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

[sishaw]

Apple just simply isn't going to compete on power, not when any hobbyist can build their own Crysis-ready gaming rig.

It's fairly clear that Apple is now about design, convenience, battery life, and integration of software and hardware. This product isn't for people who want to overclock and tweak the last bit of power out of their machines, or even for any but casual gamers. However, the hard-core gamer market is not a big market--as the Wii proved, the casual gamer market is much bigger.

Apple is going for the mid-to-high end of the mass market, and people who just want their computers to do work (or, in the case of iPad, consume the creative output of others), not those who like to work on their computers. Criticizing the benchmarks from a power perspective misses the point.

 

[Agnel]

If one wishes to buy, he/she will definitely buy.

haters would hate.
fanbois would love

Others would crib.

What's the point? Jobs will sell them anyway...

 

[kaiserben]

You are exactly right. The speed increase they gave in this laptop product line seems like a bigger jump then ever before, and it was only updated 9 months ago when they got a better display and dramatic battery improvement. I currently use the 13" Macbook pro with 7 hours battery live (5 to 6 hours in real). I love this thing every minute of the day. After 9 month using it doesn't show any degradation just rock solid.

I'll join you tomorrow... I hope my Apple store has some of these babies.

 

[German]

- i3 adds 10 W power consumption

That is not really true.
The memory controller is in the cpu -> so the chipset doesn't need it and consumes less power.

 

[moonrakerlazar]

10 hours!

10 hours is impressive, but what's the point? We live in a world where there are plugs everywhere: offices, homes, airplanes, trains, libraries, etc..
Granted, PCs that die-off in 2 hours don't cut it. That barely lasts you a class or a conference, but once your up at 5/6 hours there is no difference.
Stever is feeding us crap.

 

[mikeo007]

You're absolutely right, it's definitively NOT a gaming machine. But I don't why they would lie about benchmarks they post... Because in few days, lot of internet sites will perform their benchmarks too, and if it's false, not such good publicity for them.


http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/performance.html
From 30% to 80% superior to 9400m

Yes, it would look really bad on Apple if every benchmark showed that they were full of it. I don't think that will end up being the case. But I think it will be just like the "battery life" benchmarks that never quite match what any company (not just Apple) predicts. Similar to the MPG predictions that car companies make, the results are only repeatable in perfect conditions.

I see this in the fine print on Apple's site with relation to the 320m GPU: "MacBook Pro continuously monitors system thermal and power conditions, and may adjust processor speed as needed to maintain optimal system operation."

I'm guessing that the 30% claim is overall performance improvement, while the 80% claim will turn out to be something along the lines of "while running on battery power".

Still, I'd like to think that this new GPU is well designed, so I'm going to wait for some real benchmarks before passing too much judgement.

 

[adisor19]

BS. An i3 would have made a world of difference. Apple either has some C2D stock they need to get rid of or they simply couldn't fit it all in the 13" chassis.

Adi

 

[BRAVOSON]

I just took a look at videocardbenchmark.com and found the following rankings:

9400m: score:137 rank:489
9600m gt: score:333 rank: 233
GT 320m : score: 364 rank: 216
GT 330m : score: 467 rank: 172

maybe I'm wrong, but these benchmarks do show a significant increase of performance over the 9400m and about 5 % increase over the 9600m gt. The GT 330m is about 40% faster.

also for an integrated card with an i3 I think it would have been a Intel G45X at the max. That one scores 203 and ranks 375; the 320m gt scores little under 80% higher!

On the other hand:

I'm assuming the low-end 13" uses a Core2 Duo T8300 (because of the clock of 2.4 GHz). if you compare this to an i3 330m, the 330m scores about 30% higher, according to cpubenchmark.com
Though the 2.6 GHz, which I think is a T9500, scores only 8% lower than the 330m.

I have no idea whether this information could be applied to the thread, but at least it does show some facts

 

[kaiserben]

BS. An i3 would have made a MARKETING world of difference. Apple either has some C2D stock they need to get rid of or they simply couldn't fit it all in the 13" chassis.

Adi

I just updated a little bit your post in order to make it true.

 

[mosx]

BS. An i3 would have made a world of difference. Apple either has some C2D stock they need to get rid of or they simply couldn't fit it all in the 13" chassis.

Adi

How so?

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/264538-28-core-core-e8400-clarkdale-benchmarked

Thats just one of many benchmarks that show that the chips really aren't all that different in performance.

It's really just name brand.

A Core 2 Duo with nvidia graphics is a hell of a lot better than a Core i3 with Intel graphics.

 

[kaiserben]

I just took a look at videocardbenchmark.com and found the following rankings:

9400m: score:137 rank:489
9600m gt: score:333 rank: 233
320m gt: score: 364 rank: 216
330m gt: score: 467 rank: 172

maybe I'm wrong, but these benchmarks do show a significant increase of performance over the 9400m and about 5 % increase over the 9600m gt. The 330m gt is about 40% faster.

It's not the GT one which is a discrete GPU

 

[darthraige]

Unreal Tournament 2004? People are still playing a game from 2004?

 

[0makol16]

Unreal Tournament 2004? People are still playing a game from 2004?

people still play StarCraft, crazy huh? plus UT3 wasn't that great so I beat those who are UT fans are still playing UT2004 instead.

 

[drjsway]

Those who mentioned the Asus or VAIO Z, notice that they are MUCH thicker.

 

[kaiserben]

Unreal Tournament 2004? People are still playing a game from 2004?

I do LOL

And it's even the only game I play (CS:S)

 

[Jett0516]

Don't you guys think putting an i3 in it would attract and increase more sales?

I mean to a person thats new to MBP...duo core 2 doesn't sound new at all...

The quote from Jobs still doesn't make $ense.

 

[potatis]

Naturally will help Intel to get rid of remaining Core 2 Duo processors. When those stops being produced, they will be forced to use Core i3 instead.

 

[nautilus.]

does anyone know how the new ones have 10 hours now? is it a bigger battery, or is the 320 a more efficient graphics chip?

 

[mikeo007]

I just took a look at videocardbenchmark.com and found the following rankings:

9400m: score:137 rank:489
9600m gt: score:333 rank: 233
320m gt: score: 364 rank: 216
330m gt: score: 467 rank: 172

maybe I'm wrong, but these benchmarks do show a significant increase of performance over the 9400m and about 5 % increase over the 9600m gt. The 330m gt is about 40% faster.

Someone else beat me to it, but I don't like people getting the wrong information so I want to reinforce what he said. The 320m GT shown in this table is NOT the card in the refreshed MBPs.

 

[0makol16]

Don't you guys think putting an i3 in it would attract and increase more sales?

I mean to a person thats new to MBP...duo core 2 doesn't sound new at all...

The quote from Jobs still doesn't make $ense.

some PCs are sold with Pentium Dual Cores and that sound much worse than Core 2 Duo, but yet those sell.

 

[kaiserben]

does anyone know how the new ones have 10 hours now? is it a bigger battery, or is the 320 a more efficient graphics chip?

The both Sir.

 

[manu chao]

There's no way they could have fit one in a 13" unibody? Really?

I think we both know that's not true.

Why can you say with such a certainty what it possible and what is not possible? If you add something, something else has to give (which could be a slightly smaller battery, how much smaller, I don't know, but I am sure you know).
I know, your argument goes they stuck with the C2D (and no discrete gfc) because that gave them a higher profit margin. But Apple is a commercial enterprise which strikes a balance between growing their market share and making profits. It is not in the business of providing technology as a non-profit organisation. If you want to participate just buy Apple shares, if you think their top men get too much of the profit themselves, join a shareholders right initiative.

 

[Frosties]

i5 not i3 is the pricepoint

I find it funny that we are talked around with the wrong processor. The i3 is not a processor for a $1200-1500 computer, that would be the i5. One other point is that the 2.26 has the same performance numbers in tests as the 2.4 core2duo giving no evolution.

 

[montecarloss919]

Don't you guys think putting an i3 in it would attract and increase more sales?

I mean to a person thats new to MBP...duo core 2 doesn't sound new at all...

The quote from Jobs still doesn't make $ense.

I agree with your first comment ..but it also really leads me to believe that they put the C2D in there for a reason.

I love how its been less then 12 hours since they announced, have yet to see any real time results, and people are already throwing it under the busy... I guarantee the brilliant engineers tested many alternatives and for some reason they deemed this one the most appropriate

 

[Robert M.]

Don't you guys think putting an i3 in it would attract and increase more sales?

I mean to a person thats new to MBP...duo core 2 doesn't sound new at all...

The quote from Jobs still doesn't make $ense.

Probably! I know I would have picked one up (I got the base 15 instead). I think people just want something new!! Even if there's not that much of a performance boost...people just like new things!