The End of 2010/Fall MacBook Pro Refresh

[yustas]

Hi,

I know we just had a refresh, but I hear that we can see another refresh with Sandy Bridge in the Fall of this year or by the end of the 2010. Is it a reasonable expectation? If it is, what are the new features can we expect to see?

Thanks.

 

[miles01110]

Unreasonable expectation. End of '10 update will be minor.

 

[DesmoPilot]

Hi,

I know we just had a refresh, but I hear that we can see another refresh with Sandy Bridge in the Fall of this year or by the end of the 2010. Is it a reasonable expectation? If it is, what are the new features can we expect to see?

Thanks.

Considering sandy bridge isn't due out til early 2011 at the earliest (assuming no delays etc), with mass production not scheduled until Q3 2011; your expectations are quite unrealistic.

 

[yustas]

Unreasonable expectation. End of '10 update will be minor.

What do you think will be included in this minor update? Would Sandy Bridge be a minor update or you do not think we will see Sandy Bridge in 2010?

 

[DesmoPilot]

What do you think will be included in this minor update? Would Sandy Bridge be a minor update or you do not think we will see Sandy Bridge in 2010?

Probably just a speedbump and another re-branded nVidia GPU; refer to my first post about SB.

 

[yustas]

Considering sandy bridge isn't due out til early 2011 at the earliest (assuming no delays etc), with mass production not scheduled until Q3 2011; your expectations are quite unrealistic.

Oh, I see. I thought it was scheduled for this Fall. I was wrong.

In any case, is Sandy Bridge worth the wait?

 

[DesmoPilot]

Oh, I see. I thought it was scheduled for this Fall. I was wrong.

In any case, is Sandy Bridge worth the wait?

depends on what you call worth the wait; course they'll be faster than what we have now - but it'll be at least a year 'til we see them in MBPs.

 

[yustas]

depends on what you call worth the wait; course they'll be faster than what we have now - but it'll be at least a year 'til we see them in MBPs.

For me, "worth the wait" means: 1. More battery life and less heat. 2 Faster.

 

[DesmoPilot]

For me, "worth the wait" means: 1. More battery life and less heat. 2 Faster.

They'll be the first generation of an all-new architecture; so bugs and unforeseen issues will be par for the course. Will they be faster? Yes, more battery life and less heat? Doubtful in my opinion, probably about the same as what we have now. If you plan on waiting for technology, you'll be waiting forever.

 

[elpmas]

Advice: Buy now, sell it before update.
You'll lose a few bucks, but at least you had something to keep you busy

 

[daneoni]

It will be an Arrandale refresh i think cooler chips with lower TDPs and higher clockspeeds

Maybe a GPU refresh although i'm not holding my breadth

Sandy Bridge isn't even feasible till mid 011 at the very least

 

[johnnymg]

What do you think will be included in this minor update? Would Sandy Bridge be a minor update or you do not think we will see Sandy Bridge in 2010?

I'm hoping for USB3 in the minor update cycle. I'd give it a 50:50 chance.

More likely is a lower power processor option.

cheers
JohnG

 

[murdercitydevil]

You have to bear in mind that the first SB chips will be desktop chips, most likely "extreme" versions, and will be completely unusable in any laptop, much less an MBP. So that adds quite a bit of waiting time on. Then you have to factor in the additional time it takes for Apple to decide exactly what mobile chips it wants, testing them, making sure they don't sacrifice battery life, etc etc. It could be a very long wait. Plus, if the MBP refresh cycle coincides with intel's production like it did with Arrandale, then it'll be another few months while the technology is available/mass produced, but Apple is still working out bugs or trying to get stock.

 

[yustas]

It will be an Arrandale refresh i think cooler chips with lower TDPs and higher clockspeeds.

Another Arrandale refresh? When? This year?

 

[daneoni]

Another Arrandale refresh? When? This year?

Yup

"Final Words
From the balanced notebook perspective, Arrandale is awesome. Battery life doesn't improve, but performance goes up tremendously. The end result is better performance for hopefully the same power consumption. If you're stuck with an aging laptop it's worth the wait. If you can wait even longer we expect to see a second rev of Arrandale silicon towards the middle of the year with better power characteristics..."

From here

 

[mark28]

Oh, I see. I thought it was scheduled for this Fall. I was wrong.

In any case, is Sandy Bridge worth the wait?

Hell yes

I'm going to upgrade my desktop with a 8 core Sandy Bridge that runs at 4.0 ghz natively ( so who knows how high this baby can overclock )

I have no idea what they'll do with laptop CPU's, but it's going to be alot faster since it's a new architecture. Probably new Quad cores again for laptops.

I'm probably going to sell this generation Macbook Pro and buy the new one when Sandy Bridge comes for laptops/notebooks.

 

[DesmoPilot]

Hell yes

I'm going to upgrade my desktop with a 8 core Sandy Bridge that runs at 4.0 ghz natively ( so who knows how high this baby can overclock )

I have no idea what they'll do with laptop CPU's, but it's going to be alot faster since it's a new architecture. Probably new Quad cores again for laptops.

I'm probably going to sell this generation Macbook Pro and buy the new one when Sandy Bridge comes for laptops/notebooks.

If LGA1366 and triple channel DDR3 was any indication, i'll hate to see how much X68 boards and quad channel RAM cost at launch (especially given the already insane price of RAM).

 

[DavidC1]

Oh, I see. I thought it was scheduled for this Fall. I was wrong.

In any case, is Sandy Bridge worth the wait?

Well, on the recent Investor's Meeting, Intel says they will be able to show "order of magnitude" difference from the 65nm(G45/GMA 4500) parts for the GPU:

Here's how G45 does
http://anandtech.com/show/2972/the-...-pentium-g6950-core-i5-650-660-670-reviewed/2

 

[LedCop]

Hi,

I know we just had a refresh, but I hear that we can see another refresh with Sandy Bridge in the Fall of this year or by the end of the 2010. Is it a reasonable expectation? If it is, what are the new features can we expect to see?

Thanks.

I expect Sandy Bridge to appear in MacBook Pros in the first quarter of 2011.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-20002374-92.html?tag=mncol;mlt_related
http://www.infoworld.com/d/hardware...-chips-year-end-448?source=rss_infoworld_news

Considering sandy bridge isn't due out til early 2011 at the earliest (assuming no delays etc), with mass production not scheduled until Q3 2011; your expectations are quite unrealistic.

Mind providing some sources for your assertion? The two links I provided state production by the end of 2010. The second link suggests appearance in desktops and laptops in early 2011. Here's a third link and a quote from it: Intel will ship the successor to its "Nehalem" processor, "Sandy Bridge," in volume production by the end of 2010, Otellini said. Otellini, btw, is Intel's CEO. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362601,00.asp

depends on what you call worth the wait; course they'll be faster than what we have now - but it'll be at least a year 'til we see them in MBPs.

One year at most.

They'll be the first generation of an all-new architecture; so bugs and unforeseen issues will be par for the course. Will they be faster? Yes, more battery life and less heat? Doubtful in my opinion, probably about the same as what we have now. If you plan on waiting for technology, you'll be waiting forever.

Um, the Core i7 and i5 in use now are the first generation of an all-new architecture for MacBook Pros. So if you don't mind "bugs and unforeseen issues" now, you shouldn't mind it for Sandy Bridge. The Arrandale refresh that will come between now and Sandy Bridge will provide better battery life and less heat so it's safe to say Sandy Bridge should too over the current i7 and i5. People didn't mind waiting for Arrandale and it proved to have a 20% performance improvement over the Penryns. Sandy Bridge is claimed (by Intel) to have a 20% improvement too if you compare the top Arrandale of today with the top Sandy Bridge to come.

It will be an Arrandale refresh i think cooler chips with lower TDPs and higher clockspeeds

Maybe a GPU refresh although i'm not holding my breadth

Sandy Bridge isn't even feasible till mid 012 at the very least

Feasible? In what sense? And isn't mid '12 quite extreme since Intel expects production by end of '10? By mid '12 we'll have Ivy Bridge.

You have to bear in mind that the first SB chips will be desktop chips, most likely "extreme" versions, and will be completely unusable in any laptop, much less an MBP. So that adds quite a bit of waiting time on. Then you have to factor in the additional time it takes for Apple to decide exactly what mobile chips it wants, testing them, making sure they don't sacrifice battery life, etc etc. It could be a very long wait. Plus, if the MBP refresh cycle coincides with intel's production like it did with Arrandale, then it'll be another few months while the technology is available/mass produced, but Apple is still working out bugs or trying to get stock.

Nope. Intel has already demonstrated Sandy Bridge in a laptop:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20002617-64.html

And: The initial versions of the chips will be for desktop and laptop computers, not servers, said David Perlmutter, head of Intel's chip architecture group, in an interview at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Beijing on Tuesday. From: http://www.infoworld.com/d/hardware...-chips-year-end-448?source=rss_infoworld_news


Gee, most of you guys who seem pessimistic about how early we'll see Sandy Bridge MacBook Pros also own Arrandale MacBook Pros. I hope that's not the obsolescence fear creeping in.

Advice: Buy now, sell it before update.
You'll lose a few bucks, but at least you had something to keep you busy

Good advice. Something the guys I quoted especially could do too.

I'm hoping for USB3 in the minor update cycle. I'd give it a 50:50 chance.

More likely is a lower power processor option.

cheers
JohnG

I'd like USB3 too but I'd say a 10% chance. Intel isn't even including it in chipsets for Sandy Bridge so Apple would need to pay for a third-party USB3 chip which they're unlikely to do to keep their margins as high as possible. That and Apple seems to be developing Light Peak with Intel and so wouldn't want any competing connection technologies to compete with it.

 

[iMacmatician]

You have to bear in mind that the first SB chips will be desktop chips, most likely "extreme" versions, and will be completely unusable in any laptop, much less an MBP.

Intel reversed it from Nehalem. While Nehalem's first variants were high-end desktop, Sandy Bridge's first variants will be 2/4-core mainstream/low-end desktop and mobile. 6/8-core high-end desktop and server parts are scheduled for Q3 2011.

…

Thank you very much.

There's also the possibility of AMD microprocessors, most likely Llano scheduled for early 2011 release.

 

[daneoni]

...Feasible? In what sense? And isn't mid '12 quite extreme since Intel expects production by end of '10? By mid '12 we'll have Ivy Bridge...

Mid 011 i meant. My bad.

 

[LedCop]

Thank you very much.

There's also the possibility of AMD microprocessors, most likely Llano scheduled for early 2011 release.

You're very welcome. I was reading about Sandy Bridge just a few days ago and thought I'd share.

Intel and Apple seem to have a very good relationship so it would be interesting if Apple uses AMD chips too.

Mid 011 i meant. My bad.

Ah, no wonder. I think Intel won't have problems making Sandy Bridge chips like they did with Arrandale chips at the start because Intel was just beginning to use the 32nm process for Arrandale. Penryn was 45nm. Sandy Bridge is also 32nm so it should feasible from the get-go for Intel as their factories are all set up for it already.

 

[thinkdesign]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.11) Sprint PPC6850SP)

Where improvement's possible: If for the rest of the year or even longer, Apple's path towards improving the Pro's is blocked by Intel's slowness (and their obstruction towards Nvidia), well, then the thing to do design-wise is to survey the landscape and identify those areas in which improvement is NOT blocked by parties outside of Apple. All sorts of opportunities exist. For example, many laptop makers have been offering built-in 3G modems, for so many years. APPLE: CATCH UP, ALREADY! How mod or slick-looking is Macbook/Pro, if it needs a solid 3/4G dongle dangling off the side, like an ugly cigar? (Not to mention - if it's integral, one doesn't have to worry about compatibility.) Or they could start "Air-izing" the Pro's, by offering the option of no disc-drive to lose some weight, and provide the gain of a more ergonomically tapered-down (Air-like) front keyboard edge. Maybe even throw in a new future-type jack or 2 even if it won't be usable immediately. "Future-proofing" (which BTW, is also environmentally good) like that could be something putting Pro's in a leading position, in at least one way. /// Since Apple has enough cash to make bolder moves, it's fun to dream: Maybe they design their own chips for both 13" notebooks, and then buy the still-money-losing Sprint, before some other smart company beats them to it! That would really boost Apple to "the next level." :^)

 

[se/30]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.11) Sprint PPC6850SP)

... "Future-proofing" (which BTW, is also environmentally good) ...

... the next revision of the macbook pros is also the key issue for me before deciding to purchase a new model. It's not about cpu benchmarks, it's about built-in connectivity and upgradability. I'd really like to see that decent "future jack" in the next macbook PRO (usb3, lightpeak, fw3200),
regards,
C.

 

[DesmoPilot]

snip

Well that's good to hear. Those links you provided is from April; last update I read on SB was from Febuary - so my bad I suppose.