Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Intel Launches New Broadwell Core M Processors, Likely Destined for Apple's Ultra-Slim Notebook
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That is what the MacBook Pro is for. It's thicker, heavier and more powerful than a MBA. This "don't make it any thinner" reasoning doesn't really apply to the MBA, hence the name.
All of the hardware components of the MBA reached a certain level many years ago that it's more than powerful enough even for semi-professional use (yes, not only for for Facebook and YouTube... there are people out there, including me, who actually use their MBA to get real work done).
The only thing I am a little bit concerned about is that the first generation might have problems driving the retina display smoothly. That's why I'm certainly holding off for at least one generation if this product ever comes into existence
My instinct guided me well also in 2010 not to buy the first gen MBA.Overall idea of a low power notebook sounds fine to me. I would like Apple to actually design around target disk mode more as an actual feature (make it more usable for non-power users, make it easier to get into/out of, better "docking" experience).
There are a lot of people who need power only when they get to a desk, but who want their storage everywhere.
Right now Apple won't sell me a 11" MBA with the lowest CPU and 1TB storage. I don't love the screen but I'd probably go for that.
There are a lot of people who need power only when they get to a desk, but who want their storage everywhere.
Right now Apple won't sell me a 11" MBA with the lowest CPU and 1TB storage. I don't love the screen but I'd probably go for that.
I have an '11 MBA that does nearly everything I need: It's easy to carry and runs MS Office, Keynote, Mail, Safari, and a few other apps. Its only drawback is power consumption - I have to turn the screen brightness way down to get about 3 1/2 hours of use when I'm flying or otherwise unable to recharge. If Apple releases a laptop that extends battery life even more than the current Haswell MBA and has a retina display, I'm in, even if performance is nearly the same as what I get now.
Why do so few people understand clock speeds?
When comparing among different processor models, they mean absolutely nothing. Do you really think a first-gen 1.3GHz Intel Atom would be more powerful than this chip? No, of course it isn't.
This isn't necessarily a downgrade - especially given the GPU boost. We'll have to wait and see what the benchmarks are like before declaring it a downgrade, sidegrade or upgrade.
When comparing among different processor models, they mean absolutely nothing. Do you really think a first-gen 1.3GHz Intel Atom would be more powerful than this chip? No, of course it isn't.
This isn't necessarily a downgrade - especially given the GPU boost. We'll have to wait and see what the benchmarks are like before declaring it a downgrade, sidegrade or upgrade.
You don't want these chips in a Mac mini. They are designed for extremely low power consumption and not much else.
Why so high power saving mode, Apple! This is 2014, we need at least 200MHz. We need slower! Not gonna buy that power beast.
I think you'd be surprised how much faster even these CPUs are. You may not be aware, but these CPUs are typically turbo-boosting somewhat the entire time (while plugged in). These things are designed to not kill themselves even if they're being smothered with a pillow and can't dissipate their heat. Keep your laptop in a room-temperature environment with good circulation, and these CPUs should probably hold steady (even during heavy usage) a good few hundred MHz higher than advertised. This comes from experience with my out of date 2011 MBA. It has likely improved since then.
Plus, MHz isn't really a good metric for CPU performance... There's a reason Intel CPUs still destroy ARM CPUs running at the same frequency. Architecture matters more than frequency does.
Your view doesn't come through in the written article.
Ultimately you need clock rate as architecture improvements only go so far. This combined with Intels questionable power rating methods leads to chips that run much hotter that their apparent power rating. Honestly there is a huge gap between 4 watts and 12. If the chip only really meets rated performance at 12 watts then you really need a platform designed to handle that power level.
Ultimately 900MHz is a joke no matter how you look at it. I really have to wonder how this chip would stack up next to Apples A8X understand sustained load. It would certainly do will turbo but if the chip can't sustain that I would imagine that performance is pretty ugly in comparison.
----------
I suspect that they could do it now. Apples chips don't have the same throttling problems, at least not to the extent that Intel has exhibited over the years. Phoney power ratings are nothing new for Intel here, if this is more of a twelve watt chip rather than a 4 watt then I could see A8X out performing it right now.
Of course performance is not everything, we don't know if the A8X has the I/O capability to actually do everything expected of a laptop. Still raw performance is pretty impressive in Apples latest IPads.
----------
Please remain skeptical! I just don't see this chip effectively performing to a point where it will be a decent MBA solution. I'd love to be proven wrong though.
when people refute this possibility and mention dual-booting (or an absurd 'new iOS/OSX mash-up' os
), is dual-booting even an apt description of what would happen were one able to switch iOS to OS X - based on whether they're docked to a keyboard? i kinda envision this but don't know much about OS back end
edit: i guess what i mean is wouldn't there be way more redundancies in the two apple os's - compared to switching to another company's os? if it meant less than a few-second-switch-over (admittedly an eternity in the mobile device world), pros would be very interested in using.
Last edited:
"There's a reason Intel CPUs still destroy ARM CPUs running at the same frequency. Architecture matters more than frequency does."
Do you realize how ironic that is? In the Pentium 4 era Intel was the one bragging about nothing mattered more than clock frequency. Then the the AMD Athlon slaughtered them in performance. And Intel ended up going to small R&D shop in Israel to find an architecture that did not utterly suck.
The main question though is how much performance do you need? I had reason to fire up my 2002 dual processor G4 recently, and it purrs right along. I replaced it with a 2009 mini due to lack of software updates for PPC, not lack of speed with what it had. Diminishing returns has set in. Even on the PC side, they are selling plenty of Celerons, plain Pentiums, and i-3 processors.
By the way, the 2009 mini will be staying online for a bit longer since Apple nerfed the current mini. It's still adequate for the task today, but in another five years it will probably take 4 cores to boot the OS.
Do you realize how ironic that is? In the Pentium 4 era Intel was the one bragging about nothing mattered more than clock frequency. Then the the AMD Athlon slaughtered them in performance. And Intel ended up going to small R&D shop in Israel to find an architecture that did not utterly suck.
The main question though is how much performance do you need? I had reason to fire up my 2002 dual processor G4 recently, and it purrs right along. I replaced it with a 2009 mini due to lack of software updates for PPC, not lack of speed with what it had. Diminishing returns has set in. Even on the PC side, they are selling plenty of Celerons, plain Pentiums, and i-3 processors.
By the way, the 2009 mini will be staying online for a bit longer since Apple nerfed the current mini. It's still adequate for the task today, but in another five years it will probably take 4 cores to boot the OS.
Of course anything is possible, but it's stories like this that make the iPad Pro/MacBook Air mashup machine seem even more likely. We've seen the kind of power Apple can wield in the iPad Air 2 using ARM/PowerVR. With a bigger battery you could crank that A8X up to quad-core 1.8GHz and probably beat the pants off these Intel chips performance and power wise. You just need an ARM compatible version of OS X. iOS is mostly there, and Apple has been rumored for years to have a full version of OS X running on ARM. If Microsoft can do it with Windows then surely Apple can do it even better with OS X. There is also precedent with the PowerPC to Intel switch. I bet this time around the transition would be more seamless. The only question is this: Would they go ARM across the board, or just for their lower powered machines? My thinking is that if they do ARM at all, it will only be on this new hybrid at first, and eventually replace everything. Think of a Mac Pro with dozens of ARM cores buzzing along. Many professional apps are geared more towards multi-threaded tasks. It might be years before that happens but at this point I think it's more a question of when, not if.
You mean the gigahertz race was a stupid idea from over a decade ago. Thank God it's over. Fanless, thinner (lighter) and more pixels, that's all I'm asking for. You want a pro notebook? Buy a MacBook Pro. This is my consumer laptop. Gimme a faster PCIe SSD for performance and keep your ancient spinning parts in your computer museum.
yikes.. even my 'bad luck with computers' buddies (who do nothing to upkeep their systems) get more battery life from their mbas than that.
I don't mean to call you out directly, as you aren't the only person to attempt to make a funny. It just grinds my gears.
Aluminium and aluminum are both accepted pronunciations and spelling of that metal. Aluminum is just the North American English version. It appears Webster's dictionary may be to blame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology
And I am saying this as an American...
Trouble with this particular set of chips for some new model of MBA is that even in a best case scenario it looks like its going to take the best of the bunch just to keep things at current levels of 2014 base model performance.
So where does that leave apple by way of up-selling options in that new product line? just RAM and storage capacity?
So where does that leave apple by way of up-selling options in that new product line? just RAM and storage capacity?
Here's how it works:
- The 12" MBA has a keyboard and trackpad but no screen
- If you want, you can plug it into your own monitor and use it like Mac Mini
- Or you can slot in an iPad Pro and use that as a monitor
- With handoff, it doesn't matter if you're using the iPad Pro as an iPad (iOS), or the MBA as a desktop (OSX).
Why not just buy a usb drive? Done and done. What's the point of having so much storage inside the machine?