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Quad Core MPB, when?
- Thread starter xper
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Yes they do. The QX9300, but it's $1000 more than the T9600, so I find it unlikely Apple will use it.
oh, well I stand corrected, thanks. And that's a lot of money for a processor, I wonder how much performance difference it makes in real world stuff, especially since a lot of programs aren't even optimized for multi core yet.
Not for another year. Probably when Intel goes 32nm. The current quad core mobile chips use a 45W TDP, while the highest Apple has ever used before is a 35W TDP. Intel is going to launch a low-end 2GHz mobile quad core in Q1 2009 and that one might have a 35W TDP given it's low clock speed. However, at that time Intel will also be launching a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo to replace the current 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo and a 2.67GHz Core 2 DUo to replace the current 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo. Given a choice between a 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo or even a 2.67GHz Core 2 Duo and a 2GHz Core 2 Quad, I think most people will choose a Core 2 Duo and it would be the faster choice in most cases too. Grand Central may help, but I'm pretty sure Grand Central is meant to ease multitheaded development of new apps rather than miraculously make all current single threaded applications multithreaded. Good single and dual-threaded performance will still be critical to overall system performance for the forseeable future.
The Nehalem/Clarksfield quad-core mobile processor from Intel is due to be released late 2009. If and when it shows up in a MBP is anyone's guess.
I think I am going to hold out on upgrading from my original Core Duo Macbook until quad-core Macbooks come out (that hopefully will also support 8GB of RAM). My current Macbook is a little slow running some stuff, but it is still quite usable and it is under AppleCare until May. If I can stretch out another year out of this thing, that would be awesome.
Not too soon. Instead Apple will make the MacBook Pro thin like a MacBook Air & leave away all of these useless ugly ports. And quad-core won't fit into a case that thin anytime soon. But that's ok because nobody needs quad-core or ports on a pro machine anyway, it needs to be thin baby!
They already have the MacBook Air for that, so there's no need to strip-down the MBP for thinness. The ports are hardly "useless"! FW800 is vital for high-speed file transfers on external hard drives, as well as many other devices that use FW. USB is vital for mice, phones, cameras, etc. Ethernet is critical for networking computers together for huge file transfers. Maybe you don't use any of those, but the vast majority of MBP owners use some or all of these ports. As for quad-core, see how many in these forums are already clamoring for more performance and you'll find your "nobody needs..." statement is completely false.
You never can tell, unless they add the
as a hint!Already announced: "Apple's new Quad-Core MacBook Pros will ship with a free case of marshmallows!"
As yetanotherdave noticed, my previous comment was sarcastic. Sorry for any confusion, you are right, I should have made the sarcasm smiley (->
).