Apple releases fix for Throttling on New MacBook Pro

Apple's latest 13-15 inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar comes with handful features and oft-requested spec bumps but unfortunately it came also with some massive thermal throttling. Earlier today the company announced releasing a fix that included in a today’s macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Supplemental Update, according to the company.

That led to plenty of coverage regarding the issue, which saw the max-specced MacBook Pro running into performance issues that made the Core i9 option seem like a less worthwhile option than the Core i7 variant, which also costs less. However, it turns out that Apple may have a fix in mind. The company will be releasing an update for the mid-2018 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar today, which the company says will address the thermal throttling issue:

“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.”

Apple’s statement appears to confirm that the bug, or the missing digital key in the firmware, isn’t just located in the Core i9 variant of the 2018 MacBook Pro, but the other variants as well. Up to this point, heavy workloads have been throttled by the hardware to prevent overheating, which severely impacted performance. Comparisons showed that the fully-loaded Core i9 variant could actually be outperformed by the other models, including the Core i7, because the thermal throttling did not come into effect as aggressively.

You can download the bug fix here or through the Software Update mechanism on your Mac.