay Intel for a custom chip — it's done so before, after all.