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Next MacBook Pro a Quad?
- Thread starter MBX
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No. Just no.
Check the numerous threads.
January '09? There won't be a refresh in Jan '09, and the refresh after the September refresh won't be Quad either, in all likelihood. Maybe, MAYBE on the 17" as a BTO option with the Nehalem refresh, but probly not.
Check the numerous threads.
January '09? There won't be a refresh in Jan '09, and the refresh after the September refresh won't be Quad either, in all likelihood. Maybe, MAYBE on the 17" as a BTO option with the Nehalem refresh, but probly not.
There are no mobile quad cores that have been released. The only way to put a quad-core in a laptop would be to use a desktop grade motherboard. Anyways all-in-all wed be talking a 15 pound bulky laptop. Nehalem architecture will likely bring mobile quads.
Intel has released two mobile quad-cores: the 2.53GHz QX9300 with a 45W TDP and the 2.27GHz Q9100 with a 35W TDP.
The QX9300 is too hot to work in the current MacBook Pro, but if Apple is indeed going to a new case, it might have been designed to handle such heat. The chip is also over $1000, which means it is about $350 more expensive then the 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo option.
The Q9100 would work in the current MacBook Pro and is the same price as the 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo. As such, it could be possible as a BTO option (I do not expect it to be standard) either at the same price as the 2.6GHz option or perhaps an extra $50-100.
The QX9300 is too hot to work in the current MacBook Pro, but if Apple is indeed going to a new case, it might have been designed to handle such heat. The chip is also over $1000, which means it is about $350 more expensive then the 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo option.
The Q9100 would work in the current MacBook Pro and is the same price as the 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo. As such, it could be possible as a BTO option (I do not expect it to be standard) either at the same price as the 2.6GHz option or perhaps an extra $50-100.
From Intel:
Dadi Perlmutter, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Intels Mobility Group, announced that Intel has launched its first mobile quad-core processors based on the companys 45nm Penryn architecture during his keynote.
The first processors will be the Core 2 Extreme QX9300 and Core 2 Quad Q9100 and will come clocked at 2.53GHz and 2.26GHz respectively. Both feature a 1,066MHz front side bus and 12MB of L2 cache.
From Tom's Hardware:
Intel is planning to launch its first quad-core CPU for notebooks, the Core 2 Extreme QX9300, in the third quarter this year with pricing set at a new high of $1,038 in thousand-unit tray quantities, according to sources at motherboard makers. With the market demand for top-level notebooks still below average, Intel expects the quad-core notebook CPUs will not become standard in the performance/mainstream notebook market until the second half of 2009, and therefore should not impact the desktop PC market, noted the sources.
Cheers,
And many people don't expect the Quad 2.27 GHz Q9100 to be as fast as a 2.6 GHz Core 2 Duo for most tasks, so what's the point? You'd probably need Snow Leopard to notice any speed improvements, and these improvements may not even be entirely due to hardware improvements. It would be difficult to know whether the improvements in speed is due to better utilization of the hardware, or whether the coding is just far more efficient than before.
I don't see a desperate need for people to have quad core in a laptop.....not for that much money, anyway.
The only reference to that I could find was a single comment by the Inquirer website, and since they did not reference the CPU by model number or clockspeed, it is possible they were talking about the Q9100.
Some tasks can take advantage of all four cores, so it may be of benefit to folks who do that kind of work as the plurality of their workload.
Well it is one CPU with four cores, not four CPUs.
In terms of temperature, the Q9100 will be as hot as the T9500 2.6GHz CPU that is available as a BTO option on the current MacBook Pro.
I would like to see a quad core MBP but it probably wont happen until next year. Apple could release a quad core iMac though with this Mobile chip. Thats what Im hoping for.
An iMac with a quad core chip is a definite possibility I think
It's certainly not like Apple to release an OS along with an entire product line to go with it, but wouldn't it be logical for them to relese quad-core notebooks and iMacs at the same time as Snow Leopard? No one will want a machine with 4 processing cores when Leopard can't harness them as well as it should, and Snow Leopard is aimed at doing just that.
I know 10.6 is supposed to improve parallelism for OS X but that doesn't mean that 10.5 "can't harness them as well as it should", otherwise the 2x4 core build of the Mac Pro would look like a really crappy purchase right now and I don't think that's the case.
The big issue for home and most business users outside of specialised areas - and 10.6 won't magically change this - is that the tasks an average desktop system performs won't see that much of a "real world" improvement from adding more cores, especially if those cores operate at a slower rate than the processor with fewer cores that was replaced. If you're listening to itunes while doing mail and web then your core 2 duo based machine is already "fast enough" and teh internets won't get faster just because of a beefier processor in the workstation you're using.
The biggest thing that will hold back adoption of quad-cores is their price. AMD doesn't have one, so Intel is charging extreme pricing for their extreme chips.
Even if the 2.53GHz QX9300 had a 35W TDP, it would add $300 (minimum) to the price of the 2.6GHz MacBook Pro or 3.06GHz iMac. So the 15" MacBook would be $3099, the 17" $3499 and the 24" iMac would be $2499.
Even if the 2.53GHz QX9300 had a 35W TDP, it would add $300 (minimum) to the price of the 2.6GHz MacBook Pro or 3.06GHz iMac. So the 15" MacBook would be $3099, the 17" $3499 and the 24" iMac would be $2499.
that 300 $ difference isn't too big of an issue for pro-users who want to max out the power on the mobile computer and possibly have the option for 8gb of ram too.
