MacBook Pro Refresh Seeing Only Minor Delays Due to Intel Problems?

[FoxMcCloud]

Apple is Intel's bitch now. It's not their decision but to use the second-rate stuff Intel allows them to have.

Intel support SATA 6Gbs natively. Apple can use it if they want to.

Muppet.

New SSDs will saturate the slower SATA connector. 6GBs is necessary...

exactly. How in gods name can SATA6Gbs be worse and consume more power than SATA3gbs? Whats it gonna do give an hours less battery? O think not puppy dog! Newer faster hard drives consume less power than the ones they replace, even the ones currently in macs so in fact life would be better all around if Apple went with the latest port. Some people just defend companies blindly don't they!

 

[Erasmus]

I think people are forgetting that a huge part of the 13" MacBook Pro demographic is college students who use it to play DVDs. That will definitely play a role as keeping/dropping the ODD goes and I don't think Apple will drop it just yet.

Which is why the 13" MBP should just be renamed a MacBook when it gets SB, and keep the ODD.

Out of interest, are you a college student who uses a 13" MBP to play DVDs? If so, fine. If not, how do you know students watch lots of DVDs? My experience is uni students are more likely to either watch DVDs on a cheap TV, or download them off the internet directly or via friends.

 

[bigpics]

Other possibility: Apple was planning to use the defective port 2 for optical disk drives only. Maybe the 17" will keep the ODD in the next revision (aka the 13/15" will lose the ODD), which would mean that they are now rewiring the ODD in the 17" to port 0/1, and are not having any problems with the smaller MBPs as they might not have any ODD.

This doesn't change the # of ports used (unless they'd use a different one for what I'm suggesting), but I'm still hoping they ditch the ODD, keep the HDD (up to a terabyte of all kindsa' stuff) and use the space gained for a) more battery and b) 64-128 GB of SSD memory a la the MBA - where the OS and most frequently used functions and files would reside - and, finally knowing Apple, c) sleeker, lighter and "Airier."

If the finder could be coaxed to see this hybrid storage space as a unified entity (i.e., as one logical drive) (which might conceivably require direct wired communication between the two parts), in terms of the folder structure presented to the user, Apple could even tweak Lion to make "promoting" more recently/frequently accessed files saved on the HDD to the SDD, and as the SSD reached capacity, to "demote" less frequently/recently accessed files back to the HDD. With user options to "pin" selected files and folders of files to one or the other. And get info or, better, some small iconic visual indicator would reveal the actual physical location to users who wanted to know. Virtual cache and other such would also reside on the SSD memory.

And whatta ya got? 564-1128 GB of storage space that for most practical purposes runs as fast as an SSD of the same size for a fraction of the cost.

Add Sandy Bridge, make a state of the art GPU at least an option, offer a decent external ODD available at a fair price for the declining minority who need one and along with whatever other refinements, you'd have one sweeter, hotter, longer-running, svelter, meaner damn MBP.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Seeing as you can't use Blu-ray on a MBP natively, your NTSC DVD is far less quality than 720p from itunes.

But anyways, where's our Quad core SB Apple? So much for the "pro" in Macbook. You're telling me, not even the 17" can dissipate enough heat to handle a single 45W TDP CPU? You don't even need an integrated video anymore which reduces an extra 10W on each mobo. I love OSX but this Apple Tax and underperforming hardware and high-end prices is killing me. $1k for a C2Duo is a joke. Cheapest i7 is $2k...

The question isn't whether the Macbooks can dissipate the heat or not but whether they con do it without noisy fans.

In my office I am the only Mac user with 3 PC guys. If I hear a loud fan its for sure not my Macbook Pro.

 

[-=XX=-Nephilim]

.
I'd hate to be an early adopter on this refresh. Some hacked solution to fix the problem.

F that.

After relatively recent experience with MBP and infamous NVidia 8600M problem I have to agree fully...

It smells of disaster so, although I am due for an upgrade, I will definitely be skipping early batches - no doubt!

 

[CmdrLaForge]

You all who use the ODD "a lot" when you are away from home.. What is the trouble bringing an external ODD in your bag? I mean, where do you put all your CDs/DvDs that you have to bring with?

I like to have an internal ODD because I like watching DVDs on my Macbook Pro while having it on my lap. It would look strange if I have the ODD hanging on the side.

Having said that - I still wouldn't complain if the laptop gets much thinner and lighter. Without ODD and HDD this should be feasable.

I anyway think the Macbook Pro will go and we see Macbook Airs across the line. Of course they won't be called like that for marketeer reasons.

 

[Tyrion]

Why you so upset, dawg? I've never seen anyone on this forum more pretentious than you. Pretty amazing considering this is Mac Rumors.

What's your problem? His post was one of the most reasonable in this thread.

 

[Tyrion]

I think people are forgetting that a huge part of the 13" MacBook Pro demographic is college students who use it to play DVDs. That will definitely play a role as keeping/dropping the ODD goes and I don't think Apple will drop it just yet.

I don't know where you've been since, like, 2005, but DVDs are a dead format. They were supplanted by Blu-Ray long ago, their quality is terrible, and I don't know anyone who would shell out actual money for this crap, let alone give up 25% of their Macbook to consume it.

 

[ScholarsInk]

Out of interest, are you a college student who uses a 13" MBP to play DVDs? If so, fine. If not, how do you know students watch lots of DVDs? My experience is uni students are more likely to either watch DVDs on a cheap TV, or download them off the internet directly or via friends.

I'm a student with a 13" MBP but I don't use it to watch DVDs. As optical media goes, I use Blu-ray. I get my software through direct download - games through Steam and other software from the publishers directly. I avoid discs when I can because I travel a lot and they're quite impractical.

Still, I see my peers watch DVDs on their computers, including MBPs, all the time.

I don't know where you've been since, like, 2005, but DVDs are a dead format. They were supplanted by Blu-Ray long ago, their quality is terrible, and I don't know anyone who would shell out actual money for this crap, let alone give up 25% of their Macbook to consume it.

DVD (market-wise) has definitely not been supplanted and students definitely play DVDs on their MBPs. In more techy circles, perhaps, but not generally speaking.

I'm one of very few people I know who buys his films on Blu-ray. Even most PS3 owners I know just buy DVDs. I do not understand why, but it is, indeed, so.

 

[Tyrion]

DVD (market-wise) has definitely not been supplanted and students definitely play DVDs on their MBPs. In more techy circles, perhaps, but not generally speaking.

I'm one of very few people I know who buys his films on Blu-ray. Even most PS3 owners I know just buy DVDs. I do not understand why, but it is, indeed, so.

Probably depends on where you live. I certainly don't know anyone my age who goes to a store and buys DVDs. And even if they did, the notion of watching a DVD on their laptop would be alien to them.

 

[pooprscooper]

Why hold everyone back because you cling to your legacy discs? Should computers today still have floppies? At some point, they had to decide to stop building floppies into computers by default. I"m sure there was plenty of people who still wanted and used floppies. If I recall, Apple was the first to drop floppies in their systems.

 

[mdgm]

A lot of stuff still is only available on DVD. Either the quality of the footage is too poor to put in on Blu-Ray or it would push the price of the product too high.

DVDs may be super-seeded but they're still in wide use.

I don't want Apple to ditch the optical drive. If they must ditch though I'd want them to replace it with something not make the MBP thinner. It's more than thin enough already.

 

[newdeal]

...

They definitely wouldn't get rid of disc drives already..we still need them!

I don't, I would take almost anything in place of the optical drive, I only use it to install the OS

 

[ScholarsInk]

Why hold everyone back because you cling to your legacy discs? Should computers today still have floppies? At some point, they had to decide to stop building floppies into computers by default. I"m sure there was plenty of people who still wanted and used floppies. If I recall, Apple was the first to drop floppies in their systems.

I don't cling to any legacy discs. I said that other people do. I would be glad for a BD drive, but Apple seems hell-bent on avoiding them. I'm happy with my BD player, but it would be handy to be able to watch them while traveling.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Yay! A bonafide Mac Rumor.

I'm starting to get as sick of MacBook Pro rumors as I am iOS device rumors. Something that is neither a MacBook Pro, an iPod touch, an iPhone, or an iPad. Please!

The problem with the chipset was with SATA ports 2-5. Ports 0 and 1 weren't affected. How many chipset SATA ports does an MBP use? I'd be surprised if it was more than two (DVD-R and hard drive), so those broken ports aren't hooked up to anything anyway.

Optical Drive, Blade SSD, Hard drive. Three. Though to be fair, this would only be possible on a 15" or 17" Pro. Definitely not a 13"

Well! I'll be waiting to buy mine until I'm sure the channel has been cleared of these hacked/patched motherboards.

Just wait a few months until bugs like this one are ironed out and reviews have all come in. It's the sensible thing to do anyway.

should i return the 13 MBP i got last week and wait for the newchipset? Im happy with the machine but is the i3 really worth it?

I don't think it really matters with the 13" MacBook Pro. Were it a 15", I'd say that it's a better use of your money if you wait.

I will laugh out loud when I see the next MBP 13" with Penryn (still C2D). It should get a resolution bump, though.

I won't be surprised in the least, though I'll be pretty surprised if the machine retains the word "Pro" on it.

I'd suggest reading reviews comparing the current first gen core-i macs vs previous core2duos then decide if the performance boost is worth it for what you would use the machine for. Bearing in mind that the second gen core-i series is slightly better in all aspects.

Sandy Bridge is a pretty substantial improvement. If anything, Arrandale was the only-slightly-better upgrade from Penryn.

Today is the last day I can return the new MBP 13. This is my first mac and I love it but also want to make sure I dont end up with this and few weeks later i could have got better technology...

Not too much hard use...just basic computing....

If you just do basic computing, I don't think it'll matter much.

I agree. Besides, waiting for the back to school promotion before I jump on to replace mine.

Certainly a good economic move.

Excuse the idiocy of this question, but what is the point in having 6 SATA ports of only 2 are going to be used? Can a laptop be upgraded to utilize more ports or is this not a customizable feature?

So after all this waiting... we're going to have to wait even longer! Sigh... I've been getting the short end of the "stick of life" for that 6 months now.

The laptop might not use it, but the chipset itself has 6 SATA connections that could be utilized if the ports were on the board.

Return it! I couldn't imagine buying a 13" at this point unless your needs are limited to email, facebook, and safari.

That's short-sighted, you can definitely do video editing on a 13" Pro. It won't be as speedy as it would on a 15" or on an iMac, but you CAN do it just fine on a 13" Pro. The sit-com "Louie" is edited on a 13" MacBook Pro, so it can't be THAT bad for more than the basics.

pleeeeeease hurry........school starts again monday and my old laptop died last october. I've been waiting for this refresh forever already!

btw.....this will be my first mac.

Buy a Netbook in the meantime, then buy the MacBook Pro and if you want to, then sell the Netbook, or keep both. Pro solution right there.

Perhaps they will be using intel's quad-core i7-2630QM in their higher end models. This chip was unaffected with the SATA issue and could explain why only some MBP's were effected

None of their CPUs were affected; it's a problem with the chipset.

Other possibility: Apple was planning to use the defective port 2 for optical disk drives only. Maybe the 17" will keep the ODD in the next revision (aka the 13/15" will lose the ODD), which would mean that they are now rewiring the ODD in the 17" to port 0/1, and are not having any problems with the smaller MBPs as they might not have any ODD.

Doubtful; though Apple wouldn't be using more than two ports on the 13" model regardless as there's no room for blade SSDs AND a hard drive AND an optical drive. And don't start with me on the "drop the ODD" arguments.

Port 2 is the third port, or the first slow port. My theory is, that for some reason Apple might have planned to use it for the ODD (e.g. less power consumption). And now they are rewiring to use ports 0+1. And as the report says that not all but only some MBPs were affected, this could indicate that not all MPB models will have an ODD next revision.

Or, more likely, that not all MBPs will have blade SSD and a hard drive and that it'll be limited to the 15" and 17" models in the same fashion as SSD+HDD combo options are only limited to the 27" iMac and not the 21.5".

Ok, that theory starts to begin to make sense, but I have to ask, why let some MBPs keep the ODD when others are ditching it (particularly the 13" which will just be called a fat MBA)?

Just replace "ODD" with "SSD" in his theory and then it makes sense.

Or, dare I say, is apple going to keep the C2D in the 13"? If they are still using the chipset used for C2D models, this issue would not affect the 13".

I really hope this is not the case, but you never know.

Either that (which isn't unlikely) or they just won't use an HDD and an SSD.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if at least some of the new MBPs don't have optical drives. For most people (based on polls on this site) losing the optical drive for another HD or better performance would be beneficial.

Polls based on people on this site don't really mean much in terms of real world figures. The only people I know in real life who are down with no ODD are MacBook Air owners.

AKA: upcoming MBP 13" will still use a 3 year old C2Duo...

That's why it's smart to save up the extra four hundred and step up to a 15" model.

I agree, I think we will definitely see blade SSD and HDD in the next revision for the 17 and possibly 15. I don't think we will see the drop of the ODD, but I would love the option. Next MBP refresh, it's gone though. Right now the app store is just too new. Would love to be wrong on that count though...would really like to see a MBP 13 with discrete.

It's not going anywhere, successful Mac App Store launch or not. You can't download utilities from the Mac App Store that demand root access, which is a lot of them. That won't fly for things like Disk Warrior.

Oh dear. Just another thing to plug in and carry around all because the thickness of a 13" macbook is set in stone and must not be changed. If other manufacturers can squeeze an i series chip, od and a graphics chip in their 13" systems then I don't see why Apple can't. If Apple was to remove the od then if anything they will probably go even thinner so what else would go to make this happen? And would the price of an od'less system come down or would buyers still be expected to pay similar prices for less function and still have to buy an od on top of that? Personally if its all too much for Apple I think they should just get rid of the 13" macbook/pro keep the 11" and 13" airs and make affordable 15" notebooks. That way we can have graphic chips AND optical drives. By the way I for one don't see how not having an od makes a pro machine more pro. Also why should people buying Apple Macbook/Pros at a lower price point be penalised by not having optical drives when the just about all consumers bar netbook and air purchasers do have built in od.

This, save for losing the white MacBook. Educators would have a hissy fit.

How about this line-up:
MacBook Air SSD + no OD
MacBook SSD + HDD + no OD
MacBook Pro HDD/SSD BTO + OD

I am starting to feel that Apple will not drastically change the MacBook Pro form factor.

I could get behind that.

Well, I just got done burning 4 CD's for a project that had to be delivered on that medium. But I suppose most people don't care about that.

People on this site don't for some strange reason.

"lots of us..."?! Really? Doubtful.

Chances are though that you'd regularly carry the power pack/cables anyway, right? Chances are you might well carry an external hard drive, right? Chances ate you might have to carry a phone too, right? Chances are you usually carry all these things in a bag anyway, right?

Seems a poor tradeoff for everyone else to suffer an inferior computing experience because a sad few can't manage one additional small, light, cheap accessory in a backpack.

Clearly you're in need of having your a** dragged kicking and screaming out of the 1990s!

Oh yeah, I should have to carry around yet another thing for my 13" MacBook Pro because you want a discrete GPU and refuse to buy the 15" model that has it. Also, phone fits in my pocket, external ODD doesn't. I don't need to carry around cables and the damn thing has a 10-hour battery life!!! So why do I need to carry around anything but the computer itself? Oh yeah, it's because someone on the Interwebs wanted a faster 13" MacBook Pro that retained its thinness and had a discrete GPU. Dream on, pal. Few people off this site would agree with you.

You all who use the ODD "a lot" when you are away from home.. What is the trouble bringing an external ODD in your bag? I mean, where do you put all your CDs/DvDs that you have to bring with?

Umm...gee...how about AT MY DESTINATION??? It's inconvenient to have to carry along an accessory that should just be integrated to begin with.

lol thank you for writing this..honestly..its built in already and theyre already so thin

THIS TOO! How are all of you MacBook Air-obsessed loonies not getting the point that people still use this thing whether Apple says we do or not?!

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Wow. Some of you folks are rather obsessively attached to your Superdrives. What do you do when they break, which they always do? Mine is broken right now... has been for weeks. Yep, weeks. I can hear some of you breaking out in hives right now.

I either have Apple fix it under warranty or I Google the service manual and do it myself. Not that hard to do.

And what you're describing is your idea of what a professional should be.

I have no doubt that the ODD will not be scrapped completely at this point in time, I'm sure there will be at least one offering from the MacBook family that keeps the optical drive.

What I don't understand are the people who think it is fair for everybody else to be stuck with what is effectively one fifth of their computer being useless empty space instead of using an external drive. That space could be used for so many more useful things.

I have no doubt that the fraction of people who use their optical drive more than once a week, or even once every few months, is very small.

What is your sampling of proof on this? Polls from people on this site immediately following a MacBook Air refresh in which Steve Jobs announces his future plans for the Mac App Store and Lion are not credible enough. Not to mention that the hundreds of people I know with computers would not be up for paying over a thousand for a MacBook/Pro only to not have it come with an optical drive, regardless of the frequency of which they use it.

Why you so upset, dawg? I've never seen anyone on this forum more pretentious than you. Pretty amazing considering this is Mac Rumors.

He's really not that bad, honestly. There are usually far worse (me included).

Which is why the 13" MBP should just be renamed a MacBook when it gets SB, and keep the ODD.

This I'll 100% agree with you on.

Out of interest, are you a college student who uses a 13" MBP to play DVDs? If so, fine. If not, how do you know students watch lots of DVDs? My experience is uni students are more likely to either watch DVDs on a cheap TV, or download them off the internet directly or via friends.

Having just graduated from a University and having many friends who are either still finishing up or still in that whole awesome stasis of "what the hell do I do with the rest of my life", I can attest that many many people use their laptops to watch DVDs as dorm/room-sized TVs are unwieldy and you can take a laptop anywhere to watch a movie.

Why hold everyone back because you cling to your legacy discs? Should computers today still have floppies? At some point, they had to decide to stop building floppies into computers by default. I"m sure there was plenty of people who still wanted and used floppies. If I recall, Apple was the first to drop floppies in their systems.

The optical drive and its discs won't be truly "Legacy" until there is a replacement that is 100% more optimal than it is. And right now, the internet/WLAN isn't there yet. The only people it is holding back are 13" MacBook Pro users who wish they could have the 15" with its feature-sets but either can't afford it or are nuts for the 13" form factor as much as they want said feature-sets.

 

[felixmanos]

Intel support SATA 6Gbs natively. Apple can use it if they want to.



exactly. How in gods name can SATA6Gbs be worse and consume more power than SATA3gbs? Whats it gonna do give an hours less battery? O think not puppy dog! Newer faster hard drives consume less power than the ones they replace, even the ones currently in macs so in fact life would be better all around if Apple went with the latest port. Some people just defend companies blindly don't they!

Apple can't even come up with TRIM to run Intel's SSDs. Even Microsoft did that months ago.

 

[Fraaaa]

Yes but what if they remove the ODD and you wanna play video games? You can't! Also some things arent in the app store yet like adobe

Adobe sells its products online, as well Microsoft, Blizzard and many other companies. The App Store is not the only place where you can purchase digital downloads.

well why would you want to bring it with you when it could be built in..most people use laptops away from home like at college..thats how i will need it. and ill need a cd drive

There aren't computers with DVD burner in your college?

I reckon the MacBook could be a better machine by using the massive space that the ODD occupy for anything else such as storage, battery, cpu/gpu, heatsinks, and what else.

An external ODD is ridicusly low in price something in between £10 to £30! THAT IS WASTED SPACE!

 

[Tailpike1153]

Apple can't even come up with TRIM to run Intel's SSDs. Even Microsoft did that months ago.

Apple operates on its own clock.

 

[Tyrion]

The optical drive and its discs won't be truly "Legacy" until there is a replacement that is 100% more optimal than it is. And right now, the internet/WLAN isn't there yet. The only people it is holding back are 13" MacBook Pro users who wish they could have the 15" with its feature-sets but either can't afford it or are nuts for the 13" form factor as much as they want said feature-sets.

Uh, such a replacement exists. It's called Blu-Ray. The fact that Apple is refusing to implement this current standard optical medium in their computers is part of the problem, you know. If the Superdrive supported Blu-Ray, it would still be a reasonable feature. I wouldn't use it much, but I'd understand the reasoning behind it: support optical media as long as needed, ditch the support later when everything is done through streaming and downloading. However, in not offering a Blu-Ray drive, Apple isn't REALLY supporting optical media, they're just supporting an obsolete standard. DVDs are as good as dead and I don't want a device dedicated to dead media taking up 25% of my laptop's internal space. So Apple should man up and make a statement on optical media: either support optical media in its current incarnation or ditch the drive. It's quite simple, really. I'm not buying a Macbook until this is resolved.

Also, because I love repeating this: the Superdrive is by far the crappiest piece of hardware in Apple's laptops and I've never encountered one that wasn't broken in some way or other after about a year of use. Anyone who actually depends on optical media (can't imagine for what reason) would be ill-advised to place their trust in the Superdrive. Externals are definitely more dependable and of higher quality.

 

[mixel]

I'm with the people who say drop the OD.. For as often as I use it that's a huge amount of wasted space in the machine. I also have an external USB2 DVD-RW from when my previous MBP's OD failed. They've consistently been the weak point of Macs I've owned.

Drop the OD or *at least* add BD support. Otherwise it's pretty ridiculous IMO.

 

[ciTiger]

Yebubbleman you must have beaten a record of some sort with your last post

I agree that the majority of the users would still want the OD, whether they use it much or not.

But all the models have more than one configuration.
They could just leave the OD in the stock configurations and offer the second configuration with an external OD.

It's possible right? It would make the majority happy like that..

 

[rjbruce]

What I don't understand are the people who think it is fair for everybody else to be stuck with what is effectively one fifth of their computer being useless empty space instead of using an external drive. That space could be used for so many more useful things.

+1 - Everyone seems intent on killing off the MBP13 because it's not "Pro" but dropping the ODD solves the lack of discrete graphics.

Apple. If you drop the ODD and make the MBP13 as capable as the 15/17, I WILL PAY THE PREMIUM...

 

[ChrisTX]

Do you think it will show a redesign? or just change the interior of the macbook pro, I whant to replace my silver keys macbook pro with a latest release but think of waiting to next or maybe 2 release of the redesign macbook when will that be? I dont know

At that rate you'll never own a new MacBook Pro. I have the older body style MacBook Pro that still runs like a champ, but will be tempted by a newer model if the specs are right.

 

[Hellhammer]

Which is why the 13" MBP should just be renamed a MacBook when it gets SB, and keep the ODD.

13" MBP has never been "pro". Apple just added it due to marketing so removing it now would not make any sense at all. Apple has no issues calling the current 13" MBP with outdated CPU a MacBook Pro so they won't have any issues calling the next gen 13" MBP with Intel IGP a MacBook Pro.

 

[Equitek]

Yes!

Okay So I have been coming to this site for years, but have just never felt the need to write anything but suddenly I have a reason.

I really don't understand why everyone seems to think the removal of the ODD from the 13" macbook pro would make it "just another macbook air" or anything along those lines. In Apple did in fact remove the ODD, which I think is a fantastic idea, it would allow for them to make the machine even more different than the macbook air, not more the same. The space freed up by the removal would in turn allow for a discreet gpu, potentially a second hardrive, and even a better cooling solution. These changes would make the macbook even more different than the macbook air, because it would have significantly more horse power. The only true similarities would be screen size, and the fact that there is no ODD, and that is not at all enough to put them into the same classes.

Also to add to this removal of the ODD possiblilty I would like to say that I was strickly against this as well for the longest time, but I ended up getting a laptop with out an ODD anyways, and I really dont miss it. The only reason for getting rid of this laptop is that I am going to be getting the new MBP when it comes out.

Oh, and for those who think that the ODD is needed, please just think about how much you really use the ODD while on the go. I wont debate about whether or not you need it as everyone is different, but your never going to be installing software or burning discs from your ODD with the computer on your lap or while on the more, or atleast you really shouldn't. External ODD's are very cheap now, and also very good, they actually are a much better option in the long run.

Sorry for the really long post, but I just had to get this out there, haha

~Peace

That would most certainly be the machine I'd want... A 13" MacBook Pro, i5 or i7, discrete graphics, and use that optical space for a removable drive bay and one (or two!) PC card slots. If there is any space left over, let that battery grow!