Steve Jobs on 13-Inch MacBook Pro's Use of Intel Core 2 Duo Processors

[RatherBeReading]

I don't get why people keep complaining about this. The Core 2 Duo are still very solid, very capable chips. Given the tough situation that Apple was put in by the new licensing/chipset restrictions on the i series processors I think the decision they made makes the most sense for the people who would typically purchase the 13" model. You get a decent CPU and a GPU that'll be useful for casual gaming and even more useful when more applications adopt OpenCL. This also allowed for better battery life as the i series parts are known to actually reduce battery life when compared to C2D counterparts.

As far as Apple's ambiguity regarding the i series chips I think you are looking at it wrong. The 13" would have most likely received an i3 CPU which would have been a minor speed increase at the cost of graphics performance and battery life. The 15/17" models use i5/i7 CPU which is a more considerable performance boost hence the marketing for it.

Sure I'd have liked to see an iX in the 13", but given the restrictions I, for one, prefer the Core 2 Duo w/320M and better battery life. I'm very glad I waited and didn't buy last month.

First off, please no one attack me for this statement. Anyway, I agree, i dont understand the enormous amount of complaints. Me and my friend went to the apple store and i got a 13" and he got the 15" with i5 and honestly, when we did comparison tests with different apps, the differences in speed of webpages and apps are minute. Maybe a 2 or 3 second difference and a little larger for programs like photoshop. If you cant wait 2 or 3 seconds, i might question why?

He can play more graphic strenuous games, but i will take amazing battery and portability over that anyday. If i want to play cod, im going to my xbox on the big tv, not my mac.

Though it is last years tech, i think core 2 duo is still very relevant. Heck, my family bought a dell (bleh, hate windows still) with a pentium processor and it runs pretty fast too. I guess im just not techy enough to understand all the hooplah surrounding these chips. Though i can say that prices shouldve gone down on the 13" for the upgrades it got. That is my only complaint.

 

[Maserati7200]

Don't make fun of my 17" MBP. I like the extra size.

I agree. Size matters.
(Waiting for it...)

Apple doesn't give Adobe the access to API's for Flash acceleration. When you're the little 8% marketshare guy, you need to compromise with the bigger players.
[...]
It seems you should be the one to **** and admit that having a 320M instead of the integrated Arrandale GPU means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to those who don't play demanding 3D games.

There are API's on OSX that Adobe could use to improve flash, such as CoreVideo and CoreAnimation. They choose not to utilize these, and instead make it a bad port of the windows version.
And there would be a significant difference in the area of graphic accelerated apps in terms of 320M vs. the intel stuff. Are you honestly saying you won't see any significant performance difference if you have a 320M in there or not if you don't play games? If so, that's absurd.

 

[Eidorian]

There are API's on OSX that Adobe could use to improve flash, such as CoreVideo and CoreAnimation. They choose not to utilize these, and instead make it a bad port of the windows version.

Supposedly the QTKit gives you access to hardware video playback acceleration.

I understand what you're trying to do using CoreVideo and CoreAnimation. Can it be applied to a browser plug-in though? Flash feels a lot like Java. If you start coding to very platform specific software APIs you're going to break the portability of "it's a browser plug-in".

Access to an operating system's ability to use specialized video acceleration hardware, if the operating system allows applications and supports the hardware, is much more universal in my opinion.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Supposedly the QTKit gives you access to hardware video playback acceleration.

I understand what you're trying to do using CoreVideo and CoreAnimation. Can it be applied to a browser plug-in though? Flash feels a lot like Java. If you start coding to very platform specific software APIs you're going to break the portability of "it's a browser plug-in".

Access to an operating system's ability to use specialized video acceleration hardware, if the operating system allows applications and supports the hardware, is much more universal in my opinion.

Then use OpenGL.
Most cross-platform video players use it and the Flash reverse engineering projects use it.

 

[kuck]

Voting

Hi Guys,

How come I can no longer rate this thread or am I missing something here? I usually see the "Rate Thread" link on the top of each thread.

Thanks.

kuck

 

[azentropy]

I gave in and ordered the base model through MacConnection. With discount and rebate it will work out to $1049 shipped. I also ordered a RadTech ClearCal film to hopefully make it usable for me. I figure worst case is it doesn't perform as well as I would like and I just use it as a portable instead of my primary machine or the screen doesn't work out for me and I sell it in a few months on eBay for a small loss.

 

[Eric S.]

I don't get why people keep complaining about this. The Core 2 Duo are still very solid, very capable chips. Given the tough situation that Apple was put in by the new licensing/chipset restrictions on the i series processors I think the decision they made makes the most sense for the people who would typically purchase the 13" model. You get a decent CPU and a GPU that'll be useful for casual gaming and even more useful when more applications adopt OpenCL. This also allowed for better battery life as the i series parts are known to actually reduce battery life when compared to C2D counterparts.

How do you know about "the people who would typically purchase the 13" model"? Because Apple tells you?

As far as Apple's ambiguity regarding the i series chips I think you are looking at it wrong. The 13" would have most likely received an i3 CPU which would have been a minor speed increase at the cost of graphics performance and battery life.

Why wouldn't it have gotten an i5? Other than profit margin marketing decisions by Apple?

 

[ledzeppelin]

Does SJ ever slip and say...Intel is giving us a killer deal on the old C2D, they are dirt cheap compared to the i3/i5's. Were saving $100 per machine sold at the same price point!

Ha, it seems like it could be the truth to me, if he did....although he has a point, (Steve Jobs) in what he said as well!

 

[applesupergeek]

How do you know about "the people who would typically purchase the 13" model"? Because Apple tells you?
Why wouldn't it have gotten an i5? Other than profit margin marketing decisions by Apple?

How do you know that the profile of people who would buy a 13" isn't what the previous user described? Because you say so?

It wouldn't have got an i5 because of product differentiation.

 

[pooprscooper]

Hey guys,
I know you've waited over a year for an update, and... well, here it is:
3 Hour improvement on the same hardware you've had before and still at the same low price of only $1200!

Enjoy!

 

[Eric S.]

How do you know that the profile of people who would buy a 13" isn't what the previous user described? Because you say so?

What did I say about the people who buy a 13"? Nothing. I don't know, and neither does the other poster. That's the point.

It wouldn't have got an i5 because of product differentiation.

Which is a profit margin marketing decision.

 

[kas23]

How do you know that the profile of people who would buy a 13" isn't what the previous user described? Because you say so?

It wouldn't have got an i5 because of product differentiation.

I don't know exactly why the 13 inch would not have received an i5. After all, the 13 inch MBP is a "pro" machine, is it not? Just because it has a smaller screen (by a mere 2 inches), doesn't mean "pro users" will not use it for "pro" applications. People pick the 13 inch due to its excellent portability. This is the benefit of the smaller screen. But, just because it has a smaller screen doesn't mean one is going to use it for any less than "pro"-type use. It really should have the same innards as the 15 inch MBP. What Apple is telling us is that the 13 inch is more of a toy compared to the 15 and 17 inchers, something that regular users can buy so they can enjoy the "Pro" branding, since there isn't anything the 13 inch MBP can do than the top MB cannot.

 

[Eric S.]

I don't know exactly why the 13 inch would not have received an i5. After all, the 13 inch MBP is a "pro" machine, is it not? Just because it has a smaller screen (by a mere 2 inches), doesn't mean "pro users" will not use it for "pro" applications. People pick the 13 inch due to its excellent portability. This is the benefit of the smaller screen. But, just because it has a smaller screen doesn't mean one is going to use it for any less than "pro"-type use. It really should have the same innards as the 15 inch MBP. What Apple is telling us is that the 13 inch is more of a toy compared to the 15 and 17 inchers, something that regular users can buy so they can enjoy the "Pro" branding, since there isn't anything the 13 inch MBP can do than the top MB cannot.

I think there are real technical issues with updating the 13" from C2D, namely logic board real estate. As this teardown photo of the 15" board shows, the amount of space taken up by Arrandale, the Nvidia gpu and the Platform Controller Hub (outlined in yellow) is significant. Apple is not willing to make the kind of trade-offs, like increasing the case dimensions or removing the optical drive, that would be required to give more space on the logic board.

But if Apple did somehow move the 13" to Core iX, then there's nothing to say that they would choose an i3 over an i5 except the "toy" aspect, or product differentiation.

 

[WisdomWolf]

I don't know exactly why the 13 inch would not have received an i5. After all, the 13 inch MBP is a "pro" machine, is it not? Just because it has a smaller screen (by a mere 2 inches), doesn't mean "pro users" will not use it for "pro" applications. People pick the 13 inch due to its excellent portability. This is the benefit of the smaller screen. But, just because it has a smaller screen doesn't mean one is going to use it for any less than "pro"-type use. It really should have the same innards as the 15 inch MBP. What Apple is telling us is that the 13 inch is more of a toy compared to the 15 and 17 inchers, something that regular users can buy so they can enjoy the "Pro" branding, since there isn't anything the 13 inch MBP can do than the top MB cannot.

First, I'd like to point out that anything I say is clearly my opinion. It's an educated guess. Anyone can say hey, "you don't know jack, you aren't apple" and I suppose they are right. But I thought it was pretty clear that we are all expressing our opinions, didn't realize I had to spell that out.

Moving on... Most people here agree that people pick the 13" for portability. To most portability is not just about size, but also battery life. Portability requires sacrifices. Yes, Apple could have gone with an i3 or even an i5, but one or more things would have had to change:

-Price may have increased
-Heat output may have increased
-Battery life likely would have decreased

Then there's the whole graphics issue. They would either have had to either:

- stick with integrated graphics which would make even casual gaming suck more and would have dropped support for OpenCL. Whether YOU use anything that's OpenCL or not, it's one of the new features in Snow Leopard and if Apple wants to get developers on board with it then it makes sense that they'd try to make sure its available on all Apple systems.

- or put a discrete gpu into the system so as to allow for at least casual gaming and OpenCL. This would almost certainly drive up price and cause need for additional sacrifices.

They opted for a compromise that allowed them to maintain the portability and even boost the battery life that is likely important to many many users while keeping the price steady and still maintaining a fairly consistent feature set. It is still a very capable machine deserving of the "pro" name.

 

[rerelease]

Apple doesn't give Adobe the access to API's for Flash acceleration. When you're the little 8% marketshare guy, you need to compromise with the bigger players.

I wouldn't call the iPhone's market share little. And after all that is what it's all about, nobody gives crap about OSX's awful Flash.

 

[0092762]

I wouldn't call the iPhone's market share little. And after all that is what it's all about, nobody gives crap about OSX's awful Flash.

This is a thread about Macbooks and Mac OSX, not iPhone. Apple has very little marketshare in the PC market.
I haven't been missing flash on my iPhone, but suffering 100% cpu utilization and fans kicking on high whenever I play a flash video on my Mac.

 

[0092762]

And there would be a significant difference in the area of graphic accelerated apps in terms of 320M vs. the intel stuff. Are you honestly saying you won't see any significant performance difference if you have a 320M in there or not if you don't play games? If so, that's absurd.

Exactly, you won't see a difference unless you play games, because there are no mainstream apps that use the gpu cores although openCL has been out for nearly a year. Because writing code to use the GPU is an entirely different model, difficult, and time consuming. There are no graphically accelerated apps, so using an intel GPU would have made no difference to the end user unless they played games.

By the time programs start using openCL (if they ever do), we will all have core i5's in our 13" while windows laptops will be running the next generation Intel chip.

 

[AidenShaw]

Because writing code to use the GPU is an entirely different model, difficult, and time consuming.

Also note that slightly less than 40% of Apples run 10.6, and many of those cannot run OpenCL because Apple does not support OpenCL on their model of GPU. (For example, the oldest Imac with OpenCL support is the "iMac (Early 2009)" with the 9400M/GT120/GT130/HD4850 - the "iMac (early 2008)" with the HD2400XT or HD2600Pro does not run OpenCL.)

So in addition to being a lot of work, the target market for OpenCL is much smaller than the Mac market.

 

[macswitcha2]

I posted this earlier but don't know if I actually hit submit.

All this talk about graphic cards, I don't know why people are thinking that Apple is interested in making their laptops a gaming machine. I think when it comes to games its about the iPad. However, I think Apple is working on a gaming machine just for gaming and then some. Give it maybe five years.

 

[AnotherScott]

Maybe the question you should ask is why anybody would by a netbook (beside the fact that it's cheaper) when they can get a 13" MBP.

Price is a big one... but also size and weight.

 

[AnotherScott]

If only my iBook ran Snow Leopard, I wouldn't have bothered with my Macbook at all. Closest thing to a netbook Apple has, but it runs flash pretty poorly.

Closest thing to a netbook Apple has made would be the 12" Powerbook G4. I wish they had made an Intel unit in that form factor. Could even be lighter without the CD drive in there. Best traveling notebook I ever had.

(For the old-timers... Apple did make some models arguably even closer to a netbook... Powerbook Duo 230/270 and actually the very first one, the Powerbook 100. But in terms of something reasonably modern that really could have been the foundation for an Intel based Mac Netbook, I think the 12" PB G4 was it.)

 

[djasterix]

Due to the price on the Refurbish Store for the last gen MBP, wich one would you choose:

New Mid 2010 13" MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo with Nvidia 320M graphics ($1,499) or
Refurbished Mid 2009 15" MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo withh Nvidia 9400m + 9600m GT graphics ($1529).

Geekbench shows a overall performance score of 3739 for the 13" and 3719 for the 15"

 

[WisdomWolf]

Due to the price on the Refurbish Store for the last gen MBP, wich one would you choose:

New Mid 2010 13" MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo with Nvidia 320M graphics ($1,499) or
Refurbished Mid 2009 15" MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo withh Nvidia 9400m + 9600m GT graphics ($1529).

Geekbench shows a overall performance score of 3739 for the 13" and 3719 for the 15"

I think that all depends on how important portability and battery life are to you. If a ligher laptop with a longer lasting battery is even remotely important than I'd say the 13" makes the most sense. I'll be buying a base model 13", most likely this week. It'll be my first mac and I'm so glad I waited for the refresh instead of purchasing back in Feb.

 

[tninety]

I agree. Size matters.
(Waiting for it...)

That's what SHE said!

 

[mjoshi123]

Quick question I'm planning on getting MBP 13". I dont do any gaming (not even casual) but more of Photoshop, Lightroom and Video editing. I'll be using it for Parallels with Widows 7 to do my Windows Programming. Do you guys think MBP 13" will be able to handle this things ? I'm not interested in gaming as I've 3 consoles for doing that (on whatever platform I want).
Do anyone know about iLife 2010 and iWork 2010. I'm waiting to see what is coming in this applications before upgrading to MBP 13" till than my Sony Vaio will be great for me.