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New 15-inch MacBook Pro and 27-inch iMac Expected to Launch This Wednesday
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If Apple were going to update only the Force Touch trackpad, then they would have done it at the same time they released the 13" Broadwell MBP with the Force Touch trackpad. This release of the 15" MBP will be based on Broadwell.
Is there any historical precedence for this? Would be great if this happens.
As someone speculated above, I wonder if the only change we might see is the addition of Force Touch to the 15", and maybe a dedicated graphics update. If that route was taken, we may never see Broadwell in the 15" and Apple goes to Skylake in 2016.
Apple got specially-packaged CPUs from Intel first for the original MacBook Air a few months before anyone else. Didn't matter though because that version had a lot of fan problems.
Some of your questions would be more appropriate as google queries. When Broadwell launched last year, it lacked quad notebook cpus like those used in the 15" rmbp. If they're trickling out now, you won't see skylake versions of those variants until (most likely) next year. What you may have noticed is that Intel has drifted away from the use of one architecture at a given time, so Broadwell cpus will be out concurrently with many skylake ones. Intel wouldn't release Broadwell cpus, then replace them with an updated architecture in 3-5 months.
I feel like this is the only way we will see Broadwell rMBP 15s. There has been no news about Broadwell quad mobile in months (since a few part numbers leaked in January), which is unusual for Intel. We usually know CPU part numbers, clock speeds, and cache amounts well before release, and this is all unclear.
Special access to Broadwell by Apple could possibly fit in as well. From the January leak there are no extreme mobile CPUs, which many PC OEMs use or provide in BTO configurations. Many large PC OEMs like Dell have also stated they are skipping Broadwell. Finally, Skylake is well-tied into Windows 10's release, so this may be Intel's chance to work with Apple this year.
All that being said, I think it is still possible we see just a refresh with Force Touch and 950m. With thin/light notebooks that have relatively decent battery life and the 970m available for around $1.5k (Gigabyte P34w), that would be disappointing.
Apple could have upgraded to the Force Touch trackpad and updated or dropped the discrete GPU at the same time they released the 13" Broadwell MBP. There is no reason Apple would wait a few months except for Broadwell-H chips.
I agree with just about everything here. I think your numbers might be off for the wattage on the GPU's though (but maybe yours came from Nvidia). I have the numbers from NoteBookCheck on those cards as:
750M: 35-40 Watts <FireStrike Score: @1500>
950M: 50 Watts <FireStrike Score: @3100>
960M: A little under 60 Watts <FireStrike Score: @4200>
970M: Closer to 100 Watts <FireStrike Score: @7200>
980M: 122 Watts <FireStrike Score: @9600>
From a thermal perspective, anything up to and including the 970M could work (Razer uses the 970M in the Razerblade and its a beast.) But I think Apple has a history of using a 65 Watt power supply for the 15" MBP (the 17" used a 85 Watt.) Now if they could increase the wattage on the PS, without increasing the size much (aka what Razer did) then it could be anything goes.
If they don't, I would be worried about them even using the 950M if its 20% more power then the 750M. Good news is that as long as we get 950M or higher, graphics will be over 2x as fast minimum. And if they can get the 960M in there, closer to 3x.
Personally I have a 12" Macbook for my light weight computing. I would much rather have a slightly larger PS and a 970M that is 6X as fast as what I have now.
Did you check the poster's signature line?
BTW, you got nice stuff.... I like your taste.
I ran dual SSDs on both 6gbps sata connection and configured as Raid 0 and put a slow 2tb drive on the 3gbps sata that was remaining for the useless DVD drive it shipped with - all fans work as normal, anything i possible. I think my thread detailing it all is up here somewhere still.
It makes me angry that you can spend two grand on a laptop and they still fleece you for the extra warranty. If they made good quality products they could and should give at least a two year warranty as standard. Issues like you have experienced are not acceptable for a supposedly premium product. Good luck with your campaign.
I think your numbers are closer. I agree, thermally a 970m may be possible. It will definitely require a retuned cooling system (i.e. lower limits before the fan ramps up), as switching from low-power intel GPU mode into nearly 100 watts of 970m will heat the chip up in a second. I have a P34W (970m 14" notebook) and the cooling system is louder than I would prefer because of the buffer for the huge TDP changes.
15" Macs also have 85W power supplies. Considering they are unable to even run current Macs (Apple should have included a 100 or 120W PSU with dGPU Macs), and that the 970m itself requires more wattage than the PSU itself, we're looking at a 150-200W PSU. I would love to see it, but I'm not holding my breath.
If that's the case, why didn't it happen at the Spring Forward event?
Seems like Apple waited because there was more to add (very soon) other than a new trackpad.
TDP from CPU and GPU is not the same as wattage used by a PSU, otherwise CPU (47W) + GPU (50W) ignoring all other components means the laptop will never be charging when you use your laptop at its peak. 97W would be far more than the 85W PSU Apple supplies for the 15" rMBP.
TDP for components has always been about heat dissipation, not actual power consumption.
Thermal Design Power (Wikipedia)
If they don't will you buy a 15'' MacBook Pro and run it at a higher resolution than default; buy a Windows laptop or buy a desktop?
Just interested
I totally agree with you. I used a Razerblade for a couple days but I spend way too much time in Xcode to think I can run one regularly. The cooling system got pretty loud, but when it came to graphics power that thing was amazing.
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2015 Razerblade with i7 and 970M uses a 150 Watt power supply FYI. So Apple would still need to use something larger then the current 85 watt if they go bigger then the 950M. It was pretty impressive how small that 150 Watt power supply was though. I doubt it weighed much more then the 85 Watt Apple is using.
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Looking at the average days per upgrade cycle for the MBP, if this is a speed bump, then it pushes Skylake into early next year. Maybe an end of year 2015 announcement, but we probably won't see it until 2016. I hope that's not the case.
SkyLake is bringing greatly improved battery life and much more robust wireless capabilities such as wireless displays and charging.
Apple always gets first access to intels chips. They did last year for the haswell chips. and they did this year with the broadwell chips in the 13" MBP and the airs.
We will see broadwell in the 15" MBP