Relase of Quad Core Macbook Air and 64 Bit

[ewbh0t]

Hello,

I am new to MAC , and not totally familiar with thier hardware, etc...

But my question is:
Does any one have news or rumore on when macbook air will have quad core processors and 64 bit OS ( is th eOs already 64 bit?)

The current MBA are a work of art but I am holding on on a faster processor.

Wayne

 

[PDFierro]

Hello,

I am new to MAC , and not totally familiar with thier hardware, etc...

But my question is:
Does any one have news or rumore on when macbook air will have quad core processors and 64 bit OS ( is th eOs already 64 bit?)

The current MBA are a work of art but I am holding on on a faster processor.

Wayne

You will have to move for the Pro line for quad-core. Not even the 13-inch MacBook Pro has quad-core, Apple saves that for their 15-inch flagship model. The Air has never been about offering the fastest hardware.

 

[old-wiz]

osx is already 64 bit.

quad core won't happen on the MBA for a while - too much heat among other things.

 

[dean1012]

As others have said, the OS is already 64 bit (as of Lion I believe) and all mac models come with 64 bit CPUs now (as of 2011 I think).

I would not want a quad core MBA. I can't imagine (at least currently or in the near future) that it would be possible without sacrificing weight, temperature, or battery life.

The chief goal of the MBA is portability and longevity. Anything that negatively affects battery life or weight is at best a bad idea. Anything that affects temperature is unadvisable but slightly more acceptable in my opinion.

Unfortunately, since Apple no longer offers the regular MacBook, people seem to view the MBA as the cheaper mac laptop instead of what it really is.

 

[Mrbobb]

If you don't know OSX is already 64 bit, sounds to me you are just chasing numbers. There will always be a better one on the horizon.

 

[tobeornottobe]

MBA doesn't even have those normal dual core, it uses ultra low voltage cores. Why would apple suddenly put a quad core into it and kill off all their other line ups. Not ganna happen in a long long time.

 

[cbautis2]

Hello,

I am new to MAC , and not totally familiar with thier hardware, etc...

But my question is:
Does any one have news or rumore on when macbook air will have quad core processors and 64 bit OS ( is th eOs already 64 bit?)

The current MBA are a work of art but I am holding on on a faster processor.

Wayne

4 Core CPU would not probably happen for 5 more years. A TDP of 15 watt shared CPU + GPU is not enough to support a decent quad core speed. If Intel decides to actually make a Quad Core ULV chip, it would probably have a 1.3 GHz speed on all 4 cores and a maximum turbo of 2.4 GHz on 1 core in order to fit the 15 watt TDP requirement.

You cannot put a full voltage 47 watt TDP Quad Core CPU on the Air or else you want a MacRoasted Air laptop. There's simply not enough cooling capability to remove that 47 watts of heat. Even the rMBP with 2 fans can barely cool down the full grunt of the Quad Core i7 CPUs so you're just asking for impossible at this time.

Probably in 5 years or so we can have a very powerful 4 core CPU that only dissipates 15 watts of heat.

 

[Mrbobb]

I just learn my AppleTV as a duo core processor but Apple disables one side to control the heat. So u knows where Apple's priority is.

 

[mpantone]

AppleTV does often use a dual-core processor with one core disabled, but it may be deliberately done because the second core is physically defective from manufacturing.

This is known as "binning" in the processor industry. Rather than throw away a part that doesn't meet spec, you repurpose it in a lesser role. This improves yields and lowers COGS.

It is likely that Apple's contract manufacturers install CPUs that have failed primary QA to be iPhone/iPad procs, but still are good enough to be AppleTV or AirPort procs.

In the same way, if you were a restaurateur and you bought a sack of potatoes, you'd use the best ones for premium dishes, and the oddball/sub-standard ones for mashed potatoes.

Or if you owned an orange farm, you'd sell the nice ones as whole fruit and juice the rest of them.

It's not just the electronics industry that does this.

 

[MacLC]

4 Core CPU would not probably happen for 5 more years. A TDP of 15 watt shared CPU + GPU is not enough to support a decent quad core speed. If Intel decides to actually make a Quad Core ULV chip, it would probably have a 1.3 GHz speed on all 4 cores and a maximum turbo of 2.4 GHz on 1 core in order to fit the 15 watt TDP requirement.

You cannot put a full voltage 47 watt TDP Quad Core CPU on the Air or else you want a MacRoasted Air laptop. There's simply not enough cooling capability to remove that 47 watts of heat. Even the rMBP with 2 fans can barely cool down the full grunt of the Quad Core i7 CPUs so you're just asking for impossible at this time.

Probably in 5 years or so we can have a very powerful 4 core CPU that only dissipates 15 watts of heat.

Well-stated indeed! Actually, there are some 35w i7s, such as the 4765T (desktop chip, not mobile), but that is still more than 2x the MBA's threshold. Additionally to what you said, all Intel GPUs share in the TDP so even IF Apple could get a quad core in an MBA, that would leave that much less power for the GPU, making graphics suffer even more. Broadwell looks to lower power draw by "as much as 30%", but even IF Broadwell succeeds, we would need to wait until at least the next die shrink 2+ years after that to get the TDP under 15w, but even if that were possible, the 4650U's main weakness is the Intel HD 5000 GPU. I would much rather see die shrink power savings being given to the GPU than the CPU.

AMD has begun developing a unified processing core for lower-power systems. In other words, the computer can allocate processing units to either graphics or data processing and switch as needed on the fly. It will be interesting to see how that turns out and if Apple either goes to AMD for some chips or if Intel follows the same path (anybody remember Larrabee?)

 

[gnasher729]

AppleTV does often use a dual-core processor with one core disabled, but it may be deliberately done because the second core is physically defective from manufacturing.

This is known as "binning" in the processor industry. Rather than throw away a part that doesn't meet spec, you repurpose it in a lesser role. This improves yields and lowers COGS.

Also important, you don't have to produce different CPUs. You just build dual core CPUs. Even though a single core one would in theory be cheaper to build, you save more cost by having only one production line. And of course a dual core CPU with one broken core makes a fine single core CPU.