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Sandy Bridge - January 5th

Depends on companies order size and if the Jan 5th date is a hard or soft launch. More than likely, Apple - as we speak - has been playing with SB prototypes for a while. Still wouldn't expect an MBP refresh 'til early spring. One guy on HardOCP has been posting his hands on impressions of SB chips for a while now (with impressions of P67 boards from gigabyte).
 
Big companies like Apple often participate in the testing for chipsets and they often have input as to what features are needed. I think it's safe to say that somewhere deep in the Apple labs there are Mac prototypes running Sandy Bridge. However that doesn't mean that anyone will be selling them on Jan 5th.
 
Apple better rush to get sandy bridge out in new 13" MBPs.

I have a friend who is a diehard Apple believer and his last computer, a 15" MBP, is broken. He has the budget for a new 13" MBP and he says to me: "convince me that I should buy a PC".

I replied, "actually you have the best case to buy a PC in years. First of all the current 13" MBP is 215 days old which means that its the same computer you could have bought for the same price 215 days ago, which should be criminal. Second of all, this 13" MBP was a major technological compromise to begin with, since when it came out the Core iX model CPUs were already out and much faster than the Core 2, but Apple stuck with Core 2 in order to use nVidia integrated graphics. And not only would you be buying into a CPU architecture thats a generation out of date, but in a few months, Intel's next architecture, Sandy Bridge, will be out in PCs, and you'll actually be two CPU architecture generations behind...."

Lo and behold this long time Mac user is now shopping PCs and is thoroughly convinced that spending $1100 on a Core 2 MBP at this point is insanity. I would tell anyone shopping for computers to stay far away from the 13" MacBooks, they are just SO MUCH SLOWER than the competition. Apple doesn't think that their consumers are educated enough to know the difference, but I'm making my impact, convincing all my friends and family who ask to not buy the 13" MBP. Hopefully sales will fall off and Apple will be forced to move their ass on sandy bridge MBP.
 
tuna said:
Apple better rush to get sandy bridge out in new 13" MBPs.

I have a friend who is a diehard Apple believer and his last computer, a 15" MBP, is broken. He has the budget for a new 13" MBP and he says to me: "convince me that I should buy a PC".

I replied, "actually you have the best case to buy a PC in years. First of all the current 13" MBP is 215 days old which means that its the same computer you could have bought for the same price 215 days ago, which should be criminal. Second of all, this 13" MBP was a major technological compromise to begin with, since when it came out the Core iX model CPUs were already out and much faster than the Core 2, but Apple stuck with Core 2 in order to use nVidia integrated graphics. And not only would you be buying into a CPU architecture thats a generation out of date, but in a few months, Intel's next architecture, Sandy Bridge, will be out in PCs, and you'll actually be two CPU architecture generations behind...."

Lo and behold this long time Mac user is now shopping PCs and is thoroughly convinced that spending $1100 on a Core 2 MBP at this point is insanity. I would tell anyone shopping for computers to stay far away from the 13" MacBooks, they are just SO MUCH SLOWER than the competition. Apple doesn't think that their consumers are educated enough to know the difference, but I'm making my impact, convincing all my friends and family who ask to not buy the 13" MBP. Hopefully sales will fall off and Apple will be forced to move their ass on sandy bridge MBP.
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If nVidia and Intel don't make new agreement on bus licences, 13" MBP will never have a chance to a complete upgrade. Instead, Apple has to go to AMD's new platform to give 13" MBP a boost. There are lots of rumors around AMD and Apple now. Maybe that would be their new deal. ;)
 
michaelshen said:
If nVidia and Intel don't make new agreement on bus licences, 13" MBP will never have a chance to a complete upgrade. Instead, Apple has to go to AMD's new platform to give 13" MBP a boost. There are lots of rumors around AMD and Apple now. Maybe that would be their new deal. ;)
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Maybe, although Anandtech says that the GPU improvements in Sandy Bridge are enough that people should be able to get by with those graphics. I wouldn't doubt Apple using Intel integrated graphics again, even having been burned by it in the past. Also, there's no great reason why Apple can't bring discrete graphics to the 13" MBP. There are a lot of similarly sized computers that have Core iX plus discrete graphics in them. Especially if Apple were to start offering models without an optical drive, I would think that there's plenty of room for graphics...
 
Meh. A speed bump's a speed bump's a speed bump. They're always coming. New architecture, blah - it's simply a speed bump.

Drop an SSD in your machine, it'll do more for you than any chip bump would.
 
I'm trying very very hard to wait for the Q1 MBP update. If we don't see an update to Sandy Bridge in Jan. than I'll just have to cave for the 2.8 i7 640M :cool:
 
tuna said:
Apple better rush to get sandy bridge out in new 13" MBPs.

I have a friend who is a diehard Apple believer and his last computer, a 15" MBP, is broken. He has the budget for a new 13" MBP and he says to me: "convince me that I should buy a PC".

I replied, "actually you have the best case to buy a PC in years. First of all the current 13" MBP is 215 days old which means that its the same computer you could have bought for the same price 215 days ago, which should be criminal. Second of all, this 13" MBP was a major technological compromise to begin with, since when it came out the Core iX model CPUs were already out and much faster than the Core 2, but Apple stuck with Core 2 in order to use nVidia integrated graphics. And not only would you be buying into a CPU architecture thats a generation out of date, but in a few months, Intel's next architecture, Sandy Bridge, will be out in PCs, and you'll actually be two CPU architecture generations behind...."

Lo and behold this long time Mac user is now shopping PCs and is thoroughly convinced that spending $1100 on a Core 2 MBP at this point is insanity. I would tell anyone shopping for computers to stay far away from the 13" MacBooks, they are just SO MUCH SLOWER than the competition. Apple doesn't think that their consumers are educated enough to know the difference, but I'm making my impact, convincing all my friends and family who ask to not buy the 13" MBP. Hopefully sales will fall off and Apple will be forced to move their ass on sandy bridge MBP.
Click to expand...
You should go buy a PC if a CPU spec is your major concern for a laptop.

Laptops are a combination of many components. The reason why MBPs are admired is for the design, size, and life of the laptop. You can complain all you want, but last time I checked a C2D still runs all applications fine.

Its pretty equivalent to buying a car based on horsepower alone. Hmm, 414HP M3 or the 556HP CTS-V? You'll find most buyers drawn on the M3 for its other attractive traits (despite the M3 usually being more expensive). I wouldn't tell a friend to shop cars on horsepower alone, just like you shouldn't tell your friends to buy laptops based on their CPUs.

I hope your friend buys what he truly needs, and not what a friend has sold him into. Most users don't need a i7 to run their youtube videos and word documents.

It is also important to note that Apple laptops were never on the forefront of the spec page game. Apple's vision is beyond the spec sheet, somewhere Dell and HP will never be.
 
mattmikewitt said:
Light Peak is supposed to be released around that time as well.
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Light Peak will come in late 2011. That's what Intel said in IDF

DesmoPilot said:
SB is completely new Architecture, while Arrandale is still based off Nehalem. From Anandtech's early previews, SB is 20-35% faster clock for clock, which is quite amazing.
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Clock for clock increase was only ~10%

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/the-sandy-bridge-preview-three-wins-in-a-row/13
 
DesmoPilot said:
My mistake. Still, I'd wager to say the final product will fare better than 10%, especially the i7s. January can't some soon enough!
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Mm, Anand said that when Turbo is count, the difference should be 13-17% (the CPU he tested had no Turbo). Bigger improvement will be in the IGP though
 
jav6454 said:
Marginal increase. It goes farewell against the HD5450 which barely a discrete GPU.
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It's a big improvement over the current Intel IGP, roughly 50-200% depending on game (I would say about twice as fast on average)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/the-sandy-bridge-preview-three-wins-in-a-row/7

It's still inferior when compared to other IGPs or low-end discrete chips but definitely better than what we got now. Final parts should be even better due to newer drivers and Turbo (possibly even more shaders since it's unknown whether AT's chip was 6 or 12 EU part)
 
Hellhammer said:
It's a big improvement over the current Intel IGP, roughly 50-200% depending on game (I would say about twice as fast on average)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/the-sandy-bridge-preview-three-wins-in-a-row/7

It's still inferior when compared to other IGPs or low-end discrete chips but definitely better than what we got now. Final parts should be even better due to newer drivers and Turbo (possibly even more shaders since it's unknown whether AT's chip was 6 or 12 EU part)
Click to expand...

Yet, Brazos Platform along with Zacate, LLano and Ontario already have the 5450 beat by a long shot with the HD6310 IGP.
 
vant said:
You should go buy a PC if a CPU spec is your major concern for a laptop.

Laptops are a combination of many components. The reason why MBPs are admired is for the design, size, and life of the laptop. You can complain all you want, but last time I checked a C2D still runs all applications fine.

Its pretty equivalent to buying a car based on horsepower alone. Hmm, 414HP M3 or the 556HP CTS-V? You'll find most buyers drawn on the M3 for its other attractive traits (despite the M3 usually being more expensive). I wouldn't tell a friend to shop cars on horsepower alone, just like you shouldn't tell your friends to buy laptops based on their CPUs.

I hope your friend buys what he truly needs, and not what a friend has sold him into. Most users don't need a i7 to run their youtube videos and word documents.

It is also important to note that Apple laptops were never on the forefront of the spec page game. Apple's vision is beyond the spec sheet, somewhere Dell and HP will never be.
Click to expand...

I know what I'm talking about. I use a 2.16ghz Core 2 Duo iMac myself, and contrary to what you say, it definitely slows down when it has to render complicated web pages, which people do all the time. Get to a website with lots of streaming video and animations? The whole browser starts slowing down and can't scroll pages smoothly for a few seconds. Faster CPU would render the pages faster.

I understand that there are tradeoffs. You're being ignorant and acting as if there's not a single other computer manufacturer that puts any design into their products. Its completely not true. You can get computers that are as well designed as anything that Apple makes from Sony, HP, Lenovo, and Toshiba to name brands I can think of off the top of my head that have premium laptop lines that emphasize the same sorts of qualities as apple: thin and light, battery life, ergonomics, aesthetics, and so on. They aren't the models that most people buy because they're priced at a premium to the commodity models. But they are available and enough people buy them.

My friend and I both agree that we like Mac OS and the multitouch features a lot, but the challenge is that an entry level MBP is $1100 versus for $800 he can get a 14" laptop with a fast Core i5, 6GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, and 1GB discrete graphics card, or for about $1100 he could get those same specs in a very well designed laptop like the HP Envy 14.

For one minute, don't be a fanboy. Apple's 13" MBP is behind the times. Even by Apple's own update schedule it is overdue (per MacRumors buyers guide).
 
for about $1100 he could get those same specs in a very well designed laptop like the HP Envy 14.
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I don't even need to reply after a statement like that. But I will.

The ENVY 14 is a product of previous failures. To say it is 'very well designed' would be dangerous for anyone's reputation. Granted they fixed many things that plagued their sorry customer base from before (I doubt most of them will try HP again), it is still thicker, heavier, and still only manages a claimed 6 hours of battery life.

The fact is, if you love those specs so much than you might as well put your money where your mouth is.

My 2.26 MBP13 from last year did very well compared to the Studio 15 that my family procured earlier this year. The MBP13 was preferred for use because it was _faster_. Weird right? Well it turns out the Studio 15 was loaded with bloatware that Dell and HP love to install. Despite the obvious spec advantage, it was still slower when compared in terms of user experience. The average user doesn't bother to uninstall these.

Fast forward to this year, and it shouldn't be a surprise that we now have 2 MBP13 2.4s in this house.

I'd love to see any of these 'difficult to load' websites, I'm sure my 'slower' MBP13 can handle it. If it isn't worse than CBS, NFL or Kongregate, don't bother replying.

You're being ignorant and acting as if there's not a single other computer manufacturer that puts any design into their products.
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I'd beg to differ. I never stated that no one puts any design in their products. I like the Sony Z, and I think the M17x (with dual 285Ms of course) would be lovely addition if it wasn't for my custom built rig.

What I think is that you have a hard time understanding that the laptop market is separated. Laptops exist for every category of use. Apple does not pride itself in having the best CPUs and GPUs possible, that's a niche it likes to avoid. What Apple does is make laptops portable and long lasting.

You see, you're trying to sacrifice battery life and thickness for CPU. Well there are many other laptops on the market that do exactly that. If MBP owners wanted that, we'd be buying that instead. But the market says differently, as Apple has never sold as many laptops as it ever has today. That is why you have companies like HP copying designs from Apple (ENVY13/15, come on), but still not quite getting the Apple picture (2-3 hours of battery life? Over an inch thick?).

When you point out a laptop to me that gets the job done at under an inch with incredible battery life (Equal or better than Apple), then you can lecture me about how other companies try to 'emphasize the same sorts of qualities as apple'.
 
vant said:
When you point out a laptop to me that gets the job done at under an inch with incredible battery life (Equal or better than Apple), then you can lecture me about how other companies try to 'emphasize the same sorts of qualities as apple'.
Click to expand...

I'll name 2: Sony VAIO Z-series and Lenovo Thinkpad T-Series. Both are as well designed as any Apple, and they both fit Core i5 CPUs, discrete graphics, and good battery life into thin 13" to 14" chassis.
 
tuna said:
I'll name 2: Sony VAIO Z-series and Lenovo Thinkpad T-Series. Both are as well designed as any Apple, and they both fit Core i5 CPUs, discrete graphics, and good battery life into thin 13" to 14" chassis.
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Both over an inch. Both have less battery life than the MBP. Did you bother reading what I asked? And you say I'm ignorant?

If you are really going to point out the T-Series, I think you're burnt out. Just walk away from the thread. Two completely different markets buddy.
 
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