Apple today is rolling out a new update for its brand new MacBook Pros that were released earlier this month. This update brings a fix for performance related issues and thermal management system under certain conditions. The bug especially drives the clock speeds of the MacBook Pro’s lower than necessary under heavy workloads.
The update comes after several reports about the performance issues related to CPU throttling. The 6-core Core i9 in the new high-end MacBook Pro seems to be quite aggressive but the bug discovered by Apple is not app specific and affects only intense workloads. Though reports point to the issues only in the high-end core i9 machines, it seems to be affecting all the new MacBook Pro models.
It appears that Apple must have missed the bug as the internal benchmark testing wasn’t affected by the bug. So, post the new supplemental update, Apple’s original claims of the new 15-inch MacBook Pro being up to 70% faster will still remain the same. Apple said to have internally ran tests using Premiere Pro with similar workloads and the update indeed appears to fix the problem.
Apple in a statement said:
Following extensive performance testing under numerous workloads, we’ve identified that there is a missing digital key in the firmware that impacts the thermal management system and could drive clock speeds down under heavy thermal loads on the new MacBook Pro. A bug fix is included in today’s macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Supplemental Update and is recommended. We apologize to any customer who has experienced less than optimal performance on their new systems.