CES 2010: Intel Officially Announces Core i7, i5, and i3 Chips Suitable for Apple Notebooks

[AidenShaw]

because intel has not custom designed apple parts before?

like the mba cpu....

Intel has never made custom CPU silicon for Apple before.

The MBA CPU was on off-the-shelf CPU chip put into small form factor carrier that was already in the Intel pipeline.

It is my understanding the Core i5/i7 release was the "Tick" and the die shrink of the same is the "Tock".

Yes - the "Tick" is Nehalem. The "Tock" is 32nm Nehalem.

Most of the old Core iN desktop chips are 45nm - the Tick.

The 32nm chips, also called Core iN, are the Tock.

Ooop, had that completely backwards - "Tock" is Nehalem, "Tick" is 32nm.

Check the specs to be sure, some Core i5 chips are 45nm, some are 32nm.

 

[HaXoR7Om]

are these new chips coming on the 27th jan?, so we can buy new MBP with new chips on 27th jan??

An apple event will be in progress at that date and we are hoping that the new MBP is coming it's due an update

 

[lilskaterpunk]

I hope to see Apple release some updates.

 

[jcque]

Someone knows more dates... other than 27th January

 

[xlii]

Cool! But like someone else already said: I'm going to wait for the summer refresh! I'll just stick with my October 2008 unibody Macbook until then! I'm also going to hold out on the tablet/slate.

I was talking to my wife last night and realized I don't need another gadget! lol! So I'm not buying the slate unless it does something amazing! Like something no one on this site has mentioned! And I really don't see that happening.

I'm assuming Apple will update the MBPs within the next 8 weeks. If that is the case the next MBP refresh will come Sep-Nov 2010.

 

[MarkCollette]

I, for one, have pretty much lost interest in the CPU technology over the last 6-10 years. The processors (all of them for desktops and notebooks) are fast enough for 90% of the consumer population doing 90% of the work. The only thing faster and faster chips help are the rare/limited use of extreme graphics rendering or possibly dvd/movie authoring.

I don't know if I'd call playing 1080p HD video extreme graphics rendering, but you pretty much have to have a CPU from the last few years to do that.

That being said, I've been waiting patiently for a long time for the computer hardware industry to enhance the true bottleneck: hard drive/storage performance.

Drive performance (for consumers), in my view, has been the same for the past 10 years and realistically at least 15 years with minor improvements. No, I'm not counting the people who have deep pockets that will buy super expensive (and super low storage capacity) 10,000RPM or 15,000RPM drives and then RAID them. Nor am I talking about high end drives/units designed solely for business data centers (vendors like NetApp or technologies like Fibre).

Perpendicular recording? Made all the bits much more dense, so storage space has gone up a lot, but so have transfer rates. That's why we now need ESATA instead of just USB 2.

SSD? Faster, lighter, quieter, less power, more resistant to physical stress.

The updated CPUs over the past 10 years, to me, has been nothing more than the introduction multi-core technology (which practically no software vendor utilizes correctly or to its max) combined with lower power requirements (really only necessary for a laptop and when on battery power of course) and a few instructions here and there that Flash may use.

Multiple cores and virtualisation support have drastically affected the server space at all levels. And since people are on the net so much, it does affect them, even when it's not in their own box.

Sure, I'll take a faster CPU any day...but rarely is the CPU performance increases actually equating to real world differences for real world users. If you really think about most of your apps, they're not crunching numbers or sorting 1 billion records in a database...they are waiting for disk i/o or even network traffic. Again, sure, there are Photoshop diehards and movie rendering apps out there that will appreciate faster chips....but very likely, still, those apps are waiting for disk i/o and the CPU is idle quite often.

Totally. But I'd blame programmers (I am one) for that.

 

[eastcoastsurfer]

What went wrong since the Intel switch?

Considering what Apple charges for their laptops, I'm always surprised by the number of people considering upgrading their less-than-three-years-old laptop whenever a refresh comes around. In the PowerBook days, people ran their Mac laptops for 5 to 8 years pretty much as standard, and many still are doing so.

Presuming you're not all video producers, what's the rush? What can't your current laptop do that these new ones can?

(Anyone on a pre-Intel laptop is excused from this, obviously.)

That said, if new MBP's come with ESATA and quad-core chips, I'll consider trading in my Quad G5. If not, I can wait till it's fifth anniversary in March 2011. Plenty of steam left in the beast yet.

Apples QA process went into the tank is what went wrong. I have a SR MBP and it still drops keystrokes, has had the battery start exploding, and has had the main board replaced because of the Nvidia graphics issue. I've held onto it as long as I can, but I'm afraid of the next failure that will leave me computerless for days again. No computer == no work == no money.

I don't expect this computer to last as long as the G4 PBs (I sold my old one to a friend of mine and it still works great!), so I'm waiting for the imminent update to buy a new mbp.

 

[MacFly123]

"I do not pre-announce our partners' products and I certainly don't pre-announce Apple's products."

Good answer.

That is very funny lol! Made me laugh. He is like..... uh you think I have a death wish? lol

 

[0eyvind]

That is very funny lol! Made me laugh. He is like..... uh you think I have a death wish? lol

Haha!

 

[lilo777]

same here. that is if you mean upgrading your personal computers.

I need to see around 25 to 30% increase in performance and some other new features on top of that to consider upgrading from my current systems.

Would USB 3.0 help? That's what HP and others are adding to their notebooks.

 

[HaXoR7Om]

Would USB 3.0 help? That's what HP and others are adding to their notebooks.

hmm, I think there is a good chance that they will considering apple (Steve Jobs) always like to be at the very highest level of technological innovation.

 

[AppleMacFinder]

New MBP

i5/i7 + FAST (!) gpu + USB 3.0 = Sold
+ (maybe) crappy Intel gpu for power-saving

 

[EliteF50]

So, will we see i5/i7 chips in the 21.5" iMacs?!

 

[dnenciu]

And finally, the horrible flash performance is because of Adobe, not Apple. Anyway, 11-29% seems about average for Intel's chip refreshes. And one must remember that it's not normal to upgrade at every refresh. A 3-year old machine is going to be about 30-34% faster (only based on clockspeed). But there are several other advances as well, such as a faster bus speed and lower power consumption.

Face it, since the switch to Intel, those who upgrade annually have little incentive to do so anymore because the upgrades seem incremental (which they are). Too many people have the mindset that updates/refreshes must always bring about huge changes (a la the PPC days). It's maddening!

Why is everybody saying 11-29%?

11-29% is for a 2.53Ghz C2D. The current top mbp 15 and 17" come with 2.8Ghz and can go to 3.06Ghz so 2.8/2.53 % 100 = 110% so the diff would be more like 1-19%.

The new chips only come in 2.53 and 2.66Ghz vs 2.8 and 3.06Ghz for the current C2D.

For a new architecture the improvement is minimal at best I was expecting a lot more from a Nehalem based chip vs an architecture that's 4-5y old.

 

[jclardy]

Coming from a Core Duo Macbook the next gen will be nice for me.

Of course, if they use the Intel integrated chip in the 13" Pro I will probably buy a refurb with a 9400. Now if they have a dedicated card in the 13" then I'll go for it for sure.

 

[LeoNobilis]

It's not that hard to believe, as of recent MBP's nVidia GPU failure, I had more hardware failures with Macs than with PCs. Just bad luck for me, I guess.

Pardon me, MikhailT, for the abrupt nature of my reply.

That's a shame, indeed, that the most exquisite OS is dependant on terrible hardware and that the most beautiful technology items contain that very hardware.

 

[zedsdead]

Why is everybody saying 11-29%?

11-29% is for a 2.53Ghz C2D. The current top mbp 15 and 17" come with 2.8Ghz and can go to 3.06Ghz so 2.8/2.53 % 100 = 110% so the diff would be more like 1-19%.

The new chips only come in 2.53 and 2.66Ghz vs 2.8 and 3.06Ghz for the current C2D.

For a new architecture the improvement is minimal at best I was expecting a lot more from a Nehalem based chip vs an architecture that's 4-5y old.

I have to agree. I lot of people are comparing the 2.53 chips to similar clocked models, but as you said, the current Macbook Pro's can go up to 3.06. That will decrease the performance between the two considerably.

 

[Razeus]

I'm sorry, but only a 15-30% performance increase just doesn't cut it for me. Especially on my Fall 2008 MBP unibody. I was looking for 50% increase, minimum. I'll wait until 2011 or 2012.

 

[aegisdesign]

I have to agree. I lot of people are comparing the 2.53 chips to similar clocked models, but as you said, the current Macbook Pro's can go up to 3.06. That will decrease the performance between the two considerably.

Depends. We'll have to wait for benchmarks for the i7 620/640 M/LM chips but they should still be faster, use less power particularly at idle and you also have Hyperthreading support on the iN chips where you didn't on the Core2.

It appears from early reports that the lower clocked i5-540 is also quicker than the T9900 in some regards.

 

[Corato]

I would like to see 4 RAM slots and 16GB Max, maybe an external optical in favor of 2 HD with choice to mirror or not. USB 3 seems to be a real must at this point.

When you run large VM's you can use all the RAM and storage you can get.

 

[Rocketman]

Why is everybody saying 11-29%?

11-29% is for a 2.53Ghz C2D. The current top mbp 15 and 17" come with 2.8Ghz and can go to 3.06Ghz so 2.8/2.53 % 100 = 110% so the diff would be more like 1-19%.

The new chips only come in 2.53 and 2.66Ghz vs 2.8 and 3.06Ghz for the current C2D.

Simple. the 2.53Ghz figures are compared to give an "apples to apples" comparison at a fixed frequency. That advantage alone is 11-29%.

In addition to that the die shrink allows higher frequencies and/or lower power. The % advantage is neither known nor fixed. Part of the variable that is unknown is the "yield" of the "good chips" from the new process. Sometimes they get lucky and there is a bias toward faster, higher frequency chips because the process simply works better. If they don't get lucky with the process, they simply downclock the chips that are made "on average" and the performance is linearly hurt.

If I just spoke French, forget it, just understand there is such a thing as "good batches" and "bad batches".

I am going to guess for a "typical" new chip there is a 16-40% overall improvement, inclusive of a 0.2Ghz average increase. Don't forget there is "good, better, best" all impacted this way.

The fourth low-end speed is pretty much "pulled from the bin". Those can go into Mac-Mini's and Polycarbonate MacBooks.

Rocketman

 

[dnenciu]

Depends. We'll have to wait for benchmarks for the i7 620/640 M/LM chips but they should still be faster, use less power particularly at idle and you also have Hyperthreading support on the iN chips where you didn't on the Core2.

It appears from early reports that the lower clocked i5-540 is also quicker than the T9900 in some regards.

Yes it is in some specific cases. But overall is just 1-19% faster than the existing 2.8Ghz model.

I was expecting a lot more from a brand new architecture.

As is it looks like it has no advantage over the old C2D for the moment and integrating a GPU that can barely compare to a 2y old 9400m doesn't strike me as a winner either.

Nehalem on the desktop was a bomb (Big increase in performance over the old chips). The problem is that apple took a bad decision and replaced a machine with 8 cores and 32gb ram with a desktop with one quad cpu and only 16Gb ram (that would cost an arm and a leg to upgrade to).

Lets hope they don't do something similar with the next MBP.

 

[cuse7284]

Looking to buy a new macbook pro ASAP

My computer just died today. Does this new news from Intel mean I should wait to purchase a macbookpro? Advise would be greatly appreciated.

Graphic Designer, so I use my mac for my career if that helps. Thanks

 

[dnenciu]

Simple. the 2.53Ghz figures are compared to give an "apples to apples" comparison at a fixed frequency. That advantage alone is 11-29%.

In addition to that the die shrink allows higher frequencies and/or lower power. The % advantage is neither known nor fixed. Part of the variable that is unknown is the "yield" of the "good chips" from the new process. Sometimes they get lucky and there is a bias toward faster, higher frequency chips because the process simply works better. If they don't get lucky with the process, they simply downclock the chips that are made "on average" and the performance is linearly hurt.

If I just spoke French, forget it, just understand there is such a thing as "good batches" and "bad batches".

I am going to guess for a "typical" new chip there is a 16-40% overall improvement, inclusive of a 0.4Ghz average increase. Don't forget there is "good, better, best" all impacted this way.

Rocketman

Yes I know all this details and the results they are getting from the first generation are exactly as in the past.

I guess my issue is with all those reviews that make it sound like the next coming or something when is just a modest upgrade that might have potential in the next update but not this one.

The process they use makes no diff to the end result which is that they can/want to only produce 2.53 and 2.66Ghz chips vs 2.8-3.33 in the old generation.

That they are nowhere near good enough at making integrated GPUs as demonstrated by a new GPU that can barely match a 2y old 9400m.

I understand the marketing logic behind forcing people to buy chips with your crapy GPU included but it should be illegal as it seems anti competitive (If you cant make better GPUs include them on your chips so people have no choice but buy them, anybody remember M$ and IE?) .

 

[zedsdead]

My computer just died today. Does this new news from Intel mean I should wait to purchase a macbookpro? Advise would be greatly appreciated.

Graphic Designer, so I use my mac for my career if that helps. Thanks

If you need the machine, which is sounds like you do then buy a new one now (you have two weeks to exchange it minus a restocking fee should new ones come out in that timeframe).

As for when the new ones are coming out, there have been no rumors suggesting it is soon so we really don't know. Based on trends, it should be between January and April.