Macbook refresh rumours....?

MagicBoy said:
The 17" MBP uses a essentially the same IGP with a 1900x1200 panel to save on battery life. It only fires up the ATI card when required.
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True, I don't know why I'm fussing, my current laptop drives 1680x1050 perfectly. Thanks for the reassurance. :)

Will hold off in case of any issues but this looks to be my first Mac.
 
I remember last year holding off for the refresh of the 13" MBP only to be slightly dissapointed when they kept the C2D instead of a i3 or i5.

I recall at that time the Apple launch saying that the improved 320M graphics chip was a more worthwhile upgrade than the CPU as it would gave users a better 3D experience. I still thought I was being had over as the C2D CPU was soon coming to the end of it's life. I understood a little more when I read about the lack of available space inside the 13" casing but still felt they could have worked something out.

I bought a 13" MBP and over the year have installed 8gm of ram, 64gb SSD and a 640gb HD in place of the DVD drive and I am extremely happy with it.

This years update seems to contradict what Apple said last year though. This year they have increased the CPU yet replaced the GPU with one on parr or even slightly worse. I think Apple need to pull their finger out as in these financial times people need a reason to change/upgrade and tbh I don't see many people chomping on the bit to upgrade as a result of this refresh.

As far as the 13" model goes, for it to be called a Pro and in its present price bracket you would at least expect it to have a higher screen res, better GPU and OS/storage. Or could it be Apple don't feel strongly about the 13" MBP market anymore?

Jack
 
Apple didn't really have much choice given the end of life status of the C2D. We got an i5/i7 dual core instead of the predicted i3 partly I expect to balance out the IGP. There isn't the room in there to add a dedicated graphics chip - the C2D machines were only a 2 chip solution as the nVidia 9400M/320M was integrated into the chipset. nVidia don't have a license to produce chipsets for the i series chips so there is no alternative 2 chip solutions available to the Intel solution with the IGP on the Processor die.

Take a look at the iFixit teardown here. The 13" logic board is tiny. Even if they could add an additional GPU chip there would be great difficulty cooling it.

The other options such as losing the optical drive, or ramping up the thickness are a non-starter for a MacBook Pro.
 
JackRegan said:
I remember last year holding off for the refresh of the 13" MBP only to be slightly dissapointed when they kept the C2D instead of a i3 or i5.

I recall at that time the Apple launch saying that the improved 320M graphics chip was a more worthwhile upgrade than the CPU as it would gave users a better 3D experience. I still thought I was being had over as the C2D CPU was soon coming to the end of it's life. I understood a little more when I read about the lack of available space inside the 13" casing but still felt they could have worked something out.

I bought a 13" MBP and over the year have installed 8gm of ram, 64gb SSD and a 640gb HD in place of the DVD drive and I am extremely happy with it.

This years update seems to contradict what Apple said last year though. This year they have increased the CPU yet replaced the GPU with one on parr or even slightly worse. I think Apple need to pull their finger out as in these financial times people need a reason to change/upgrade and tbh I don't see many people chomping on the bit to upgrade as a result of this refresh.

As far as the 13" model goes, for it to be called a Pro and in its present price bracket you would at least expect it to have a higher screen res, better GPU and OS/storage. Or could it be Apple don't feel strongly about the 13" MBP market anymore?

Jack
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I agree i have never understood why the 13" is a pro, there is nothing pro about it, they should have just used the 13" to replace the white macbooks and called it a macbook and kept the macbook pro for the 15" and above because they are true pro products
 
Hmm I don't kno wwhat to do now, I was really waiting on the refresh to introduce the higher res screen on the 13inch, which hasn't happened.

So like many I've got the dilemma of a 13 MBA with an older cpu, but better screen, or 13 MBP with far better internals, no ssd (but can be added), and lower res :/
 
Here's something you might be interested in

New MacBook Pro Benchmarks Show Massive Improvement


033949-mbp2011c.jpg


PrimateLabs has compiled GeekBench results for the new Sandy Bridge MacBook Pros released just yesterday, and the results are impressive. The results show GeekBench results ranging from 5900 to 10164 across all models. What makes this particularly impressive is that the new low-end 13" MacBook Pro (2.3GHz Dual i5) scores near last year's top-end 15"/17" MacBook Pro (2.8GHz Dual i7).

Browsing through the complete list of benchmarks shows the new MacBook Pros in context with the other Macs. The top-of-the-line MacBook Pro now outrank many of last year's desktop machines including the Mac Pro and iMac. PrimateLabs concludes:
The performance of the new MacBook Pros is amazing. The slowest MacBook Pro performs on par with the fastest previous-generation MacBook Pro, and the fastest MacBook Pro is 80% faster than the fastest previous-generation MacBook Pro.

In fact, if you look at our Mac Benchmark charts, you'll see that the fastest MacBook Pro is faster than a lot of Mac Pros (including the current generation of Mac Pros). The new MacBook Pros truly are portable workstations.

As always, benchmarks are an artificial gauge of performance, but can be useful in head to head comparisons. These numbers also primarily reflect CPU/Memory performance and don't take into account differences in graphics hardware.
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Rainmaker said:
I
If those people were wrong, and the new 13" plays my 1080p sample flawlessly tomorrow without exploding or at 1fps, then I shall be getting one. No hate here!
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What bitrate are you planning? My wife's 2007 WhiteBook can play HD video with no problem...well unless it is wrapped in Flash but that is a different story...


bigredshark said:
My 18 month old work Dell Latitude with a core 2 duo 2.26 and integrated graphics plays every 1080p file I've ever thrown at it, I think somehow it might just about manage. Unless you're expecting to throw prores style bitrates at it, in which case your on your own, because that's just silly...
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I've seen a Core2Duo 27" iMac handle 1080P Apple 4444 Prores so I am sure the new MacBook Pros can handle normal 1080p.
 
From AMD's facebook


Exciting news for fans of Apple and AMD! AMD Radeon HD 6490M and 6750M graphics are available in the new 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro.


woop ?
 
Biz.Kid09 said:
:eek: that looks amazing :p
Is that going to be implemented on all of the new Intel chipsets or is it exclusive to Apple?
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No, it's an Intel standard which will likely be dumped into a lot of chipsets, it's fairly easy because it's not new technology really, just new packaging. The video is displayport and the data bus is basically PCIe over an external connector (which is why you can plug in USB etc, the hub/docking station just pretends to be a PCI-e USB card to the system).

I do very much like the look of it, when storage based on it turns up it'll be really useful for me at least...
 
I agree also, can't see how it's a bad thing, the majority of places are saying that the Intel HD graphics are on par with the 320m, and you're getting a massively better cpu in the process.
 
I've just ordered a 15" 2.2 with high res screen an 7200 RPM HD, sold my last 17" i5, whilst I loved the 17" I just found it too big/heavy a lot of the time, looking forward to receiving it.
 
Biz.Kid09 said:
:eek: that looks amazing :p
Is that going to be implemented on all of the new Intel chipsets or is it exclusive to Apple?
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Intel demoing it on a PC suggests it is not exclusive to Apple! :p

It uses Apple's mini display port on the MBP, hence Apple giving it their own whizzy name. I really hope in a few years LightPeak will be very common. Imagine how many cables you could do away with! :eek:
 
SiriusB said:
Intel demoing it on a PC suggests it is not exclusive to Apple! :p

It uses Apple's mini display port on the MBP, hence Apple giving it their own whizzy name. I really hope in a few years LightPeak will be very common. Imagine how many cables you could do away with! :eek:
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I understand the use of the mini displayport connector is part of the standard, certainly if you look at the Lacie website they've announced (but not priced :( ) a drive based on it which uses the same connector.
 
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