Apple Releases New MacBook Pros with Santa Rosa

[Eidorian]

LED display technology sounds cool - but I'm glad I bought my MBP last fall. I can't help but think this Rev. A laptop will have its share of problems (which of course we'll hear about on MacRumors forums ad nauseum.

Here's the executive summary of this thread, for those of you just joining:

• Only a .2GHz speed bump? L0s3r Intel...

Fixed

 

[elmer21]

What a dissapointment!

I been waiting for month (if not years) now for a proper update and a new case design (which hasn't changed in over 4 years!) And the worst thing of all, as far as I can tell the 15" with LED Display is only available in the US but not in Europe. I'm really a huge Apple fan, but to me it feel like they are putting to much energy into the iPhone and not enough into their core bussiness. Very sad to have to wait another 6 month...

 

[age234]

Does anyone thinks that we could get a coupon for leopard once it´s available ???

Not 4 months out, no.

 

[gedto]

Hmm

Are there faster Core 2 Duos for laptops?

I just thought Apple had just incorporated the fastest there is from Intel... which is pretty damn fast BTW..

 

[macenforcer]

Ya that's great. Except I'm waiting for them to re-re-design it so the display tilts back to the same angle as the Powerbook days. Maybe they changed that with these new ones. We'll see.

THANK YOU! This is what I have been waiting for since forever. Good grief the last laptop from apple that did this was the titanium powerbook.

 

[bdj21ya]

Oh.. thanks.. you're such a savior. One more quick question from the noob: Will bootcamp/pararel support vista 32 bit?

Thanks a bunch!

Yes, it is supported by both. Though there is some indication that you will need to find the video driver on your own for boot camp, at least until they release the latest revision.

 

[Eidorian]

Are there faster Core 2 Duos for laptops?

I just thought Apple had just incorporated the fastest there is from Intel... which is pretty damn fast BTW..

Only the 7600G and if its overclocked.

 

[majorp]

Where's the .2Ghz thing from though? It's .7 isn't it?

isn't is .07

 

[Sonic]

Great update, although the price seems to have gone up 10,000 Yen in Japan... Could be mistaken though. LED is a really nice addition.

Low or mid 15" is my decision - I'm primarily a Logic Pro user so I need as much CPU power as possible, but I don't know if the extra .2 Ghz is worth it. Would like to play the odd game, and the extra VRAM would be nice for that.

Hmmm...

 

[age234]

new case design (which hasn't changed in over 4 years!)

But why? You can see something is a MBP from a mile away, it's so iconic. What's wrong with it that it needs to be changed? Change for change's sake?

 

[FJR1300]

Where?

Can someone show me where it says the new MBP uses the Santa Rosa chipset?

Thanks..

 

[bdj21ya]

Does anyone thinks that we could get a coupon for leopard once it´s available ???

You can bet they would announce this if you could. Patience.

 

[diamond.g]

you know what I hate about Apple update? I have to listen to people crying about Apple not adding solid state drive and bluray disc and some free Cinema Displays and blah blah...

gosh I love Apple products but I can't stand some of the fanboys here.

Bluray would be useless since none of Apples own products provide mastering for it (FCP 2 offers HD DVD support)

So, how much gaming performance does going from 128 to 256 on the video card give you?

I plan on running Bootcamp/Vista...

It is a $500 price differnece and I don't think the .2ghz processor and 40GB HD are worth it... But if the video card really siginificantly helps games, I may consider it...

Depending on the rez, tons. The less the card has to swap textures with main ram the better IQ you get. 256 MB of ram should allow for 2-4x AA at the native rez of the 15" display. And probably about 2x AA on the 17" with medium to high quality textures.

According to this article, it sounds like the new video card MAY have H.264 acceleration built-in. Is that true?

http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/05/09/nvidia.geforce.8m/

Probably not. Apple hasn't been known to expose those features in the GPU's they use.

 

[Jimmdean]

According to this article, it sounds like the new video card MAY have H.264 acceleration built-in. Is that true?

http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/05/09/nvidia.geforce.8m/

It does have it, but until Quicktime is updated to use it, it won't matter...

 

[diamond.g]

Only the 7600G and if its overclocked.

And even then is that using EFI or BIOS?

 

[mags631]

LED display technology sounds cool - but I'm glad I bought my MBP last fall. I can't help but think this Rev. A laptop will have its share of problems (which of course we'll hear about on MacRumors forums ad nauseum.

Here's the executive summary of this thread, for those of you just joining:

• Only a .2GHz speed bump? L0s3r Apple...
• What's this? I wanted my display to be made up of actual Christmas-light-style LEDs!
• My HP Megabook has these same specs and I got it on eBay for $79 - AND it came with a free forklift!
• OS X is worth $1900 to me over Wind0ze
• Where's the 'any' key?
• Did not!
• Did too!

And why doesn't that damn tab key order a Tab?

 

[gnasher729]

Does anyone have any information on the relative speed differences and power consumption differences between the different hard drive options? I seem to recall reading somewhere that the 4200rpm drive uses perpendicular technology and is effectively faster than the rpm would indicate ...

Drives with perpendicular technology write bits more densely (more bit per centimetre or inch). That's why they have to rotate slower, to limit the number of bits per second, and to get more precision. So at the lower rotational speed, they actually read the same amount of data as say a 7200 RPM 100 GB drive.

The advantage grows when the drive gets full: All drives start filling at the outside of the drive where you have more space. When the drive gets full, you have to use space closer to the centre of the drive. Because you can't just increase the density, and the rotational speed is constant, you get fewer bits per second. A 100 GB drive filled with 80 GB of data is close to full and has to use areas that are close to the centre and therefore slow; a 250 GB perpendicular drive is still almost empty and uses tracks that are much further outside and still fast.

That's important for benchmarks. On an empty drive, 100 GB 7200 RPM is slightly faster. Fill both drives with 80 GB, and the 250 GB 4200 RPM is the winner.

 

[headfuzz]

I'm a little miffed they haven't updated the case design, though not too much as imo the aluminium still looks the business, even after all these years...

I'm gonna hold off buying until I see if they release a 13.3" MBP at WWDC - if they do I reckon I'll bag me one of them, failing that, I'll quite happily take the low end 15"

 

[sikkinixx]

hmm I dunno what to think. Nice update but I guess I was hoping for something a little more drastic. The new specs are tastey but the best part about this is how the older models will tumble in price a bit

 

[ma2ha3]

yeah yeah yeah LED is more power efficient
but how is the picture quality of notebook screen, which already lacking behind desktop model.

 

[jayb2000]

What was the resolution on the 17 inch before? The same as the basic one now?

The old chart is still up

http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/comparison_chart.html

 

[bdj21ya]

isn't is .07

or .06, depending on which model you're looking at. But the FSB makes a big difference. What was the FSB on previous models?

EDIT: Fixed the math error.

 

[diamond.g]

or .04, depending on which model you're looking at. But the FSB makes a big difference. What was the FSB on previous models?

667mhz, I was always under the impression that Intel has been sensitive to running async bus (to memory). I know AMD fixed that my putting the memory controller on chip. Hmm, I will have to read some whitesheets to see if that is still the case.

 

[kingofkolt]

Drives with perpendicular technology write bits more densely (more bit per centimetre or inch). That's why they have to rotate slower, to limit the number of bits per second, and to get more precision. So at the lower rotational speed, they actually read the same amount of data as say a 7200 RPM 100 GB drive.

The advantage grows when the drive gets full: All drives start filling at the outside of the drive where you have more space. When the drive gets full, you have to use space closer to the centre of the drive. Because you can't just increase the density, and the rotational speed is constant, you get fewer bits per second. A 100 GB drive filled with 80 GB of data is close to full and has to use areas that are close to the centre and therefore slow; a 250 GB perpendicular drive is still almost empty and uses tracks that are much further outside and still fast.

That's important for benchmarks. On an empty drive, 100 GB 7200 RPM is slightly faster. Fill both drives with 80 GB, and the 250 GB 4200 RPM is the winner.

Ahh, this is helpful. So, in that I might use up to, say, 50% of a 160GB HD, don't you think it would be wise for me to save the $150 and get the 5,400 rpm version? Especially because 5400rpm is the default config, so I can drive up to NH and get it tax-free. So essentially I'd be saving about $250, because I'm not paying over $100 in tax from the online store, and I'm not paying for the $150 upgrade to 7,200 rpm. Is that a good idea?

 

[gnasher729]

I've heard the difference is QUITE noticeable. HDD speed is the limiting factor for a lot of things you do on the computer. Won't matter so much if/when Apple adopts/implements the flash caching model, but for now I'd say if you're going to upgrade anything, upgrade to 7200 RPMS. And for gods' sakes, don't get the 4200 RPM higher storage models, just buy some external storage if you need it.

That would be true if it was the same technology. But it isn't. Benchmarks show that the 4200 RPM drives are actually faster once the drive gets full.