13" rMBP Haswell with Quad Core?

[B...]

Hi once again,

Oh, sorry, I didn't understand from your original post ... so you aren't leaving for an engineering school next fall? Or are you leaving for college next fall and just haven't yet decided on which of your multiple college acceptances to take (congratulations if this is the case)? You probably won't like my following suggestion then, but here it is anyway. I'm now assuming that you will not be attending an engineering school in the fall.

Basically, my earlier post with my opinion giving recommendations was based upon what I personally know about engineering students at US colleges and what their personal computer requirements are for their studies.

If you don't yet know what engineering school you will be attending, nor what engineering program you will be studying (different engineering programs may require different engineering codes), then I believe you can't make an informed decision at this point as to what personal computer you will need in college.

Chances are either a Mac or a PC will do for your undergraduate studies, since your engineering studies needs will consist mostly of Word, Excel, and doing online homework assignments. But if you actually need to run real "engineering codes" (not all that likely, by the way), then a PC may be a better fit than a Mac.

So, my recommendation is not to purchase a computer today since you won't be attending an engineering school in the fall (or if you will be, then wait until you decide which school to attend), rather wait until the summer before you go to school and at that point you will be able to make a much better informed decision as to what your computer requirements will be. I certainly would not be worrying about the difference between Ivy Bridge/Haswell/Broadwell at this point, rather I'd wait until the summer before your college starts and then get whatever is the latest technology at that time.

Just my opinion, and you get what you paid for it -- it is worthless advice.

Regards and good luck with your engineering applications (or your decision on which school to attend),
Switon

Sorry I did not make my post clear. For me, college is years off, but I need a computer now or soon. However, I will be taking the computer that I will buy soon to college, so I want to know it will be good for engineering (which is what I want to do).

 

[iPhonesandMacs]

Newer is better.

On a serious note, only splurge for the 2013 model on the 15" rMBPs. Those have newer CPUs and upgraded memory on the higher end model. The 13" model saw price changes in 2013 but the CPUs remained the same.

Incorrect, the 256GB 13" had a spec bump in the CPU as well.

 

[B...]

Incorrect, the 256GB 13" had a spec bump in the CPU as well.

Do you know if anthing else was changed in the 13" 2013 (early) model?

 

[switon]

RE: sorry for beating a ...

Sorry I did not make my post clear. For me, college is years off, but I need a computer now or soon. However, I will be taking the computer that I will buy soon to college, so I want to know it will be good for engineering (which is what I want to do).

Hi,

Alright, if you need a computer now, or soon, then by all means buy one.

But you have to be cognizant of the fact that a computer you buy now will be dramatically outdated for your engineering studies if, as you state, "college is years off" for you. But being dramatically outdated is not necessarily a bad thing for undergraduate engineering programs, as most programs will only require you to do Word, Excel, and online homework on your personal computer, and any machine you buy today will be able to do this even "years" from now, assuming the machine lasts that long. It is my opinion that you can't make an informed decision today for a machine to be used years from now in an engineering school. Buy the machine you need today for today's purposes. Chances are you can still use it in college, even in engineering schools. But be forewarned, by the time you actually attend an engineering school, you just might want a new machine.

Good luck to you, and I'm glad to hear that you are planning so far ahead for your education. Engineering is also a great choice, in my opinion, for a career path.

Regards,
Switon

 

[B...]

Thanks to all, especially Switon. But I must ask once more:

1) Potential battey life increase for 13" rMBP with Haswell?
2) Any changes for early 2013 high end other than 0.1 GHz? (ie ghosting fix, thermal improvements etc)

 

[iPhonesandMacs]

Do you know if anthing else was changed in the 13" 2013 (early) model?

not sure, there might be some small changes but idk.

 

[Mr MM]

Thanks to all, especially Switon. But I must ask once more:

1) Potential battey life increase for 13" rMBP with Haswell?
2) Any changes for early 2013 high end other than 0.1 GHz? (ie ghosting fix, thermal improvements etc)

1) yes there will be, since they introduced new sleep states, we have already answered this
2) there are some changes, we dont know what they are

 

[B...]

1) yes there will be, since they introduced new sleep states, we have already answered this
2) there are some changes, we dont know what they are

I know you answered that there will be, but I would love to have some numbers. I know what you'll say: that no one knows yet, but surely someone can guess. If it's substantial, I will likely wait for Haswell.

 

[switon]

RE: Battery life...

1) Potential battey life increase for 13" rMBP with Haswell?
2) Any changes for early 2013 high end other than 0.1 GHz? (ie ghosting fix, thermal improvements etc)

Hi,

Since Haswell is spec-ed as requiring between 30% and 50% less power than Ivy Bridge, and as the CPU is typically one of the larger users of power (of course, depending upon how you actually use the machine) in a laptop, then battery life will most likely increase with Haswell. But you should be cognizant that the earliest Haswell CPUs available will probably not be the extremely low power versions, thus the earliest Haswell chips won't save 50% of power usage over Ivy Bridge, you will have to wait for later releases of Haswell to get to those levels of power savings. So, the 13" rMBP with Haswell will probably have a better battery lifetime (a recent test by "Which?" in England found that the 13" rMBP had the best battery life when compared to 18 other Windows 8 laptops -- so battery life is already superior in the 13" rMBP), but how much better depends upon how you use the computer. If you use the CPU heavily, then Haswell will definitely save power over the current Ivy Bridge. But if you don't use the CPU heavily, if your personal use means that the SSD or wireless uses the majority of power, then the Haswell savings will only be a small fraction of the power used by your machine and thus you won't see too great of a battery life increase. In other words, let's consider a hypothetical situation. Say that your usage of an Ivy Bridge computer requires the CPU to utilize 50% of your battery power. If Haswell can do the same calculations using only 50% of the power as Ivy Bridge, then doing the same calculations on an Haswell computer would gain you 50% of 50% or 25% in battery life. But let's say that your particular usage only requires the Ivy Bridge CPU to use 20% of the total power required for its computations. Then the same computations on a Haswell computer will only save you 50% of 20% for roughly a 10% gain in battery life.

As far as thermal improvements of Haswell over Ivy Bridge, the same analysis as above applies. It depends upon your usage of the computer and what fraction of the total power the CPU uses. Since most of the power used by the CPU is converted to heat, then a Haswell CPU running at 50% of the power of an Ivy Bridge CPU will generate only 50% as much heat. This will lessen the heat load of the 13" rMBP. (But I'd like to express my opinion here -- I think that the so-called "heat problems" of the rMBPs are overblown. I use a 15" rMBP and find that its cooling is superior to a 2011 MBP, and I have never had any issues with overheating even though I often run number crunching codes that utilize all 8 virtual cpus 100%. Yes, the machine gets hot, but it has never had to throttle the CPU frequencies to my knowledge, and I do check. And yes, I do live in the northern latitudes so it is probably cooler here than in some parts of the country which definitely helps with the cooling of the machine. Please don't flame me for expressing my opinion of the non-issue of improper cooling for the rMBP.)

Good luck, and I think you will really enjoy the rMBP,
Switon

 

[Mr MM]

I know you answered that there will be, but I would love to have some numbers. I know what you'll say: that no one knows yet, but surely someone can guess. If it's substantial, I will likely wait for Haswell.

what you want is for us to indulge you.

We dont have hard numbers, throwing arbitrary or useless info is what you are asking repeatedly. If all you want is reinforcement, there is really nothing here to be done

 

[B...]

what you want is for us to indulge you.

We dont have hard numbers, throwing arbitrary or useless info is what you are asking repeatedly. If all you want is reinforcement, there is really nothing here to be done

It's okay if you don't know. I don't need definite numbers, but I simply asked for a guideline of what people expect. Switon gave me a great answer, so clearly some people do have numbers, and no--it wasn't useless.

 

[Mr MM]

It's okay if you don't know. I don't need definite numbers, but I simply asked for a guideline of what people expect. Switon gave me a great answer, so clearly some people do have numbers, and no--it wasn't useless.

he gave you nothing, there is no info there. He is confusing numbers across the line up that range from 12w TDP to 57w TDP cpus

if you want real info

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-architecture

and guess what? no hard numbers, no guesses, its a new sleep state, we dont have previous info to guess on

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6600/...rformance-compared-to-nvidias-geforce-gt-650m

Im an enabler

 

[B...]

he gave you nothing, there is no info there. He is confusing numbers across the line up that range from 12w TDP to 57w TDP cpus

if you want real info

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-architecture

and guess what? no hard numbers, no guesses, its a new sleep state, we dont have previous info to guess on

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6600/...rformance-compared-to-nvidias-geforce-gt-650m

Im an enabler

Even though I had read both these before, I found both very interesting and the second helpful. But I wonder (and I know you can't answer this) if Intel optimized the GT3 drivers to maximize performance. If they didn't, Haswell iGPU looks great. Even if they did, I'm still excited.

 

[Mr MM]

Even though I had read both these before, I found both very interesting and the second helpful. But I wonder (and I know you can't answer this) if Intel optimized the GT3 drivers to maximize performance. If they didn't, Haswell iGPU looks great. Even if they did, I'm still excited.

what you have to know too is this

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/30633-intel-gt3-5200-5100-5000-4600-explained

guess what? 4 different mobile gpus, we have to hope that apple will use the 5200 on their line up, specially on the rmbp 13, and hopefully that is on a quad as well.

On a side note, how many years till college?

 

[B...]

Hoping for a GT3, quad core with same (or better) battery life. As for college, how many years away depends on when I get in.

 

[switon]

he gave you nothing, there is no info there. He is confusing numbers across the line up that range from 12w TDP to 57w TDP cpus

if you want real info

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-architecture

and guess what? no hard numbers, no guesses, its a new sleep state, we dont have previous info to guess on

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6600/...rformance-compared-to-nvidias-geforce-gt-650m

Im an enabler

Hi Mr MM, uh...I'm just quoting from numbers from Intel's own early publications and public announcements, both on the Haswell chip compared to the best Ivy Bridge, and for their more aggressive sleep state utilizations. I agree, no one knows what the final numbers will be until the chips actually are available, but Intel, by its own admission, is expecting a 30-50% power reduction: up to 30% for the early Haswell chips with potentially up to 50% for later revisions. True, companies are often over-optimistic with their early projections and marketing, but at least Intel has historically been better than some. And Intel has attempted to explain in presentations and in print their new sleep algorithm and how it is going to save even more power than before. Whether this power savings comes to pass in actual applications, well you are right, we'll just have to wait and see.

Regards,
Switon

P.S. My posting was an attempt to show that no matter what the power saving is for any particular CPU chip, the actual battery life increase will depend more on how you use the machine than on the CPU chip's power savings. If you are a heavy CPU user, then the power saved by a lower power CPU will convert into a longer battery life. But if you are not a heavy CPU user, and thus the CPU power is a small fraction of the total power utilized by the laptop, then the power saved by the low power CPU will not convert into much of a longer battery life.

 

[Mr MM]

Hi Mr MM, uh...I'm just quoting from numbers from Intel's own early publications and public announcements, both on the Haswell chip compared to the best Ivy Bridge, and for their more aggressive sleep state utilizations. I agree, no one knows what the final numbers will be until the chips actually are available, but Intel, by its own admission, is expecting a 30-50% power reduction: up to 30% for the early Haswell chips with potentially up to 50% for later revisions. True, companies are often over-optimistic with their early projections and marketing, but at least Intel has historically been better than some. And Intel has attempted to explain in presentations and in print their new sleep algorithm and how it is going to save even more power than before. Whether this power savings comes to pass in actual applications, well you are right, we'll just have to wait and see.

Regards,
Switon

P.S. My posting was an attempt to show that no matter what the power saving is for any particular CPU chip, the actual battery life increase will depend more on how you use the machine than on the CPU chip's power savings. If you are a heavy CPU user, then the power saved by a lower power CPU will convert into a longer battery life. But if you are not a heavy CPU user, and thus the CPU power is a small fraction of the total power utilized by the laptop, then the power saved by the low power CPU will not convert into much of a longer battery life.

no they arent expecting that

 

[switon]

no they arent expecting that

Okay, my information must be old...it stemmed from a PPT presentation that listed what appeared to be comparable (same category) Haswell vs. Ivy Bridge extreme ultra low power packages as <10W vs. 17W and 13.5W-15W vs. 25W, which is why I said 30% to 50% reductions. But who knows what the specs will actually be until the chips arrive, which by the way, it now looks like the Haswell introduction may be postponed.

Also, the desktop, performance Haswell packages are now apparently more power hungry than their Ivy Bridge counterparts, 57W vs. 55W, not because the CPUs use more power, which they don't, but because the performance Haswell iGPU uses more power than the Ivy Bridge counterpart.

So, I concede to your knowledge ... and we'll just have to wait until the ULX chips are available to see where their specs finally end up. I don't want to argue about this.

Switon

 

[Mr MM]

there is also the thing that they are putting more into the cpus themselves this time, some of the things are being offloaded from the mobo and the pch to the cpu, that was what intel said, I do believe it has also something to do with the igpu as well

 

[Serban]

I think all macbooks pro retina will have quad core haswell version, i mean even macbook pro retina 13"

 

[B...]

I think all macbooks pro retina will have quad core haswell version, i mean even macbook pro retina 13"

Is that just a wish? Any reason to think Apple would do that?

 

[dusk007]

In theory they already could do that. There is a 35W Ivy Bridge Quad Core.
Why would they? Because they can claim a great speed improvement. Kind of like 13"rMBPS.
My theory is they only held off with the Quad Core because they wanted to keep something to deliver the next time around. For the first release the Display was enough of a selling point and the Dual Core was much cheaper and it was unlikely to show any thermal problems.

The default spec will probably remain a DC but an option for a QC or a high end version is likely. There would really be no excuse for not offering it.

 

[Mr MM]

In theory they already could do that. There is a 35W Ivy Bridge Quad Core.
Why would they? Because they can claim a great speed improvement. Kind of like 13"rMBPS.
My theory is they only held off with the Quad Core because they wanted to keep something to deliver the next time around. For the first release the Display was enough of a selling point and the Dual Core was much cheaper and it was unlikely to show any thermal problems.

The default spec will probably remain a DC but an option for a QC or a high end version is likely. There would really be no excuse for not offering it.

have you saw how much the i7 3612qm and the 3632qm cost (they cost the same as the i7 3740qm, its over 60% increase when compared to the usual dual cores)? not mention there is a very large difference in terms of MHz, people might get confused.

But yes, I would really like that they used in the rmbp

given the battery life of the quads and dual cores not being that much different anymore, I would really have preferred to have a little less of battery and much more of power

 

[dusk007]

It is also a really expensive notebook anyways. They also sell the 2.6Ghz in europe for 200€ more. 128GB more flash costs 50€ at best as a part. The 100Mhz faster i5 costs practically zero additional cost.
Sure the Quad Core is more expensive but we aren't talking about a $300 netbook but a 1500€+ notebook (now it started even more expensive). They put the quads in 700€ notebooks. Somewhere along the way those 60% on the cpu price should not be an issue. It is also only such a big price difference because those are almost the cheapest CPUs Intel sells outside the cheapo i3 and pentium lines without turbo and all the stuff.
The i7 in the Air is also quite a lot more expensive yet comes at an (for Apple) almost reasonable upgrade price. Intel lists for the 3667U (which is the 2Ghz i7) $346. Which isn't far of the 3612qm and Apple only charges $100 for a chip that has a recommended customer price of $121 more than the 1.8Ghz.
Apple doesn't buy at those prices but still.

People get confused by technicalities anyway. You promote it as quad core or i7 and they will get it and if not it doesn't matter. Most people that know too little don't need the speed anyway. It would only have been an option.
There is no difference in socket or chipset for the quad or dual core. All Apple would need to do is put the chip in.

 

[Serban]

And maybe there will be over 30fps for navigate and no more delays to render that resolution on safari etc