Ivy Bridge Mobile CPUs for Next MacBook Air and Pro Models Due around May

[OldMike]

While everyone is talking about the laptops, I'm really looking forward to seeing these in the Mac Mini. I opted to skip the upgrade on the current revision (my 2010 is just fine since Thunder Bolt is still pretty much a non issue right now), but I will be anxiously waiting for the new Minis to come out (especially if it will be supporting both TB and USB 3.0).

 

[435713]

Get em

Hoping for a 13' MBP with a good GPU, probably not though.

 

[MattInOz]

USB 3.0 flash drives are starting to compete with SSDs in performance.

Flash? Solid state? Whatever...

Well yeah there will be application that can use that speed and more and are willing to pay. Which is the sort of thing that makes for good discussion.
Yet people want to always bring up their Lego Star Wars USB drive and how it would never make sense to make that as anything that might compete with USB.

 

[Eidorian]

Well yeah there will be application that can use that speed and more and are willing to pay. Which is the sort of thing that makes for good discussion.
Yet people want to always bring up their Lego Star Wars USB drive and how it would never make sense to make that as anything that might compete with USB.

While a flash drive is going to be limited in terms of volume compared to a 2.5" SSD, nothing prevents you from using the same NAND and controllers. USB 3.0 and a fast controller remove a lot of the limiting factors for flash drives and open up their performance to be compared to SSDs over USB 3.0.

A USB flash drive is nothing more than a lower capacity SSD in a somewhat different form factor.

Not that 28 MB/s reads and 16 MB/s writes are terrible for a USB 2.0 flash drive.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Put 128 on the low end 13" and 256 default on the other models. Given Apple's profit margins on these machines it's not that difficult to think of, not even adding the fact the cost of flash memory is going down and Apple buys these things in batch.

Apple is an early adopter with things like flash and DDR3 RAM, this is why buying Apple branded RAM is a rip-off. The costs of SSDs are not going to come down THAT fast, unless you have some inside information that you'd like to share with the rest of the class.

Oh really? And I quote:
"Just a friendly reminder to those of you pipedreaming, it is not (yet, nor will it be in the near future)physically possible to have a discrete GPU in a MacBook Air Form-factor. Period."

And on a 13" MacBook Air it isn't. You can't have it in a MacBook Air form factor. You could do it in a tapered form factor, but not one that thin. I'm sorry, it's just not possible. On a 13" MacBook Pro it IS possible, but again, it's not gonna happen as it's not something Apple would do and it's not something that would satisfy a large enough percentage of their customers as most people are content with either going to a 15" MacBook Pro for a machine with a discrete GPU or sacrificing that for additional portability. I think I made which computer I was referring to in what you've just quoted specifically clear, or do you enjoy the idea of arguing semantics with me?

The logic board will now have to span across the entire machine in order for ports to be on both side. It's inevitable that they will make it larger (or at the very least longer) for one reason or another, pal.

Three words, LEFT I/O BOARD! Apple hasn't had a logic board span from the left side to the right side of the machine since the early PowerPC days. The MLB is not going to get larger, especially as the enclosure gets thinner; from an engineering standpoint, that makes no sense at all. As for whether or not the Ethernet, FW800 could fit on the machine if it's tapered, they can barely fit on the machine with its current thickness and if it's tapered, it becomes thinner at every point save for the far back of it, so no, even with a left I/I board, it will be cramped. If you'd like, I'd be happy to direct you to the Apple Service Manuals where most of this stuff is apparent. Really, I'd rather educate someone who clearly doesn't know what they're talking about than have a pointless conversation that only further demonstrates how much they don't know what they're talking about.

Pot, meet kettle.

Maturity much? Or is the whole point to be insulting? I won't judge if it is, I'd just like to point out that you don't really accomplish anything with that.

 

[darkplanets]

Perfect. Right about the time I'll need to buy a laptop.

 

[mcarling]

To replace it with 21st century Blu Ray.

You can wish for it, but Apple will not support Blu Ray.

Considering that 8GB SDRAM chip pairs (2x 4GB) are selling for only $50 these days I don't see why Apple couldn't offer it as the standard configuration in the next refresh/redesign of the MBP's.

Those 4GB(yte) DIMMs use 2Gb(it) DRAM chips. An 8GB MBA would need to use 4Gb DRAM chips. Have a look at prices for 8GB DIMMs.

So...you guys think Apple will include zero keyboard ports on their computers with the next range of cpus? That makes little sense. They will have USB, and there is little sense in them adding a downgrade from the Intel chipset. They said they were not adding USB3, not that they would never include it.

Apple will continue to support USB 2.0.

I hope that Thunderbolt is a reasonably priced alternative in the near future because I'm really tired of USB flakiness. ... That's one area where Thunderbolt will never catch on because it's totally impractical to put a $35 controller into a $29 device.

Those $35 controllers will be $3 controllers before you know it. I remember when USB cables were $29 at Fry's.

I also cannot see the mainstream PC market ever adopting Thunderbolt except maybe in a high end notebook. They'll continue to push the least expensive options in mainstream notebooks and let third parties come up with PCI solutions for the desktop.

I remember people saying that the mainstream PeeCee market would never adopt USB. Then Intel added USB support to all their chipsets and the PeeCee market quickly adopted USB. I suspect the same will happen with Thunderbolt.

As for whether or not the Ethernet, FW800 could fit on the machine if it's tapered, they can barely fit on the machine with its current thickness and if it's tapered, it becomes thinner at every point save for the far back of it, so no, even with a left I/I board, it will be cramped.

Expect Apple to drop the FireWire port. Support for FireWire will be via Thunderbolt-FireWire adaptor. The Ethernet port will probably be the limiting factor for how thin Apple can make the next MacBook Pro.

 

[AidenShaw]

Not[e] that 28 MB/s reads and 16 MB/s writes are terrible for a USB 2.0 flash drive.

Actually, they're terrible if and only if the flash drive is advertised as having cutting edge performance.

A lot of cheaper flash drives can't come close to that - and that's fine for most people.

I can buy a Class 4 32 GB SDHC card for less than half the price of a Class 10 32 GB SDHC card.

And, I buy both and have both with me - the slow ones for movies and stuff that I write from the home PC (wish that they had a 32 TB SDXC card to hold them all), and the fast ones for downloading the day's photos when traveling.

 

[KillerTree]

I'm waiting for the Intel Haswell processors

 

[oiuh151]

Apple is an early adopter with things like flash and DDR3 RAM, this is why buying Apple branded RAM is a rip-off. The costs of SSDs are not going to come down THAT fast, unless you have some inside information that you'd like to share with the rest of the class.

The prices are low enough to fit into Apple's humongous profit margins.

And on a 13" MacBook Air it isn't. You can't have it in a MacBook Air form factor. You could do it in a tapered form factor, but not one that thin. I'm sorry, it's just not possible. On a 13" MacBook Pro it IS possible, but again, it's not gonna happen as it's not something Apple would do and it's not something that would satisfy a large enough percentage of their customers as most people are content with either going to a 15" MacBook Pro for a machine with a discrete GPU or sacrificing that for additional portability. I think I made which computer I was referring to in what you've just quoted specifically clear, or do you enjoy the idea of arguing semantics with me?

You did not say the MacBook Air thinness. You said form factor. That was my point. Go back and read the conversation before you shoot yourself in the foot even more.

Simply putting a discrete GPU in the 13" will not steer away all of those 15" buyers. The 15" will still have a better discrete GPU. I doubt the majority of consumers even know what a GPU is.

Three words, LEFT I/O BOARD! Apple hasn't had a logic board span from the left side to the right side of the machine since the early PowerPC days. The MLB is not going to get larger, especially as the enclosure gets thinner; from an engineering standpoint, that makes no sense at all. As for whether or not the Ethernet, FW800 could fit on the machine if it's tapered, they can barely fit on the machine with its current thickness and if it's tapered, it becomes thinner at every point save for the far back of it, so no, even with a left I/I board, it will be cramped. If you'd like, I'd be happy to direct you to the Apple Service Manuals where most of this stuff is apparent. Really, I'd rather educate someone who clearly doesn't know what they're talking about than have a pointless conversation that only further demonstrates how much they don't know what they're talking about.

That's funny.

And seeing as how I stated the thickness of the machine would stay the same near the top to accommodate the CPU and GPU, the room for ports will also stay the same.

Not to mention that the MacBook Pro still has a decent amount that they can chop off should they decide to make it thinner near the top.

 

[AidenShaw]

Expect Apple to drop the FireWire port. Support for FireWire will be via Thunderbolt-FireWire adaptor. The Ethernet port will probably be the limiting factor for how thin Apple can make the next MacBook Pro.

Of course - and a $129 1394 to T-Bolt dongle to add to Apple's generous profit margins.

 

[Eidorian]

Apple is an early adopter with things like flash and DDR3 RAM...

When did that happen? Maybe if they were using DDR3 before everyone else and the fastest available. Otherwise they stuck to what nVidia and Intel controllers supported and provided the highest profits. Many PC vendors just stick to whatever is the slowest possible RAM they can put into a computer. DDR3-1333 kills fGPU performance and even worse a single channel. I am looking at you Dell...

Actually, they're terrible if and only if the flash drive is advertised as having cutting edge performance.

A lot of cheaper flash drives can't come close to that - and that's fine for most people.

I can buy a Class 4 32 GB SDHC card for less than half the price of a Class 10 32 GB SDHC card.

And, I buy both and have both with me - the slow ones for movies and stuff that I write from the home PC (wish that they had a 32 TB SDXC card to hold them all), and the fast ones for downloading the day's photos when traveling.

It is a fast USB 2.0 flash drive but people have wild expectations of flash regardless. A-DATA made a hard push for affordable USB 3.0 drives along with a decent controller to make it worth while and the read speed benchmarks to back it up.

Not that being a Class 10 device really means that much...

 

[ls1dreams]

Very nice

I think this may be the very first generation of macbooks that I'd consider buying with my own money.

I'm working on an early 2011 i5 sandybridge version, and it's pretty close to what I want, but with the following gripes:

- Runs very hot, and fans are constantly spinning and making a ton of noise. Hopefully the smaller die size will help fix this.

- LOL bad intel 3000 graphics. The new onboard solution should fix this and also allow 3 displays!

Gripes I hope they address in order of annoyance:
- Would love a 14" instead of 13.3" screen, but I don't see that happening.
- IPS screen !!!
- Sharp edges near where my wrists sit. Very annoying even after about 10 months of use. I thought I'd get used to it but never really did.

Other than that, as someone who came from a PC, I'm loving the touchpad, keyboard, and magsafe. With laptops, macs are the way to go. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for desktops.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Expect Apple to drop the FireWire port. Support for FireWire will be via Thunderbolt-FireWire adaptor. The Ethernet port will probably be the limiting factor for how thin Apple can make the next MacBook Pro.

The Ethernet port is thicker than the FireWire port. The only reasons to remove the FireWire port are to increase thinness (which you can't do if you also want the Ethernet port) or to replace it with another port (like Thunderbolt or USB).

The prices are low enough to fit into Apple's humongous profit margins.

Apple can charge the cost of a MacBook Air because people will buy it. You think that Apple will have as many people paying that much more for their computer just so it can be thinner?

You did not say the MacBook Air thinness. You said form factor. That was my point. Go back and read the conversation before you shoot yourself in the foot even more.

Well, great, now that you know what I'm talking about you are only serving to demonstrate a clear lack of politeness and maturity. Or is that your aim?

putting a discrete GPU in the 13" will not steer away all of those 15" buyers. The 15" will still have a better discrete GPU. I doubt the majority of consumers even know what a GPU is.

I never said that a discrete GPU in the 13" Pro would cannibalize sales of the 15" Pro. I said that it's not worth it to Apple to make that change in the 13" Pro as only a small minority of customers of that machine care and don't want the 15" Pro as an alternative.

That's funny.

Yes, the left I/O board, just like I said. What's funny is that you don't see that it's two different parts. Want me to send you the service manual for that machine in which the second part is not only listed, but a part number is also supplied? Or you wanna keep on trollin'?

And seeing as how I stated the thickness of the machine would stay the same near the top to accommodate the CPU and GPU, the room for ports will also stay the same.

Take one apart, you'll see that you don't know what you're talking about. Space is very limited as it stands.

Not to mention that the MacBook Pro still has a decent amount that they can chop off should they decide to make it thinner near the top.

You are wrong. Take one apart and you'll see for yourself. Or continue to argue what you don't know to someone who does this **** for a living. Be my guest.

See. It. Naked. I've repaired dozens of these things. I've gutted more than my fair share. Citing stock pictures and pictures from iFixIt that you can't even see clearly doesn't accomplish anything for you other than trolling and shooting YOURSELF in the foot. But again, be my guest.

 

[DaveN]

lots of ram and open cl support

is all I want. Oh yeah... three monitor support so I can plug it in to two external monitors. Then I'll settle for the 13 inch screen and dual core cpu. It would be nice to have a 15 inch airbook form with a quad core and all the above but I just don't see it happening.

edit: I'm holding out on replacing my 66 month old MacBook 1,1.

 

[tCdemon]

Can't wait for the new line of MBP to come out hopefully they are completely redesign...Am would jump on a new one if their MBP13 has a higher resolution!!!! 1900x1080 here I come!!!

 

[Fandongo]

Don't hold it like that.

Actually, they're terrible if and only if the flash drive is advertised as having cutting edge performance.

A lot of cheaper flash drives can't come close to that - and that's fine for most people.

I can buy a Class 4 32 GB SDHC card for less than half the price of a Class 10 32 GB SDHC card.

And, I buy both and have both with me - the slow ones for movies and stuff that I write from the home PC (wish that they had a 32 TB SDXC card to hold them all), and the fast ones for downloading the day's photos when traveling.

CF cards were destroying SD in speed for a long time.
SDs crawled from 15MB/s -> 20MB/s -> 30MB/s at crazy prices.
and then...almost overnight
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/824136-REG/SanDisk_SDSDXPA_008G_A75_Extreme_Pro_8_GB.html

95MB/s for $30!!

Although...what does the built-in MBP SD card speed max out at anyway?
USB 2.0?
And you can't use a USB 3.0 card reader to it's potential (on mac)...
And there's no FW800 SD card reader... In fact, the CF FW card readers have vanished from the retail market and now go for $200!!!

I still think i'll be long dead before any thunderbolt peripherals (like a blazing card reader) exist.

But I did just get a class 10 16gb SD for $15

 

[Stridder44]

Sweet. I don't care if they make them thinner or drop the optical drive, just as long as the MacBook Pros still have a nice, solid discrete GPU I'll be happy.

 

[mcarling]

I'm working on an early 2011 i5 sandybridge version, and it's pretty close to what I want, but with the following gripes:

- Runs very hot, and fans are constantly spinning and making a ton of noise. Hopefully the smaller die size will help fix this.

- LOL bad intel 3000 graphics. The new onboard solution should fix this and also allow 3 displays!

Yes, Ivy Bridge will approximately double the performance per watt, so you can have cooler operation and faster graphics.

Gripes I hope they address in order of annoyance:
- Would love a 14" instead of 13.3" screen, but I don't see that happening.
- IPS screen !!!
- Sharp edges near where my wrists sit. Very annoying even after about 10 months of use. I thought I'd get used to it but never really did.

The solution to the problem with your wrists resting on the edge may be to switch from the 13" to the 15" model. Since you prefer 14" to 13", 15" can't be too far from optimal for you. Try one in an Apple store and see whether or not it solves the wrist rest problem for you.

The Ethernet port is thicker than the FireWire port. The only reasons to remove the FireWire port are to increase thinness (which you can't do if you also want the Ethernet port) or to replace it with another port (like Thunderbolt or USB).

You're not looking at it from Apple's perspective. Dropping the FireWire port helps drive the adoption of Thunderbolt (and lowers Apple's production costs). In case you haven't noticed, Apple have chosen Thunderbolt as a strategic technology.

 

[Yebubbleman]

You're not looking at it from Apple's perspective. Dropping the FireWire port helps drive the adoption of Thunderbolt (and lowers Apple's production costs). In case you haven't noticed, Apple have chosen Thunderbolt as a strategic technology.

Remember how long it took for FireWire 400 to disappear? I won't deny that Thunderbolt is in a great position to replace FireWire 800, but I don't agree with your notion that (a) they'll kill it to push Thunderbolt and (b) that they'll do it ASAP, given that they just finished pushing it to every shipping Mac (save for the Air which barely has room for the ports it DOES have).

 

[mcarling]

Remember how long it took for FireWire 400 to disappear? I won't deny that Thunderbolt is in a great position to replace FireWire 800, but I don't agree with your notion that (a) they'll kill it to push Thunderbolt and (b) that they'll do it ASAP, given that they just finished pushing it to every shipping Mac (save for the Air which barely has room for the ports it DOES have).

Remember how long it took Apple to drop ADB ports? Anyway, one way or the other, we'll see soon enough. My guess is that the next Mac Pro will go from the current four FireWire ports to one or two and that the next Mac Mini and MacBook Pro will drop the FireWire ports altogether -- but continue to support the protocol via a Thunderbolt dongle.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Remember how long it took Apple to drop ADB ports? Anyway, one way or the other, we'll see soon enough. My guess is that the next Mac Pro will go from the current four FireWire ports to one or two and that the next Mac Mini and MacBook Pro will drop the FireWire ports altogether -- but continue to support the protocol via a Thunderbolt dongle.

Again, too soon. No reason the two can't co-exist as they have in this past generation. I also don't think it makes sense while there are plenty more FireWire 800 devices than Thunderbolt devices. Also, at $50 a cable versus the $11 that a FireWire 800 cable costs, I don't think the future is here just yet.

 

[mcarling]

Again, too soon. No reason the two can't co-exist as they have in this past generation. I also don't think it makes sense while there are plenty more FireWire 800 devices than Thunderbolt devices. Also, at $50 a cable versus the $11 that a FireWire 800 cable costs, I don't think the future is here just yet.

You might be right. We'll know in about six months.

 

[435713]

The solution to the problem with your wrists resting on the edge may be to switch from the 13" to the 15" model. Since you prefer 14" to 13", 15" can't be too far from optimal for you. Try one in an Apple store and see whether or not it solves the wrist rest problem for you.

I rest my hand where it doesn't bother me on the 13 inch MBP but I hear a lot of complaints about the sharp edges. Problem is its quite a bump for many to go from $1000 (microcenter MBP 13 price) up to $1700 which is usually amazons price for the 15 inch. Be nice if you had a choice of screen sizes for the 1k mark.

The 15 and 17 inch MBP's I would never buy at their current prices, I sort of get why the prices are that up there since they are like a Dell Precision or HP Elitebook, which are comparable. I wouldn't buy those either of course. If Apple had a similar machine to the 15 inch XPS with that awesome RGB display for 1299 I would be ALL over that.

 

[thekev]

Apple is an early adopter with things like flash and DDR3 RAM, this is why buying Apple branded RAM is a rip-off. The costs of SSDs are not going to come down THAT fast, unless you have some inside information that you'd like to share with the rest of the class.

They've been less and less of an early adopter. The trap here is that people often compare Macs to machines that are half the price. On anything in the Mac price range, other manufacturers upgrade components at a comparable pace. Apple is sometimes slower in some circumstances, like with the NVidia chipset thing a couple years back where they were reluctant to move away in the transition from Core2 duo.

Regarding Apple ram once again it depends on your comparison. Some machines have stock configurations with more ram, but some come with very little combined with expensive upgrade options (if you look at a company like Dell I swear their whole profit margin is based on upgrade options).

Those 4GB(yte) DIMMs use 2Gb(it) DRAM chips. An 8GB MBA would need to use 4Gb DRAM chips. Have a look at prices for 8GB DIMMs.

Didn't he say "MBP"?

Yes, Ivy Bridge will approximately double the performance per watt, so you can have cooler operation and faster graphics.

Numbers have been all over the place. I'd say you're being pretty optimistic.

The 15 and 17 inch MBP's I would never buy at their current prices, I sort of get why the prices are that up there since they are like a Dell Precision or HP Elitebook, which are comparable. I wouldn't buy those either of course. If Apple had a similar machine to the 15 inch XPS with that awesome RGB display for 1299 I would be ALL over that.

You're comparing totally different machine designs. The macbook pros and elitebooks /precisions are absolutely nothing alike. I'm not sure now but some of them have used desktop internals in the past on their top models with weird exotic cooling solutions. They're made for engineers doing field work where they absolutely cannot take along a workstation. Some of them hold up to 4 hard drives and 32GB of ram or more with workstation graphics. Anyway combined with the lower volume of such a machine, they do cost way way more to produce than a macbook pro.

Personally I'd buy a macbook pro as I don't need to do my heaviest work on a laptop, but dude..... you were just so far off there. The only thing the macbook pros have in common is a $2k+ price tag (fyi I use a mac).