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MacBook Pro Supplies Tightening Ahead of Potential Refresh
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It's interesting to see that Apple starts reducing their MBP stock four weeks before the official launch of the Sandy Bridge CPUs, when usually Apple isn't the first to adopt new CPUs.
I guess we'll see new MBPs in late February, possibly Feb 22nd, and not as previously expected in March or April.
I guess we'll see new MBPs in late February, possibly Feb 22nd, and not as previously expected in March or April.
My early 2008 15" MBP still isn't out of date, and in many ways its better than the current ones. It has a 60GB SSD in addition to a regular hard drive, 6GB of RAM, and an expresscard slot so I can have USB3 or eSATA if I want it. It also has a DVI port so I can connect straight to many displays without an adapter, and I have the option of connecting it to my old TV with S-video via a passive adapter. The only problems with it are short battery life (2-3 hours) and maybe that the processor and GPU are slightly slow, but these days I rarely do anything CPU-intensive and I don't play games.
I'm not going to upgrade until Apple includes something faster than USB2 or FW800 built in.
I'm not going to upgrade until Apple includes something faster than USB2 or FW800 built in.
Sandy Bridge does support GPGPU. Intel's white paper on Sandy Bridge is explicit that the IGP is capable of Compute Shader 4.x. Whether that can translate into OpenCL support or more importantly, if Intel and Apple will put the effort into writing an OpenCL driver for Sandy Bridge's IGP is another question. So far I believe every GPU that has supported Compute Shader has also support OpenCL so there is hope.
What's most important for the general consumer is not OpenCL support anyways, but that Apple supports Sandy Bridge's hardware video encoder which is more efficient than a pure GPU encoding solution anyways. Presumably accelerated video encoding/transcoding would be the most common use-case of GPGPU for most users.
And I'm not sure why Blu-ray support makes it less likely Apple will adopt Sandy Bridge. Blu-ray support didn't stop Apple from adopting Arrandale. What's important about Blu-Ray support is that Sandy Bridge's IGP like Arrandale and the GMA MHD4500 does full H.264 decoding, which is something Apple doesn't bother to use in current Arrandale models rather they power up the more power hungry discrete GPU to do it which makes no sense.
The 11" MacBook Air is already $999, the price of the current white MacBook.
The new MacBookAir is already looking like the standard MacBook in all Apple's advertising and in their stores. It appears to be very successful. They can make up for smaller profits by increasing volume. If they can price the iPad at $500 -- an extremely compact computer with a 10" touch screen and the latest technology -- then they can make a MacBookAir comparable to the white MacBook that can sell for $999.
Why? AMD is basically good for people who want to build cheap gaming PCs. They are considerably slower than their intel couterparts. AMD GPU would be sweet though
aww my 3000 dollar i7 mbp from early 2010 is gonna be outdated
It was outdated the second you bought it, that's just how it is with technology. My 2008 model still runs like a boss, so no upgrade for me.
That's a pretty heavy statement. Getting rid of their most popular notebook? I really don't see them getting rid of the optical in anything but the 13" pro, as there is actually space for it in the 15 and 17s. SSDs are too expensive to be standard and actually sell with the higher costs of the components in the pro machines, especially since people need 500GB or more.
Agreed,
I don't think the world, specially Pro-sumers are ready to leave optical drives just yet.
I'm afraid fringe users like yourself may be left to come up with creative solutions. I'm starting to see again a real distinction between laptop (tablet)
and desktop. Editing videos and sounds on a laptop is incredibly painful IMHO. It is just slower and the interface is not ideal. Most professionals and amateurs like myself prefer a desktop for video work. I just can't imagine creating a short youtube video with several hours of footage as raw material on a laptop. I guess you only do this if don't have a choice.
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That's great, I just bought a 15" Core i5 MBP.....thanks....
Pay more attention to the chipset market and refresh cycles next time.
I wonder if Apple got rid of the HDD and optical drive whether they'll bring back the ExpressCard slot to the 15" model? They have reversed themselves before on Firewire port cuts. At the very least, if they get rid of the HDD and optical drive, hopefully they use the extra external surface area, since ports don't take much internal volume, to add an additional USB port or at least move some ports to the other side and space them up more so there is less chance of interference.
I'd like to see the 15" MBP with no optical drive, a ssd drive (for the OS) in addition to the regular drive (witch would be used for storage) and more battery in the space left over.
It is DirectX 10.1 hardware. Show proof that it actually supports GPGPU in DirectX. It doesn't have OpenCL as per Intel.
AMD Fusion is DirectX 11. Llano has been advanced to Q2.
I doubt Apple will be putting quads into the 13 MBP.
And I don't understand why people say they are going to kill off the 13 MBP. Its the most popular notebook and its targeted differently than the MBA 13.
I really doubt the 13MBA would replaced the 13Pro.
If you look at the current 13" Air and 13" Pro, they're not much different between them except for the optical drive and a few ports. Yes, they have different storage media, but the function is the same. I don't see a need for an optical drive in any laptop. You maybe right about SSD in the Pro line, but Apple is in position to strike good deals with large manufacturers such as Toshiba.
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I don't even pay attention to the voting. I think it's corrupt and stupid. Don't worry about the yes/ no poll - it's not a big deal. It was probably just someone who hates Apple or doesn't want their current MBP to feel "outdated". Who knows.
Pigumon said:
I don't even pay attention to the voting. I think it's corrupt and stupid. Don't worry about the yes/ no poll - it's not a big deal. It was probably just someone who hates Apple or doesn't want their current MBP to feel "outdated". Who knows.
As the article suggests, they could update the 15 and 17 inch MBPs first (as supply constraints suggest) and delay the 13 inch. I highly doubt that they'll do quad core only for those models though (if at all, although if you ask me I think it's time to start offering them), which means everyone is waiting regardless.
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Light Peak, anyone? That's the future.
lilo777 said:
Light Peak, anyone? That's the future.
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I'm gonna say 'no'.
ipedro said:
I'm gonna say 'no'.