Intel Announces 'Sandy Bridge' Core Processors

[aegisdesign]

The grass always appears greener. I buy a new MBP at each processor change and have yet to be blown away by a huge performance increase. It will be an improvement, but nothing like it appears.

For me, any CPU, GPU or memory performance increase is almost always brought crashing back to earth by having to still use hard drives and slow networks so they're largely irrelevant unless you're a gamer or do 3D CAD or something CPU intensive. So like Aatos, a new CPU boost is nice for about 2 weeks and then it's meh again as soon as your hard disk is thrashing away or you've got to ftp a few gb and it's no faster.

I wish someone spent the same amount of money and energy on solving fast, cheap storage and networking as Intel spends on pointless for 90% of the populace CPU upgrades. SSDs are getting there slowly but still expensive and limited in capacity. Networking has been stuck at Gigabit for ages and then runs smack into broadband speeds. It just seems like we're solving the wrong problems here.

 

[KnightWRX]

exceeded that found in the NVIDIA 320M that is presently used in the MacBook and MacBook Airs in Low detail settings

Impressive, beat a 2009 nVidia GPU in low settings...

Performance, however, did lag in Medium detail settings.

Oh wait, I see what this is. Again Intel has failed to deliver a good GPU. This thing is sub par compared to the 320M. The low settings scenario in those 5 of out 6 games were probably CPU bound and the faster processor helped. The actual GPU crown however goes to the 2009 GPU shipped by nVidia.

Wow Intel, just wow. We're in 2011 and you still can't beat tech from 2009. Sooooo impressive.

Of course, when Apple puts this in a MacBook, watch all the "Apple does no wrong crowd" claim that "it's faster in low settings!".

Well, if this happens, this was my last MacBook unless I go with one with a dedicated GPU.

The Intel/Nvidia dispute previously hindering Apple has been resolved, meaning that the next revision will likely feature another Nvidia-based chipset/discrete GPU combo.

No it hasn't. Intel has just refused to license nVidia to make chipsets for the new architecture and nVidia has bowed out of the chipset game. Discrete/dedicated GPUs were never a problem, the chipset (memory controller/pci bus/sata controller/IGP) are and are never coming back.

 

[Hellhammer]

I wish someone spent the same amount of money and energy on solving fast, cheap storage and networking as Intel spends on pointless for 90% of the populace CPU upgrades. SSDs are getting there slowly but still expensive and limited in capacity.

Intel is developing Light Peak, 10Gb/s, should be out later on this year. It's expected that it will replace or at least offer an alternative to Ethernet and other interfaces (USB, FireWire...).

Intel should be releasing G3 SSDs within few months. 25nm manufacturing method should bring nice price cut, the current word is that 160GB will replace 80GB and 300GB will replace 160GB, along with new 600GB model. New tech always costs more in the beginning but wait few years and I bet SSDs will be fairly affordable.

I would say Intel is trying to solve several issues but maybe it's just too much for one company. Broadband is limited by ISP and as you probably know, ISPs suck. However, some progress is being made in there too. At least here in Scandinavia, fibers are getting more and more popular and 200Mb/s (unlimited of course) costs roughly 50€ per month.

 

[S.B.G]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

The grass always appears greener. I buy a new MBP at each processor change and have yet to be blown away by a huge performance increase. It will be an improvement, but nothing like it appears.

For me, any CPU, GPU or memory performance increase is almost always brought crashing back to earth by having to still use hard drives and slow networks so they're largely irrelevant unless you're a gamer or do 3D CAD or something CPU intensive. So like Aatos, a new CPU boost is nice for about 2 weeks and then it's meh again as soon as your hard disk is thrashing away or you've got to ftp a few gb and it's no faster.

I wish someone spent the same amount of money and energy on solving fast, cheap storage and networking as Intel spends on pointless for 90% of the populace CPU upgrades. SSDs are getting there slowly but still expensive and limited in capacity. Networking has been stuck at Gigabit for ages and then runs smack into broadband speeds. It just seems like we're solving the wrong problems here.

I agree with you to a point. I wish we (in America) would deploy the kind of broadband speeds they have in Europe. I was blown away at the speeds they have up and down on another MR thread about posting your speed test results. I thought the fiber connection I have at work was fast, but compared to some in the old country, I may as well have been using a dialup modem.

But Intel is doing what they do, develop processors, not hard drives or SSD's. As far as networking and bandwidth, it will take the whole industry to upgrade forklift style. Think of all the different router makers, switches, NIC's, etc... out there that need to start moving forward. I agree with you though, I wish we'd start moving faster on the networking side. Storage speed is finally getting a boost with the SSD market.

 

[Mackan]

Too bad we have to wait until May for new MacBooks. I am very sure Apple follows the same release schedule as last year. First, it is time for iPad 2. Then, MacBooks. May it is.

 

[BornAgainMac]

The grass always appears greener. I buy a new MBP at each processor change and have yet to be blown away by a huge performance increase. It will be an improvement, but nothing like it appears.

I upgrade frequently and I have seen improvements in applications like Handbrake. Part of it is updates to the encoding engine though. Maybe it is the applications you are running that wouldn't see as much changes like Office.

 

[emotion]

I didn't say they will but Apple won't have to wait until the end of this year to get their hands on SB ULVs like you said.

They might be available to Apple but I'm saying they're unlikely to be putting them in devices until the end of the year.

Quad core sounds plausible now but we won't see new MBPs in January unless Apple gets early access to dual core SBs (they are shipping early next month, along with LVs and ULVs)

I think we might be looking at April/May for this.

 

[croooow]

Now a new set of "PLEASE HELP, when are the new MacBook Pros coming out? Should I wait" threads.

I never understood the "PLEASE" in the title of those posts, they usually mention in the body of the post that they now this is a rumor forum but they are still looking for "insider" information.

 

[Mattsasa]

hmm... I was expecting a macbook pro refresh sometime in Q2 2011, then planning on buying one shortly after... it looks like there is not enough time between now and then, for apple to adopt sandy bridge by the next refresh??

...other thoughts= I am pissed apple didn't update the x58 chipset! all of the features of sandy bridge are like... practical. But now I can no longer spend $5000-$10000 on a computer to make it super awesome!

 

[daneoni]

Apple better not skip on the dedicated GPU in the 13 refresh!

Keep dreaming

 

[Hellhammer]

it looks like there is not enough time between now and then, for apple to adopt sandy bridge by the next refresh??

Why? Apple has had access to these parts for months. Other manufacturers are already releasing SB laptops. Not having enough time is probably the worst excuse.

 

[Matrixfan]

It all depends on the drivers!

While I really enjoy the possible MBP and MBA upgrades I can't help to feel that needs to catch up to the rest of the world in 3D support at the software level. I mean it is great to have more and more advanced GPU-s in integrated systems, but performance and GPU utilization in Mac OS X is clearly sub par. My Dad's "ancient" HP notebook with a Mobility 9200 runs Google Earth sometimes smoother than my Mac Pro under OS X at the same resolution. Pro apps don't even support GPU acceleration and the ones that do performance is underwhelming compared to Windows version of the equivalent software. My friend is a biologist who has trouble with CUDA acceleration for his sequencing application. is very late to the 3D game and ignorance won't help here as they might get away with Blu-Ray I love the products but will have to reconsider Windows as my main workstation OS if this doesn't improve, and fall back to mac notebooks and IOS devices. When thinking about computers one shouldn't invest into the future and I'm already partial to

 

[S.B.G]

Does anyone think the new SB architecture will bring a noticeable performance boost to iMovie? I know it's [iMovie] is still 32 bit, but if Apple brings out iLife '12 next year with native 64 bit support, I hope iMovie and even FCP would gain a substantial boost.

I frequently do 1 hour long videos and rendering sure takes a long time on my 3.06GHz C2D, 6GB RAM.

 

[Hellhammer]

Does anyone think the new SB architecture will bring a noticeable performance boost to iMovie? I know it's [iMovie] is still 32 bit, but if Apple brings out iLife '12 next year with native 64 bit support, I hope iMovie and even FCP would gain a substantial boost.

I frequently do 1 hour long videos and rendering sure takes a long time on my 3.06GHz C2D, 6GB RAM.

I don't think the 32-bitness is an issue but Apple should add (better) support for multithreading since AFAIK, iMovie is still single-threaded. SBs have very effective Turbo so that should speed things up and if/when Apple adds multithreading support, Hyper-Threading will boost the performance even more

 

[S.B.G]

I don't think the 32-bitness is an issue but Apple should add (better) support for multithreading since AFAIK, iMovie is still single-threaded. SBs have very effective Turbo so that should speed things up and if/when Apple adds multithreading support, Hyper-Threading will boost the performance even more

Yeah, I forgot about the multi-threading. I bet it must be a huge undertaking to rewrite a program, especially a video program, to utilize more threads and cores. I just hope Apple is working on it and they can have it in next years release.

 

[Thunderhawks]

What about the double fudded 64 bit sideswipe factor?

Seriously , who cares about all that detailed info?

As a user I'll be there when it's all installed in a MAC of my choice.

Just put 'em in Apple

 

[fortunecookie]

I've looked at SB's mobile cpu chart and you guys are right that 45w quad cpus may not be logical yet for apple to consider them for MBPs but I am wishing that apple proves us wrong; get rid of the odd and pack it with additional cooling element and battery worthy of a quadcore cpu. Wishful thinking.

 

[Mattsasa]

Why? Apple has had access to these parts for months. Other manufacturers are already releasing SB laptops. Not having enough time is probably the worst excuse.

well I figure atleast half a year if not more to engineer, then more time to throughly test the product....

 

[KnightWRX]

well I figure atleast half a year if not more to engineer, then more time to throughly test the product....

You talk as if Apple hasn't had access to pre-release units for a while now.

 

[brasio]

Good news?

I cannot consider these changes a real performance improvement. Intel graphic has always been bad and I don't like their marketing. To obtain similar graphic performances now we need a CPU such as i5 or i7. 13 MBP design could be considered obsolete, as it doesn't provide the extra space for a dedicated GPU in the sandy bridge architecture. Intel has won: consumers are forced to pay their low quality graphic cards even if they don't need them, and chipset competitors are out of the business.
It's not a good piece of news.

 

[emotion]

Intel has won: consumers are forced to pay their low quality graphic cards even if they don't need them, and chipset competitors are out of the business.
It's not a good piece of news.

Intel are facing a massive future threat. It won't happen over the next year but over the next few years we'll see a large rise in ARM usage. I don't mean just on phones and tablets but at the server end too (people like Facebook, Amazon, Google etc drive the CPU industry). Intel, put simply, can't compete with ARM's lower power designs.

Apple is very much on the ball here, of course. Steve notoriously hates having to rely on other suppliers as they sometimes get caught in other people's tussles (eg. Intel and NVIDIA).

 

[JohnDoe98]

Impressive, beat a 2009 nVidia GPU in low settings...

Oh wait, I see what this is. Again Intel has failed to deliver a good GPU. This thing is sub par compared to the 320M. The low settings scenario in those 5 of out 6 games were probably CPU bound and the faster processor helped. The actual GPU crown however goes to the 2009 GPU shipped by nVidia.

Wow Intel, just wow. We're in 2011 and you still can't beat tech from 2009. Sooooo impressive.

Of course, when Apple puts this in a MacBook, watch all the "Apple does no wrong crowd" claim that "it's faster in low settings!".

Well, if this happens, this was my last MacBook unless I go with one with a dedicated GPU.

You are of course right that it is disappointing that they can't beat the 2009 tech, however, the question that is important is how much progress have them made in the last year? Intel claimed it wanted to take graphics seriously, so even if they have not overcome Nvidia from 2009, perhaps this shows promise for the future? I suspect the improvements in GPU tech are always big at first and incremental later on.

 

[08380728]

Big deal Intel, i'm snoring the chipsets are ****** with many features left out, like Native USB 3, limited to only 2 6GBs SATA on desktop and zero for mobile,. BTW WTF is Advanced Vector Extension a selling point for you muppets in 2011? PPC had AltiVec 1999/2000 yeah 10 years ago!! IBM was road-mapping multi-core back in 99 and SGI had Unified Memory Architecture back in about 97. Great, so buy SB now but expect 1% of software to be written to take advantage of it in 5 years time....greaaaaat!!! How long will it take Apple to take advantage of the AVC encoding in FCP? 10 years?

Where the hell is this 25nm SSD Flash from Intel/Micron promising 600GB SSD's? I personally need and prefer a massive performance revolution in storage performance rather than CPU enhancements. I'm sick of having to move **** at 60MB/sec on my MBP and externally with Firewire 800.

BOOOOOO Intel BOOOOOO

 

[emotion]

You are of course right that it is disappointing that they can't beat the 2009 tech, however, the question that is important is how much progress have them made in the last year? Intel claimed it wanted to take graphics seriously, so even if they have not overcome Nvidia from 2009, perhaps this shows promise for the future? I suspect the improvements in GPU tech are always big at first and incremental later on.

Intel needs to steal NVIDIA's low-end GPU lunch. At the moment the high end GPU tech (both graphics and the Fermi compute) is funded by this. A good enough solution at this stage will help Intel do this and slow the high end progress made by NVIDIA. They're not trying to appeal to most of us here who have higher expectations of the hardware. Most laptop users don't tax the GPU with their Facebook usage!

The interesting question here is: where does this leave AMD and do they have a chance at a deal with Apple? (at least until the ARM multicore, 64bit designs are mainstream).

 

[twcbc]

The performance won't be any different

This is not true. Apple was known as having poor implementation of low level software, saying driver, for OSX . And this leads the same hardware to perform less powerful in OSX than a well-implemented OS, like windows. Mac users will have their GPU working on h.264 acceleration and full OpenGL 3.x support under bootcamp(windows). But same hardware will not perform the same under OSX.

It's quite reasonable and logical to say we won't get the same performance jump in OSX, considering all the result we get is basing on windows, not OSX.