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At this point, is it worth considering waiting for Broadwell?

Mr MM said:
that actually was concerning desktops, not notebook cpus.

we are still unsure if there is going to be broadwell for desktops or they would jump straight to skylake, logic dictates that there would be
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Maybe you meant to say "actually was concerning notebooks, not desktop cpus"?
 
prospervic said:
Maybe you meant to say "actually was concerning notebooks, not desktop cpus"?
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quite the opposite
mneblett said:
Here's an example of the stories that ran in ~July -- basic message is no notebook CPU's until 2nd 1/2 2014:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/di...roadwell_Processors_for_Notebooks_Slides.html

And I have a vague memory of reports that might slip, as well.
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http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...68017-forget-intel-haswell-broadwell-way.html
 
come on.. they were JUST released, get a computer if you want one.

you cant keep waiting for new tech in the future.. there's always gonna be new tech.

Buy, be happy, sell when you want to upgrade, repeat.
 
Seriously folks. Just buy the laptop, save a few hundred bucks, and if/when the new release blows your current laptop out of the water, just sell and buy the new one.

Everyone's acting as if once you pull the trigger on Haswell then you're stuck with a 30-year mortgage. :D
 
GSPice said:
Seriously folks. Just buy the laptop, save a few hundred bucks, and if/when the new release blows your current laptop out of the water, just sell and buy the new one.

Everyone's acting as if once you pull the trigger on Haswell then you're stuck with a 30-year mortgage. :D
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Bravo! This was precisely my reasoning when I bought my refurb 2012 rMBP 15" (saved $610) on June 10th, right after the WWDC failed to introduce any new Haswell MBP's.
The thing is, now I've fallen in love with this beauty, and from what I've been hearing about Mavericks, it will (mostly) make me forget about Haswell.

This was a big jump from my cMBP. I'm content to wait for Broadwell (with its reported 30% increase in battery life for Quad-core processors) for the next one.

I don't expect to take too large a financial hit since I paid less to begin with, and I found an original rMBP box on Ebay (for those who really need to have one).
 
prospervic said:
Bravo! This was precisely my reasoning when I bought my refurb 2012 rMBP 15" (saved $610) on June 10th, right after the WWDC failed to introduce any new Haswell MBP's.
The thing is, now I've fallen in love with this beauty, and from what I've been hearing about Mavericks, it will (mostly) make me forget about Haswell.

This was a big jump from my cMBP. I'm content to wait for Broadwell (with its reported 30% increase in battery life for Quad-core processors) for the next one.

I don't expect to take too large a financial hit since I paid less to begin with, and I found an original rMBP box on Ebay (for those who really need to have one).
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Roger that. If some magical model comes out after Haswell, I'll get it, and probably keep that one a while.
 
There are actually better points to buy than others if you have options (an older machine that still can get the job done, in other words). Not all upgrade years are created equal, and if you plan to keep your machine for 3-4 years (that's my limit usually) you can indeed weigh the options.

So we know about Haswell already; much better power consumption at near-idle, mild performance increase at same clock speeds. Not much impact on power consumption at load, but the average user doesn't spent much time at full CPU load.

This refresh will likely not come with IGZO or any other "major" upgrades to the rMBP (I'd be happy to be wrong, but IGZO is a big stretch for this year when Apple hasn't even used it in any small-form products).

Broadwell aims to provide a 30% across the board power consumption decrease. This means 30% longer battery life at 100% CPU load. That's actually kind of a big deal, at least for a certain set of users. It either means better battery life for power users or options for higher performing CPUs with similar battery life. The iGPU is also expected to be another significant jump over the HD 5200.

I'd say IGZO becomes very possible at this point as well (remember that we're talking about at least Q3 2014, probably fall again to be realistic).

There'a also interesting stuff on the horizon for NVidia next year, though it's unclear if Apple is planning to use a dGPU option going forward or not.

I can't factually say that one of the two upgrades is going to be more significant, but if I had to guess I'd say it's Broadwell, simply because it's possible we'll see IGZO for another power consumption drop on top of the 30% from the CPU. For anyone who can tolerate skipping Haswell without it impacting their workflow, I'd say it could be a good call.

All of that said, I also agree that if you can afford it there's nothing better than a yearly upgrade funded by the sale of your old model. Different areas have different markets for the sale of used laptops, and some people may not be comfortable making this transaction (using Craigslist, etc), but in general it's possible to make a yearly laptop upgrade financially reasonable.

(Edit) Disclaimer: I'm intending to buy a 13" rMBP this year. I have a 2010 17" that I've held onto simply because you can't directy replace it, but I need something extremely portable for at least the next year. Haswell represents a solid potential upgrade for the 13" model (battery life, HD 4000 -> HD 5100 is a big jump). I'll probably be very seriously looking at swapping it for a 15" Broadwell this time next year.
 
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Wow, did not know that Broadwell aims to improve CPU consumption at full load by 30%, that is kind of crazy...

+1 for Broadwell.
 
Atomic Walrus said:
Broadwell aims to provide a 30% across the board power consumption decrease. This means 30% longer battery life at 100% CPU load. That's actually kind of a big deal, at least for a certain set of users.
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Well, yes and no. I think we can agree that battery life at full CPU load is currently pretty mediocre.

A 30% improvement on *anything* is nothing to sneeze at, but an increase in full-load battery life from, say, 3 hours to 4 hours isn't going to convince any mobile media professionals to leave their AC power supplies at home. In other words, it's nowhere near as significant as the massive boost in "casual use" battery life the MBA saw with the Haswell upgrade. Know what I mean?
 
johnnylarue said:
Well, yes and no. I think we can agree that battery life at full CPU load is currently pretty mediocre.

A 30% improvement on *anything* is nothing to sneeze at, but an increase in full-load battery life from, say, 3 hours to 4 hours isn't going to convince any mobile media professionals to leave their AC power supplies at home. In other words, it's nowhere near as significant as the massive boost in "casual use" battery life the MBA saw with the Haswell upgrade. Know what I mean?
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I believe we're looking at a decent power efficiency bump from top to bottom, as indicated by the graph Intel produced when talking about this:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7318/intel-demos-14nm-broadwell-up-to-30-lower-power-than-haswell

You can see that even at idle the Broadwell CPU is consuming significantly less power, and that ratio stays more or less even as it ramps up. If this is actually true (and obviously we don't know yet) it's a big deal because it means a 30% decrease in CPU impact on battery no matter how you're using the machine.

HolidaySeason said:
Broadwell Feb 2014 + IGZO! I'm gonna wait and see what happens then.
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Nope. June at the earliest, more realistically fall. Intel's own roadmap shows Broadwell mobile chips available starting in Q3 2014, basically the same as this year's Haswell launch.
 
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Atomic Walrus said:
I believe we're looking at a decent power efficiency bump from top to bottom, as indicated by the graph Intel produced when talking about this:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7318/intel-demos-14nm-broadwell-up-to-30-lower-power-than-haswell

You can see that even at idle the Broadwell CPU is consuming significantly less power, and that ratio stays more or less even as it ramps up. If this is actually true (and obviously we don't know yet) it's a big deal because it means a 30% decrease in CPU impact on battery no matter how you're using the machine.
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I hear you. And obviously, the 4+ hour battery life improvement the MBAs saw this year was a game changer considering the intended light-to-moderate CPU loads those machines are intended for. I'm just saying that bump in battery life at full CPU loads would be much less noticeable/significant in terms of allowing so-called "power users" to go AC-less for long periods of time.
 
At this point, the only thing worth waiting for is the MacBook you're gonna get.
 
I think Broadwell will be good when it finally ships, however, Skylake is where Intel will be making some drastic enhancements.

If rumors are true, Skylake should have DDR4 RAM support, PCIe 4.0 and Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gbps).

Those are some nice upgrades to resolve many bandwidth issues from currently available machines.
 
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