Wait for Montevina or Nehalem?

Probably too early to really have a good guess at what and when the next revisions will be. I would not be surprised to see a Montevina revision by the time you start school. I can tell you this - I absolutely love this laptop so far. I haven't done anything too intense with it yet but no regrets! I think whichever you get, you're going to enjoy.

Can you get an education discount now? The savings may factor into your decision (i.e. you may want to wait until the beginning of the fall semester). By the way, what university will you be attending and what is your instrument?

I have to say that the current Macbook Pro's are great and capable machines and that they will suit your needs perfectly. That being said I too am waiting for the new Nehalm based Laptops. I love my 2.2 SR machine but i hear the Nehalm will have a 100-160% increase in speed per clock over a Peyrn. This is due to an integrated DDR memory controller that is MUCH faster then anything ever released and the bringing back of Hyperhreading, meaning a quadcore cpu is almost in essence able to handle 8 threads like an 8 core cpu. Surprisingly the memory controller is the biggest bottleneck for a CPU. So I do not doubt intel's claims. Also they are going to be releasing a quad core laptop CPU that will use less power then current duel cores. Also they are going to have native HD Blue ray decoding. Meaning that playing a HD Blue ray movie on your laptop will use almost no CPU power where as right now, most laptops can't make it through a full movie on battery. I think its worth the wait. Factor in the increasingly cheaper price of SSD drives Blue ray drives, and the new Nvidia GT200 GPU which will be according to rumours up to 2.5 x faster then the current highest end offering, and your looking at some very interesting laptop development in the next 12 months.

My God. And I thought I had a problem with always waiting...

Buy the next revision of the MBP, Montevina. There will always be something better around the corner. That's technology. You could spend your entire life waiting. Instead of that, be productive.

While most upgrades are normally not waiting for (Penryn, Montevina) as they only offer 5-30% increases over the current offerings, Nehalem truly is a revolutionary upgrade. However, going computer-less is a bit risky in college and may not be worth the hassle. You may be waiting almost all of freshman year to get that Nehalem computer and that's a pretty long time to be obsessing on these forums. So the rational part of me thinks you should get Montevina and the irrational part thinks you should wait.

I went ahead and bought a new MBP.

I couldn't wait because my old computer was DYING and I think may be dead now. Technically, I could have bought something cheaper and used it until Nahalem came out, but that's just too long to wait.

Technology is always going to change. The current MBP is amazing. Yes, the new ones will always be more amazing.

I'll be ok, though.

honestly the macbook pro 6 months ago would be all you need so there is no need to wait. there is always going to be something new, thats apples thing. Just get it and be happy. I am!

where are you getting that 100-160% number. I have heard 30-40%. And hyperthreading is silly...... Most programs are barely optimized for two cores (and in many cases not optimized at all for 2 cores) let alone 8.... hyperthread brought barely any performance increase the last time it was used.....


Montiniva will bring 10-15% increase (mabey). It will still be using Penryn processors so the increase is mainly from ddr3 and fsb @ 1033. Buy your computer when you need it, not based off off the next new thing.

(that being said Nehlam is prob worth waiting for if you dont need a computer.......)

BlueScreenX said:

where are you getting that 100-160% number. I have heard 30-40%. And hyperthreading is silly...... Most programs are barely optimized for two cores (and in many cases not optimized at all for 2 cores) let alone 8.... hyperthread brought barely any performance increase the last time it was used.....


Montiniva will bring 10-15% increase (mabey). It will still be using Penryn processors so the increase is mainly from ddr3 and fsb @ 1033. Buy your computer when you need it, not based off off the next new thing.

(that being said Nehlam is prob worth waiting for if you dont need a computer.......)

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I got it from this very website + anandtech, check archives. As well hyperthreading isnt silly if you were doing encoding and all programs written now a days are written to take advantage of all the cores of a cpu. Hyperthreading did bring a significant performance once programs were optimized to take advantage of the extra threads, which many programs/games are now made to do, albeit not perfect applications are developing. I don't see an issue with not having it. If it wasn't useful then why would intel add it. By that logic SSE4 is useless and so was SSE3 and SSE2 when it was introduced, but they are considered one of the largest performance benifactors of a processor.

I'm in kinda the same situation as you. Although instead of starting at college in september i'm going back to my third year.

My current laptop is a PC. I actually did the unthinkable and went from a Macbook (gave it to my girlfriend) and bought myself a PC. The worst decision of my life, and i can't wait to get back to OSX.

Anyway, i've decided to use the PC untill this year of school ends in just a few months, and buy a MBP before school starts again in september.

As you have guessed, i've decided to go with the Montevina.
Capella/Nehalem will be great i know, but the current Q2 ETA is not at all a guaranteed time of arival.
Montevina could even be dalayed, and the Capella and Nehalem is so far out in the future that there really is no way of telling.
I think we'll see this happening, but bear in mind that this is just my own thougths and that i don't know anymore than anyone else:

Montevina/Penryn 1st revision: August 2008
Montevina/Penryn 2nd revision: March 2009
Capella/Nehalem 1st revision: September 2009
Capella/Westmere 1st revision: April 2010.

Also, if the new CPU indeed is so revolutionary as people are saying, there is a good chance that it will need some time to "settle in".
If we indeed will see mobile CPUs handlinge up to 4 or even 8 cores by the time Nehalem get here, it will take som time to adjust software, and other hardware to fully be able to use the power of the new technology.

The 2nd Capella revision will be the time to buy it for me. And by that time my Montevina MBP will be nearly 2 year old, and in need for an update anyway. (The last couple of years i've replaced my laptop once a year, but i hope (and belive) that the Montevina MBP will last me two)

Thats my thoughts.

BlueScreenX said:

where are you getting that 100-160% number. I have heard 30-40%. And hyperthreading is silly...... Most programs are barely optimized for two cores (and in many cases not optimized at all for 2 cores) let alone 8.... hyperthread brought barely any performance increase the last time it was used.....


Montiniva will bring 10-15% increase (mabey). It will still be using Penryn processors so the increase is mainly from ddr3 and fsb @ 1033. Buy your computer when you need it, not based off off the next new thing.

(that being said Nehlam is prob worth waiting for if you dont need a computer.......)

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This is the number from sites that have tested the prototypes of the chip and is listed in many places over the web. It is this fast because there is a whole motherboard redesign with the CPU and RAM being directly connected AS WELL AS a new chip microarchitecture. That's why Nehalem is a very significant upgrade.

mgacam2 said:

I have to say that the current Macbook Pro's are great and capable machines and that they will suit your needs perfectly. That being said I too am waiting for the new Nehalm based Laptops. ....... and your looking at some very interesting laptop development in the next 12 months.

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When will those quad core Macbook Pros be released ?

CmdrLaForge said:

When will those quad core Macbook Pros be released ?

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june08

CmdrLaForge said:

When will those quad core Macbook Pros be released ?

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Not for a very long time a year or two maybe they are just too hot.