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Intel Announces Setback in Production of Chipsets Destined for iMac Revision

PeterQVenkman said:
A $300 million mistake is pretty big.
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Well, $700 million. But then Ballmer is still running Microsoft, and he cost the company a lot more than $700 million.


CFreymarc said:
Since the screw up was so big to justify a press release, you can make sure that the execs in Santa Clara are going to reexamine their outsourcing policies if they haven't already. With domestic real estate prices going down, the cost of a good domestic engineer is also going down. It is starting to balance out.
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More outsourcing then to recover the $700 million :-(


Cavepainter said:
Maybe it was only one mistake.. but its nearly three quarters of a BILLION dollar mistake. Most companies don't like employees that make mistakes like that.

Except Enron. :D
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I wouldn't count what happened at Enron as "mistakes".
 
Its amazing how Intel is not the dominator chip house as back in the day. (tongue in cheek - the go go 1990's chip days)
I dd some contract work at various intel fabs - they were amazing and huge - and full of the top engineers and scientisists - and good cafeterias
Catherdrals of the chip industry - back in the day
Now they dropped the ball on a product called - cougar point - sheesh
 
As bad as I feel for those waiting, this will mean my mid 2010 MBP 13 will be up for replacement when the update comes :)
 
fblack said:
Well this just bites the big one. I've been holding off buying a MBP for over a year now, as the latest offerings were underwhelming. Sandy Bridge on the other hand was looking good to me. My last laptop died over the holidays and I've been waiting for the refresh. However, I can't wait all the way till april-may time frame that's too long and educational discount will be running out. Looks like I will be paying today's prices for last year's hardware, what crappy luck...:(
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Gosh you don't know how Sandy Bridge will perform in Macs and already it looks good to you?

And..so what if you buy "last year" tech? If it does the job for you, then i's good. And sorry, but it's not like i5 and i7 are so outdated. I highly doubt there will be such a big performance increase between current lineup and Sandy Bridge. If you want blazing performance, get a current MBP and add an SSD to it. You'll be saying "Sandy what"? before long.
 
ECUpirate44 said:
Probably the usually advertised amount. For Arrandale it was 8-9 so for SB I expect 10-11 to be advertised which means 5-6 during normal use.
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Apple hardware routinely meets or exceeds their published battery life numbers, with real-world usage.

apathyduck said:
According to several sources, this bug doesn't affect the first two 6gbps SATA ports - only the last four 3gbps ports.

The MBP (and iMac) line would only be supporting two SATA devices (and possibly only one if they drop the optical drive).

Therefore, this bug should not affect production at all, even using the flawed chipset.
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Intel has been on the wrong side of that PR game before, with pretty disastrous results.

I don't doubt that there will be companies willing to "tell the story" why it's OK to use the flawed chipsets, but I doubt Apple wants in on any of that that action. On the contrary, I think companies like Apple with great reputations for quality are going to give these flawed chipsets a wide berth.
 
John.B said:
Apple hardware routinely meets or exceeds their published battery life numbers, with real-world usage.


Intel has been on the wrong side of that PR game before, with pretty disastrous results.

I don't doubt that there will be companies willing to "tell the story" why it's OK to use the flawed chipsets, but I doubt Apple wants in on any of that that action. On the contrary, I think companies like Apple with great reputations for quality are going to give these flawed chipsets a wide berth.
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I agree, I don't think apple would ever sell the flawed chips even though it's "ok" to use them.
 
So uhh can someone talk to me for just a moment?
They are not affecting notebooks but theyre affecting the imacs? Okokokokokoo... Sooo on the next refresh of the imacs are they having sandy bridge or not?!?! Idc if its march or july just they have to have sandy bridge on the next refresh or apple is going to be behind in the desktop computers as they already are! Plus im supposed to buy one next refresh... :p
 
NOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo........

On a side note, I want my first MBP to be as perfect as possible, so I guess this isn't a bad thing...
 
John.B said:
Apple hardware routinely meets or exceeds their published battery life numbers, with real-world usage.
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Really? So who here gets the advertised 8-9 hour battery life on their MBP with the screen on half brightness and using a web browser.
 
agreed, last weeks supply shortage info was like sweet deal, finally something not "i" related. intel rolling out quantities in sufficient mass this time.. looking good.
 
Anandtech said:
If you have a notebook system with only two SATA ports however, the scenario is a little less clear. Notebooks don’t have tons of storage bays and thus they don’t always use all of the ports a chipset offers. If a notebook design only uses ports 0 & 1 off the chipset (the unaffected ports), then the end user would never encounter an issue and the notebook may not even be recalled. In fact, if there are notebook designs currently in the pipeline that only use ports 0 & 1 they may not be delayed by today’s announcement. This is the only source of hope if you’re looking for an unaffected release schedule for your dual-core SNB notebook.
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So , is it true?

Omg, that would be so awesome... Im having my birthday this month and i would love if i could get my first mac this month aswell.
 
Joshknightmare said:
So uhh can someone talk to me for just a moment?
They are not affecting notebooks but theyre affecting the imacs? Okokokokokoo... Sooo on the next refresh of the imacs are they having sandy bridge or not?!?! Idc if its march or july just they have to have sandy bridge on the next refresh or apple is going to be behind in the desktop computers as they already are! Plus im supposed to buy one next refresh... :p
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Well if it effects new iMac's it only effects the ones with the SSD second drive option. As the default config would still only use the two un-effected SATA ports.

So they might release some models and delay just the secondary SSD option till fixed chips start shipping.

Maybe a dumb question, but couldn't they use a SATA port multiplier in those configurations?
 
All the whinging about a laptop that doesn't even exist yet, that Apple hasn't even announced…geez there are a lot of spoiled people on this forum.

People: if Apple's current line up works for you (and I would guess that it does for 99.9%), and it's available, BUY IT if you need a Mac. If you are so desperate to be on the bleeding edge, then wait till 2012, when Apple will be sure to intro a line of laptops that make the non-existent Sandy Bridge line look like kid's toys.

Get a grip on reality, people. Happy with what you have? Awesome, good on ya. Need a Mac now? Apple has one that will suit you, go buy it. If you must have the latest and greatest, keep hoarding your pennies and putting off buying a machine until one is created that has anti-obsolescence built in. Wait, then what would Apple's marketing team do? Oh yeah, they have iOS devices to promote...
 
fblack said:
Well this just bites the big one. I've been holding off buying a MBP for over a year now, as the latest offerings were underwhelming. Sandy Bridge on the other hand was looking good to me. My last laptop died over the holidays and I've been waiting for the refresh. However, I can't wait all the way till april-may time frame that's too long and educational discount will be running out. Looks like I will be paying today's prices for last year's hardware, what crappy luck...:(
Click to expand...

why dont you just buy the current one if you have been waiting so long? SB is going to be, I'd guess, a 10-15% improvement...for processor intensive work. Not even for day to day stuff. 20-30 min more..on a 9 hour battery.At some point the latest tech is diminishing returns, and I think we have are there. Unless you do hardcore design or computing, this delay only affects tech OCD people.

I just paid todays prices for last years hardware (well, refurb). But I don't really need anything too much faster than last years hardware right now. And I needed it right now. Id rather have a new computer now than a slightly faster one in 3-4 months. YMMV.
 
ldellx3 said:
Wow really?? Is that what happened last time? I can't wait that long, because I need this for college.
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If you need it, buy it before Lion and then just buy the upgrade or borrow a friend's copy. It's college, someone else in your dorm is bound to buy it at some point.

voyagerd said:
I just interviewed for an internship at Intel where they do testing/debugging/verification/validation for the chipset...
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LULZ!

syan48306 said:
Really? You will rather wait several months for a laptop you're spending ~2k for in order to save on software that's going to cost you a whopping 29.99? :rolleyes:

EDIT: Yes you will have to pay full price.
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There's that, but there's also the convenience of not having to do the upgrade install. Sure Apple's upgrade installs are far more reliable than Microsoft's, but still not all of them go flawlessly and if you can avoid that risk for the first of three or four OS upgrades, why not?

RichardBeer said:
There is no way to tell how much Lion will cost until it's release.
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This.

MattInOz said:
Well if it effects new iMac's it only effects the ones with the SSD second drive option. As the default config would still only use the two un-effected SATA ports.

So they might release some models and delay just the secondary SSD option till fixed chips start shipping.

Maybe a dumb question, but couldn't they use a SATA port multiplier in those configurations?
Click to expand...

The next generation iMac will, more likely than not, be out late enough past all this that it'll pretty much be a moot point for ANY iMac, optional SSD drive or not.

Bruticus said:
All the whinging about a laptop that doesn't even exist yet, that Apple hasn't even announced…geez there are a lot of spoiled people on this forum.

People: if Apple's current line up works for you (and I would guess that it does for 99.9%), and it's available, BUY IT if you need a Mac. If you are so desperate to be on the bleeding edge, then wait till 2012, when Apple will be sure to intro a line of laptops that make the non-existent Sandy Bridge line look like kid's toys.

Get a grip on reality, people. Happy with what you have? Awesome, good on ya. Need a Mac now? Apple has one that will suit you, go buy it. If you must have the latest and greatest, keep hoarding your pennies and putting off buying a machine until one is created that has anti-obsolescence built in. Wait, then what would Apple's marketing team do? Oh yeah, they have iOS devices to promote...
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I can't speak for people who want to replace their Mid-2010 laptops, though I can say that it makes sense to buy more at the beginning of a release cycle than at the end as your computer has a grace period lasting until the end of its release cycle before it becomes older than the current and thusly, closer to being at the point where things like the current version of Mac OS X won't run on it. For example, the iMac I have in my signature was announced in January, I bought it in February, and it was discontinued in September in favor of the generation thereafter. Technically, I have seven more months of usefulness out of my computer than someone who bought the exact same computer at the beginning of September. It's just a better investment that way.


redkamel said:
why dont you just buy the current one if you have been waiting so long? SB is going to be, I'd guess, a 10-15% improvement...for processor intensive work. Not even for day to day stuff. 20-30 min more..on a 9 hour battery.At some point the latest tech is diminishing returns, and I think we have are there. Unless you do hardcore design or computing, this delay only affects tech OCD people.

I just paid todays prices for last years hardware (well, refurb). But I don't really need anything too much faster than last years hardware right now. And I needed it right now. Id rather have a new computer now than a slightly faster one in 3-4 months. YMMV.
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I feel like my "buy at the beginning of a refresh cycle" argument has a lot less weight on refurbished models, but either way, it's still sensible to give yourself as long of a period of time where your machine is the current release as you can, so you can have as long of a time before the machine becomes too old to run modern software.
 
im not sure if this has already been mentioned here but Cnet has posted its own opinion on the MBP delay.
New Sandy Bridge laptops have been expected somewhere around the end of February. Even if that timeframe doesn't shift, consider that last year's Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs became available immediately after CES. Apple's new MacBook Pros debuted in April. If that same pattern held true this year, tea leaves would point to somewhere around the end of May/early June.
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as you can see this is even a later prediction than anandtech predicted:
If we assume fixed chipsets are available in the last week of February, they can be put into systems the first week of March. Then expect at least a week of testing and validation if not more. Add another week to ramp up production and we’re looking at late March or early April for dual-core SNB notebooks. Those of you waiting on Apple’s updated MacBook Pros fall into this category. I’d say April is a safe bet if you’re waiting on an upgrade.
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even though SB seems really amazingly awesome!! im sort of happy that i chose to buy now instead of wait cuz April/May/June is just too long away (it wouldve been a year of waiting then)...
 
Wirelessly posted (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/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Intel now gets a free do-over (1 billion$) on a terrible DRM-based design. Techzilla's Robert Herron found a 24 frame bug that was crashing his encoding as well as numerous performance problems.
 
Yamcha said:
That is too bad, but I don't think Apple have any plans of adopting to the new Sandybridge anytime soon, so I don't think it really ruined any plans for upcoming iMacs or Macbooks..
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Am I the only person (or at least one of the very few) who also see things this way?

All I've seen on here for quite a while now is people waiting with baited breath for Sandy Bridge because they want it to be in the next MBP revision. No confirmation from Apple (or Intel), although that's hardly surprising even the day before a dead-cert release...

Then Intel finally announce SB. The Boards go wild. It's "obviously" destined for the next MBP. A few people raise issues about the close timing to the expected refresh cycle, but they're drowned out in the celebrations.

But maybe the next refresh wasn't going to be the "latest and greatest". After all, isn't one of the most common frustrations that Mac's hardware can lag behind it's PC peers?

Granted, I don't also think it's impossible. Time will tell. But that's the point. It's possible. It could go either way. It always could. But we'll known soon enough, depending on if/when Apple do their next laptop refresh.
 
chatin said:
Wirelessly posted (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/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Intel now gets a free do-over (1 billion$) on a terrible DRM-based design.
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This has nothing to do with that. Intel is not changing anything about the design, save for fixing the issue at hand.

Techzilla's Robert Herron found a 24 frame bug that was crashing his encoding as well as numerous performance problems.
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Citation needed.
 
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