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Apple Launches MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt, Quad Core CPUs, AMD GPUs

Hal 9K said:
Apple releases a new series of MacBook Pros.
They go above and beyond what we all thought they would do.
*Dual i5 and i7 Sandy Bridge chips in the 13s (We expected i3s at best),
*Quad i7 Sandy Bridge chips across the board in the 15 and 17s (We expected Dual i5s and Dual i7s at best)
*1333 MHz DDR3 RAM
*Thunderbolt, a new I/O System that made all other I/O subsystems (including USB 3.0) overnight.
*SDXC Card Slot (up from SC card slot)
*Larger Hard Drives across the board

Last year a lot of haters complained that the 13" didn't have the i3 Processor.

It was explained that in order to give you the i3, you'd have to settle for less graphics processing power (because Intel doesn't let you use a separate INTEGRATED graphics chip [BTW, the 13" machines have NEVER had a dedicated chip for those of you who believe the 9400M and 320M are dedicated chips] with the iX chips) and less battery life. That is why they went with the Core 2 Duo last year. The haters said they didn't care, they wanted a processor that wasn't 2 years old.

Now they release the new models, the have i5s and i7s (and you wanted i3s, HA!), and now you complain that the new models have ONLY 7 hours of battery life and that the Graphics are 8% slower. THIS IS WHAT THEY TOLD YOU WOULD HAPPEN IF THEY DID THIS, AND YOU SAID YOU WANTED IT! I

I'm playing the worlds smallest Violin for you folks, nothing will make you happy. Even if they could somehow get around the laws of physics and release a MBP with a 2.3 Quad i7 Sandy Bridge, GeForce GTX 580 w/2 GB GDDR5 graphics RAM, 2560 x 1600 display that could be expanded from 13" to 17" with the push of a button, 16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM, 1 TB SSD on SATA-6 bus, 5 USB 3.0 Ports, 2 FW 800 Ports, 2 Thunderbolt Ports, Ethernet, ExpressCard Slot, BlueRay, 20 hours of battery life, and make it a quarter of an inch think for $799 you'd STILL find something to complain about.

If all you want to do is complain about Apple products, why are you here? Isn't there a fandroid forum out there you can troll instead of this one?
Click to expand...

Well said! Best post I've read on here in a long time.

I'm really looking forward to what will happen with Thunderbolt...
 
-13" 1280x800 Display. 2.3GHz Dual i5. 4GB RAM. 320GB HD. Intel HD Graphics. $1199
Click to expand...
Glad the low-end MBP is no great improvement over the old one.

A few weeks ago I recommending to my brother that he get the low-end MBP... I knew updates were coming soon, but he really did need a new computer immediately. Still, I would have felt bad if his new computer was "obsolete" within weeks.

(Not that he would even be aware that new MBPs came out.)
 
deconstruct60 said:
What do you want to use it for?

Playing high end 3D games ? Probably keep it.

Running multi-GB mathematical models ? Probably return it.


If you are just doing average user stuff..... you can just keep it. Especially if you are on a budget. Decent chance you will have to pay a restocking fee since you, most likely, opened and used it. If the amount is trivial to you then replace it, but otherwise still have a good laptop. Howerever, replacing means you are paying more for those other alternatives. You are in the window where Apple (if bought from them directly) will give you full credit for the "old" model. Other retailers may or may not be so nice.
Click to expand...


no more restock fee
 
Nice CPUs. It doesn't make sense not to offer higher resolution on the 13", Apple works in mysterious ways.
 
@ work.

Just had a friend pick up my 15" Pro from the Apple Store.
It's safely waiting for me at home. :D

Any early reviews?
 
cmaier said:
Doubt it, with Intel behind it and Intel not seemingly supporting USB3.
Click to expand...

"late" is different from not supporting. There is no PCI-e v3.0 in Intel chipset. Is that not supported? There are bandwidth issues with putting USB 3.0 in. There are even bigger bandwidth issues with putting TB into the core chipset.

Furthermore there are downsides to bundling this with display port. On a large fraction of desktop PCs the display port is on the other side of the PCI-e bus from the core chipset. Furthermore that PCI-e bus probably isn't even hooked to the core chipset!!!! The graphics card is probably hooked to the CPU package.



If thunderbolt is built into Intel's chipsets and usb3 is not,
Click to expand...

That is a huge "if".

There are several significant factors being overlooked here.

1. TB is not a standard. There aren't multiple implementers. USB 3.0 is and has multiple implementers. If AMD puts USB 3.0 into their core chipset there is going to be competitive pressure for Intel to do the same thing.

The graphics coupling is going to shrink the market that TB can be applied to easily. Frankly, I don't think AMD and Nvidia are going to be all that excited to add an Intel controller to their reference card designs (and never mind the TB controller wanting to tap into the PCI-e bandwidth to the card. )

In the press conference this morning Intel mentioned there are no PCI-e add in cards with TB in the pipeline. That is not surprising when you look at who has to roll those cards to market. (unless the TB allows for a 'dead' display port channel. )

Right now a PC with TB requires a new motherboard to get released. That means no wide spread adoption till all the vendors get through their design cycles. That gives USB 3.0 a large number of months to get traction.



2. TB is starting from a storage device base of zero. zip . nada. none. The primary backwards compatible device are display and they must be placed at the end of the TB daisy chain. USB 3.0 same as it was for USB 2.0 ( sure USB 3.0 needs 3.0 aware hubs and controllers to propagate signal, but it will still work if pick any valid sequence of plugging things in. )

In contrast the billion USB devices out there all work with USB 3.0. Inertia plays a factor ( x86 instruction set won on interia not best or fastest).


3. TB only passes the more basic data protocol. So the TB displays with USB hubs that encode into PCI-e ensure that native USB devices will continue to exist into the future. That does zip to diminish the number of USB devices.

do you really think manufacturers will continue upping their BOM's to add another chip for a technology that operates at half the speed?
Click to expand...

Yes because it connects to several billion devices. Infiniband beats the crap in term of speed TB, but there is no where near the same user base due to cost differences.

If most motherboards deployed to the market have USB 3.0 abilities and Intel doesn't provide it in the core chipset than it is Intel that is driving up the BOM. Not the other way around.

It will not be surprising to see these TB drives priced higher than Firewire drives (or minimally at least as high). As long as USB has a lower entry cost it is going to be difficult to displace.
 
Not too sure how I feel about the new update....was sorta drooling but now not really..... my 2009 Maxed out 2.8GHz C2D 15" MBP still seems worth keeping.
I think I'm gonna sit back and see what they do with the MacBook Air refresh rumored this summer. Current MacBook Air + Sandy Bridge + Backlit Keyboard returning + OSX Lion Pre-Installed = one hell of a temptation.....granted there's no guarantee the backlit comes back....but I bet it does.
 
how does the new amd 6750m hold up against the old 330m on the 15''? lets say i wanted to play gta 4 on maxed settings, how much FPS do you think would the high end 15'' model provide?
 
Sorry to repost this, but I'm almost assuming itll be a no seeing all the negative feedback on the 13.

is it possible to play games such as counterstrike on the new 13" MBP? is that game card worth anything? the 15" is way out of my price range.

and would the mid-2010 13" MBP be better to cover such high end games?

cheers
 
Hal 9K said:
Apple releases a new series of MacBook Pros.
They go above and beyond what we all thought they would do.
*Dual i5 and i7 Sandy Bridge chips in the 13s (We expected i3s at best),
*Quad i7 Sandy Bridge chips across the board in the 15 and 17s (We expected Dual i5s and Dual i7s at best)
*1333 MHz DDR3 RAM
*Thunderbolt, a new I/O System that made all other I/O subsystems (including USB 3.0) overnight.
*SDXC Card Slot (up from SC card slot)
*Larger Hard Drives across the board

Last year a lot of haters complained that the 13" didn't have the i3 Processor.

It was explained that in order to give you the i3, you'd have to settle for less graphics processing power (because Intel doesn't let you use a separate INTEGRATED graphics chip [BTW, the 13" machines have NEVER had a dedicated chip for those of you who believe the 9400M and 320M are dedicated chips] with the iX chips) and less battery life. That is why they went with the Core 2 Duo last year. The haters said they didn't care, they wanted a processor that wasn't 2 years old.

Now they release the new models, the have i5s and i7s (and you wanted i3s, HA!), and now you complain that the new models have ONLY 7 hours of battery life and that the Graphics are 8% slower. THIS IS WHAT THEY TOLD YOU WOULD HAPPEN IF THEY DID THIS, AND YOU SAID YOU WANTED IT! I

I'm playing the worlds smallest Violin for you folks, nothing will make you happy. Even if they could somehow get around the laws of physics and release a MBP with a 2.3 Quad i7 Sandy Bridge, GeForce GTX 580 w/2 GB GDDR5 graphics RAM, 2560 x 1600 display that could be expanded from 13" to 17" with the push of a button, 16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM, 1 TB SSD on SATA-6 bus, 5 USB 3.0 Ports, 2 FW 800 Ports, 2 Thunderbolt Ports, Ethernet, ExpressCard Slot, BlueRay, 20 hours of battery life, and make it a quarter of an inch think for $799 you'd STILL find something to complain about.

If all you want to do is complain about Apple products, why are you here? Isn't there a fandroid forum out there you can troll instead of this one?
Click to expand...

I agree with you about the "WTF, no Blu-Ray?!" people...but alot of other criticisms people voiced are accurate. On your op about the 13inch and IGP...it would have been easy for apple to bless the 13inch with a dedicated graphics solution(no not a gtx 480m...but something). Also, the 1280x800 screen on the 13 was a slap in the face...when the MBA 13 has the 1440x900 (much less the 1366x720 of the 11). When you (Apple) tout your products as being the best...youre always going to be coming up short.
 
CoreyMac said:
Not too sure how I feel about the new update....was sorta drooling but now not really..... my 2009 Maxed out 2.8GHz C2D 15" MBP still seems worth keeping.
I think I'm gonna sit back and see what they do with the MacBook Air refresh rumored this summer. Current MacBook Air + Sandy Bridge + Backlit Keyboard returning + OSX Lion Pre-Installed = one hell of a temptation.....granted there's no guarantee the backlit comes back....but I bet it does.
Click to expand...

pros dont have backlit keyboards?
 
Hal 9K said:
Apple releases a new series of MacBook Pros.
They go above and beyond what we all thought they would do.
*Dual i5 and i7 Sandy Bridge chips in the 13s (We expected i3s at best),
*Quad i7 Sandy Bridge chips across the board in the 15 and 17s (We expected Dual i5s and Dual i7s at best)
*1333 MHz DDR3 RAM
*Thunderbolt, a new I/O System that made all other I/O subsystems (including USB 3.0) overnight.
*SDXC Card Slot (up from SC card slot)
*Larger Hard Drives across the board

Last year a lot of haters complained that the 13" didn't have the i3 Processor.

It was explained that in order to give you the i3, you'd have to settle for less graphics processing power (because Intel doesn't let you use a separate INTEGRATED graphics chip [BTW, the 13" machines have NEVER had a dedicated chip for those of you who believe the 9400M and 320M are dedicated chips] with the iX chips) and less battery life. That is why they went with the Core 2 Duo last year. The haters said they didn't care, they wanted a processor that wasn't 2 years old.

Now they release the new models, the have i5s and i7s (and you wanted i3s, HA!), and now you complain that the new models have ONLY 7 hours of battery life and that the Graphics are 8% slower. THIS IS WHAT THEY TOLD YOU WOULD HAPPEN IF THEY DID THIS, AND YOU SAID YOU WANTED IT! I

I'm playing the worlds smallest Violin for you folks, nothing will make you happy. Even if they could somehow get around the laws of physics and release a MBP with a 2.3 Quad i7 Sandy Bridge, GeForce GTX 580 w/2 GB GDDR5 graphics RAM, 2560 x 1600 display that could be expanded from 13" to 17" with the push of a button, 16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM, 1 TB SSD on SATA-6 bus, 5 USB 3.0 Ports, 2 FW 800 Ports, 2 Thunderbolt Ports, Ethernet, ExpressCard Slot, BlueRay, 20 hours of battery life, and make it a quarter of an inch think for $799 you'd STILL find something to complain about.

If all you want to do is complain about Apple products, why are you here? Isn't there a fandroid forum out there you can troll instead of this one?
Click to expand...

Spot on. Thanks for that.
 
tobia said:
Sorry to repost this, but I'm almost assuming itll be a no seeing all the negative feedback on the 13.

is it possible to play games such as counterstrike on the new 13" MBP? is that game card worth anything? the 15" is way out of my price range.

and would the mid-2010 13" MBP be better to cover such high end games?

cheers
Click to expand...

Hey Chief,
Id wait for the benchmarks before pulling the trigger...but IMO the SB IGP will rock the socks off counterstrike (as intel demo'd portal 2 with their IGP and had decent FPS).
 
Pretty crappy that they are not offering the higher res screen on the 13". I'm sure it has to do with taking away sales of the 13" mba and 15" mbp. The processor bump is ok but I would of been happy with i3 and 1440x900. Could care less about lightpeak/thunderbolt-- this is just marketing for intel. Overall not that impressive an update except for the quad core on the 15" and 17" models. The 15" starts at $1800 so it's a terrible value compared to competitive PC laptops. Apple figures that the 13" will sell no matter what so that's why the update is pretty bad.
 
I keep hearing everyone say that the high end 15" is the way to go. I was going to get the 13", but when the specs revealed, that was a no go. So now I am having to save up more dough for the 15". I don't think I can stretch $400.00 more dollars for the high end 15" model. Would I be kicking myself later if I just got the low end 15" instead? Wudayathink? Is anyone getting the low end 15" here?
 
Daviii said:
Oh pleasee... If you need to convince yourself to avoid buyer's remorse, it's ok.

That doesn't change the fact that the intel HD 3000 has roughly the same power than the nvidia 320M, give or take, and certainly doesn't either change the brutal superiority the new i5-2410M has over the P8600, any day, any time.

Any of those new MBP is better than the old version, without hesitation, and at the same pricetag. Certainly buying the computer again is quite unnecessary, but it feels really stupid "to be glad" of having bought the old one.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's buyer's remorse at all... upgraded macbooks are always better than the ones before; however, sometimes the upgrades aren't that essential.

I was finally ready to jump on the macbook pro bandwagon (I own a white unibody macbook 2009, C2D 2.26, 8GB Ram, completely covered in invisible shield and a gelaskin on the screen - still looks brand new. not a scratch considering how bad they look after a while), but with these updates I think I'll hold out another year. Or maybe will wait for the air at the end of the year, or even the white (if it's not discontinued) to see what they bring... I wanted this device to truly be revolutionary, not just an incremental update. USB 3 or lightpeak, whichever, but most importantly, an SSD built into the motherboard...
 
speaking of benchmarks...

...now that the MBP refresh is official, when should we anticipate AnandTech to get some of these systems benchmarked?
 
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