I think the main benefit will be USB 3.0. There are already hundreds of USB 3.0 peripherals including portable hard drives, USB keychains, etc. Since USB 3.0 is backwards compatible to USB 2.0 this is a pretty substantial upgrade and should be not change to the form factor of the ports. To me that is the big benefit of the Ivy Bridge chip. I really hope Apple doesn't drag it's feet on adding USB 3.0. Hopefully they will add it when the chip is put into the new Apple products.