Apple/Intel Roadmap

[Dwalls90]

What exactly will Apple choose for it's upcoming notebook line revisions?

Arrandale is the "Value" mobile CPU, the successfor to Clarksfield (which Apple never even considered using). Is Arrandale going to be powerful enough for Apple to consider using? (Let alone lower clock rates - will this hamper the marketing factor?)

Apple can't afford to stay with Core 2 until Sandy Bridge, but is Arrandale going to provide performance boosts for the average user? So far, speculated max clock rates are 2.0ghz ...

 

[Shiner]

You make a great point. This is why I think apple will wait all the way to sandy bridge processors. The apple cult will allow this for another year. Most consumers believe apple just upgraded everything in the notebook line, including new processors. Only a few will realize apple is using 2-3 year old processors in all of their products except the mac pro.

 

[Dwalls90]

Either they keep upgrading the C2D CPU's to the realm of 3.0ghz+ without increasing the BTO price (until Sandy bridge - MY that's a long time!). Or they bite the bullet and go with Arrandale - equally experimental to me, now that I've looked over Intel's roadmap.

At the same time, Apple could push Arrandale being quad-core and Grand Central in Snow Leopard. This really depends on how much of a performance boost quad-cores will receive compared to dual-cores.

 

[sullyy34]

no arrendale....yet

As you all know Apple is currently using NVIDIA as its chipset. If apple was going to transition to Arrendale (nehalem) processors, they would likely use NVIDIA as their primary chipset. BUT there is a battle between NVIDIA and Intel, and Intel will not let NVIDIA make chipsets for Intel's Nehalem micro-architecture. So if Apple was to transition to Arrendale they would likely have to use Intel's intergraded graphics (chipset) or they will have to stick with Penryn as their processors and use keep using NVIDIA as their chipset.