Will "thin" macbook pro 2012 compromising performance?

Not too sure, I'd hate to spend $2k+ and a redesign or a thinner MBP comes out after having spent that much money.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see, but it could be anyone's guess ;D

it's a MBP for a reason... there's no way they will go backwards in performance on the pro line.

Well, something has got to go if they make it thinner.

I wanna see the price of this thing. If the base 15 MBP is 1800 they're not going make a thinner one cost any less. (based on the 13" Pro and Air price difference)

Take out the optical drive and put in an ssd that is the same size/profile as the mba and it will be ALOT thinner.

DeeEss said:

Take out the optical drive and put in an ssd that is the same size/profile as the mba and it will be ALOT thinner.

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But the Air's SSDs suck. They don't come in a large enough capacity and are not priced as well as SATA 3 regular sized SSDs.
I really hope they don't make it thinner. It won't be as good.

personally, id buy now. im going to buy now as well. never trust a 1st gen redesign. apple has proven they dont care about cooling and they are just going to push thinner and thinner just to please the general public.

im getting the late 2011 model because i still want an optical drive as well. then later on you can always slap an ssd in the optical drive if you no longer use discs. but for now...

Now is a great time to buy. Apple's history with first batch products isn't too great, and there are many potential issues performance wise.

It'd be hard to have a GPU like the 6770m inside of a much thinner machine without heat becoming a concern, i'd imagine, and Apple seems fairly willing to cut back on the GPU side of things.

The machines that were just refreshed are fantastic. You also have the option of an SSD + HDD right now using an optibay, something that may or may not be an option on a thinner machine.

I know what you mean here.

The redesign isn't guaranteed though.

Guys guys...... look at the line currently and use your brains. The rumor that it would be a macbook pro rather than a 15" air is just stupid speculation based on nothing, and I will explain why it's unlikely to end up that way.

Right now we still have a 13" pro and a 13" air. The pro might go away at some point, but it's unlikely that they'd fully transition the 15" first. Ivy Bridge is supposed to drop tdp by a bit, but not enough to use similar processors in an air like enclosure. If they went for the wedge again, you'd be losing a lot of ports. I think we'll see a slightly different case design for a slimmed down macbook pro in the end, and I don't expect to see an extreme transformation of the macbook pro until intel has their current 45W cpus down to around 17W (like the current Air), and they offer integrated gpus that aren't quite so lacking in performance.

The necessary factors won't really be there for a lossless transition next year. If Intel is able to hit their targets for Haswell, we might see something truly Air-like in the pro by 2013. Even if they do this I hope they don't go with the wedge again. Keeping it a bit more of a flat, port friendly design with a 512GB SSD baseline could make for a very nice machine. Also they won't leave the 17" as the only non air as the 15" is so much more popular these days.

I tend to agree we wont see a massive shift for the MacBook Pro in 2012 as the technology is not there; SSD will be more dominant, the ODD may be omitted etc. Until Intel can significantly reduce the TDP of the processor and an equal reduction for the GPU it will prove extremely difficult to make performance gains and not force the system to massively throttle, the laws of thermal dynamics dont care too much for the "Reality Distortion Field" theory

We will all see in time a 15" notebook with MacBook Air dimensions, will be an Air, it may well offer enhanced performance over the 11' & 13" all the same it will be an Air or a "Throttle Monster" in general Apple have got smarter over the years, so I do believe we will see a design change or the MacBook Pro in 2012, however not at the cost of performance.

I have just bought a MacBook Pro 8.2, 2.4Ghz, i7, in many respects the last of line offers many advantages being well developed with few if any bugs, my last MacBook Pro was also end of line (early 2008 4.1 2.4Ghz C2D) and it has served me flawlessly and there is a lot to be said about that. You are getting the fastest, most proven MBP available.

Queen6 said:

I tend to agree we wont see a massive shift for the MacBook Pro in 2012 as the technology is not there; SSD will be more dominant, the ODD may be omitted etc. Until Intel can significantly reduce the TDP of the processor and an equal reduction for the GPU it will prove extremely difficult to make performance gains and not force the system to massively throttle, the laws of thermal dynamics dont care too much for the "Reality Distortion Field" theory

We will all see in time a 15" notebook with MacBook Air dimensions, will be an Air, it may well offer enhanced performance over the 11' & 13" all the same it will be an Air or a "Throttle Monster" in general Apple have got smarter over the years, so I do believe we will see a design change or the MacBook Pro in 2012, however not at the cost of performance.

I have just bought a MacBook Pro 8.2, 2.4Ghz, i7, in many respects the last of line offers many advantages being well developed with few if any bugs, my last MacBook Pro was also end of line (early 2008 4.1 2.4Ghz C2D) and it has served me flawlessly and there is a lot to be said about that. You are getting the fastest, most proven MBP available.

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Nice comment. I have a late 2010 MacBook Pro and I've been struggling over the issue to upgrade to a late 2011 or wait for this supposed redesign in 2012. Apple has surprised people before, so I don't think a thin 15" MBP is out of the question. What do you think? Would the upgrade be worth the $1000 I would spend (new minus sale of old) or should I wait it out?

bobbykasthuri said:

Hi all
Really am thinking about getting 15" MBP. One thought I have is that the hypothetical thin 15 MBA/MBP arriving next year will look awesome and be super-thin but ultimately require SOME reduction in performance (discrete gpu, quad core, etc.) I know its hard to predict a hypothetical, but predict away please....!

thanks

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ATI is going down from 40nm to 28 nm.
Intel is going down from 32nm to 22nm.

So a thinner MBP won't lead to worse performance, because Ivy Bridge and the new ATI cards will be producing less heat.

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Fynd said:

Now is a great time to buy. Apple's history with first batch products isn't too great, and there are many potential issues performance wise.

It'd be hard to have a GPU like the 6770m inside of a much thinner machine without heat becoming a concern, i'd imagine, and Apple seems fairly willing to cut back on the GPU side of things.

The machines that were just refreshed are fantastic. You also have the option of an SSD + HDD right now using an optibay, something that may or may not be an option on a thinner machine.

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ATI is going from 40nm to 28nm so it's possible.

I'm thinking about purchasing a MBP in 2 weeks or so, is it worth just waiting until March for a possible new model?

Nielsenius said:

Nice comment. I have a late 2010 MacBook Pro and I've been struggling over the issue to upgrade to a late 2011 or wait for this supposed redesign in 2012. Apple has surprised people before, so I don't think a thin 15" MBP is out of the question. What do you think? Would the upgrade be worth the $1000 I would spend (new minus sale of old) or should I wait it out?

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Here are my thoughts, based on the fact that I've got both a 15" 2010, and 15" 2011 MBP. Typically a major redesign as Apple did in 2010 with the MBA, is not the one you want to buy.

It's the second year after that, the new model is well sorted and a better overall machine. I would keep the 2010 you have now and wait until the second rev of the new thinner and different MBP. Unless you have some mission critical reason you absolutely have to have the 2011, you're so much better off staying with the 2010.

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JLXP said:

I'm thinking about purchasing a MBP in 2 weeks or so, is it worth just waiting until March for a possible new model?

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Absolutely not. See my post above.

JLXP said:

I'm thinking about purchasing a MBP in 2 weeks or so, is it worth just waiting until March for a possible new model?

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No.

vitzr said:

Absolutely not. See my post above.

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I don't think i can wait much longer!

JLXP said:

I'm thinking about purchasing a MBP in 2 weeks or so, is it worth just waiting until March for a possible new model?

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No one knows what it's going to be like. If you want a computer now, buy it now.

Could end up with a result similar to the iPhone5, rumored to be the same size and proportions as iPhone4S but with beefier internals.

I doubt the 2012 will be much thinner, if at all.

vitzr said:

Here are my thoughts, based on the fact that I've got both a 15" 2010, and 15" 2011 MBP. Typically a major redesign as Apple did in 2010 with the MBA, is not the one you want to buy.

It's the second year after that, the new model is well sorted and a better overall machine. I would keep the 2010 you have now and wait until the second rev of the new thinner and different MBP. Unless you have some mission critical reason you absolutely have to have the 2011, you're so much better off staying with the 2010.

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Gotcha, thanks! From your experience, is the 2011 MBP much faster than the 2010? By this I mean noticeable day-to-day use.

Nielsenius said:

From your experience, is the 2011 MBP much faster than the 2010? By this I mean noticeable day-to-day use.

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Yes.

Considering that MBAs run on low power processors and don't have discrete GPUs I'd guess that in order to make the MBPs any thinner they are going to have to compromise on performance and upgradability. The components in the Unibody MBPs seem to be packed pretty tightly so IMO any "speculations" that the MBP can get as thin or almost as thin as the Air and still retain its power and battery life are based on fantasy and not reality (removing the ODD isn't enough, they would need to ditch 2.5" drives too and redesign the battery). IMO the MBPs are thin enough as it is and offer the prefect balance between portability and power. I don't get this whole obsession with thinner and lighter along with frequent redesigns just for the sake of a redesign.

This: ^

If someone wants thin for the sake of thin, get an Air. If you want a computer you won't have to replace in a year or two because it's choking on only 4 GB of RAM, get a Pro.

Shrinking the Pro simply for the sake of shrinking it seems self-defeating to me. I'm sure Apple COULD make a thinner MBP, but part of the perfection in the design (at least for me with the 13" and 15" MBPs) is in the proportions and uniformity. And I hope that Apple won't further limit the performance of the MBP simply to make to make it a touch thinner.

It's going to be thin, but not so thin that they will compromise performance