Unannounced Core i7 Apple MacBook Pro benchmarks surface - Page 2

Speaking of repercussion, the battery in the Quad Core-i7 Envy is awful. I can't imagine that is a viable trade off for Apple.

It's sort of hard to get excited about this update. On the processor front, Apple are between a rock and a hard place: on the one hand, they should finally introduce quad-cores to leverage all the cool under-the-hood-stuff in SL, on the other hand, they would sacrifice a ton of battery life, so they'll probably go with the weaker dual-cores. Also, I don't think they'll put in Blu-Ray drives, as much as I'd want them to. Finally, these new machines probably won't have next-gen connectivity (i.e. USB 3.0 and/or Light Peak). No matter what Apple does, the new MBPs won't be as viable as I would like them to be and, as one would expect from such an expensive device. Just think: Sandy-Bridge-CPUs, Blu-Ray in Macs, USB 3.0 and Light Peak - all cool next-gen stuff that's just around the corner, but probably won't be in this machine, which makes it a lot less attractive as a long-term investment.
I hope I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I guess I'm going to have to stay with my 2007 SR-MBP a while longer (my tiny hard drive has been full for about a year now, UGH )

Mac Mini be a trip? Now that would be the ticket.

So here is a collective wishlist for our next MacBook Pro line:

-IPS screen - Unfortunately not likely, not widely used in laptops.
-CPU: Intel i5 in 15" / i7 in 17" - Of course, not wise not to update CPU when looking at PC prices/specs. i5 in 15" and maaaybe 13". And i7 in 17".
-Newer graphics from NVIDIA or ATi - maybe...NVIDIA Optimus comes next week.
-USB 3 - probably not happening, just starting to ship on PC laptops, ie HP Envy 15.
-more RAM/bigger hard drive included by default? - Safe assumption.
-same price or slightly lower? - Probably.
-slightly better battery performance and power management (new Intel chips manage this better, plus perhaps longer absolute battery life) - Likely at least a slight bump.
-SD Card doesn't hang out - Perhaps.
-OS X 10.6.3 installed - A given.
-Blu-Ray? - Yeah right, a 1% chance, only BTO.

It would be awesome if we get IPS screens. More colors, way more viewing angle. The iPad has it. Would be embarrassing if MBP didn't have it. Yet I researched IPS a bit and it seems that unfortunately the industry...kind of stopped making them for laptops? USB 3 would be great but it's so new, probably not until next rev. Blu-ray probably...never.

^^

Since when has Apple cared what the rest of the industry is doing?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/hp-envy-15-review/

Well according to Engadget, the Envy 15 gets uncomfortably hot at the bottom for the lap after an hour and hot in the palm rests just browsing the web. And it only has 2 hrs of battery life. Sadly 45nm mobile quad cores just aren't ready for thin and light notebooks and Intel isn't releasing 32nm mobile quad cores until Sandy Bridge which looks to be pushed back from Q4 2010 into 2011.


I want an IPS screen too and I'm actually optimistic it'll happen. Apple seems to be rolling it out across the line with dedicated displays, the iMac, and now the iPad. I didn't know IPS was commonly available in sizes and power consumption for a tablet and yet the iPad has it, so it isn't unlikely they can find some scaled up for notebooks.

I'm hoping Apple just goes with the ATI HD 5000 series due to DX11 support and reportedly OpenCL 1.1 support. nVidia simply has brought nothing new to the table in years, with the current 300M series being a rebrand of the 200M series, which were in turn modified 8000/9000/100M series with DX10.1 support. There doesn't seem to have been any major architectural improvements and ATI's mid-range lineup in the 5600/5700 series seems to offer superior performance at the same or lower power consumption. I guess where nVidia can still win on is price, which sadly may be the determining factor. I wished we'd see at least a Mobility Radeon 5650, but ideally a Mobility Radeon 5750 or 5830.

Features like USB 3.0 or 6.0Gb/s SATA support may be problematic since current chipsets don't support them so if Apple adds them they'd need to add dedicated support chipset to the motherboard where space is already in tight supply.

Interesting review. It says:

"While writing this review in Google Docs with a few additional Firefox tabs open, the system lasted just under two hours on a charge. That's pretty abysmal for a larger laptop: the Core i7-equipped Dell Studio 17 gets close to three and a half, while the 15-Inch MacBook Pro gets just about 4 hours."

The MBP only gets a 4 hour battery life? My i7 Quad core Dell Studio 15 lasts longer than that. It has the optional high capacity battery.

Yes as ltcommander.data points out, Apple has them now on the iMac. Perhaps I should rephrase...it does not appear upon my brief research that IPS screens small enough for laptops are being manufactured, at all. Apparently the ThinkPad T60 had IPS, but that was years ago. They're in TVs and desktop screens but not many (any?) laptops now. Of course it'd be great if Apple bucks the trend, like they do as you say from time to time! I'm hoping...but not counting, on it.

What display types do they currently use? I can't find the display specs anywhere. I'd think that for a professional machine they'd list the viewing angle, contrast ratio, etc.

How 'bout for my Lombard PowerBook (even with its G4 upgrade)?...

It occurs to me that Apple may be in the process of moving it's entire line to IPS displays- First on the iMac, now on the iPad- it follows that if they're invested in 9.7" panels, then incrementally larger displays (13.3", 15.4" etc) are not beyond possibility.

That depends on how they tested it. Here is a more thorough review of the unibody MBP battery life.




"Eight, freakin, hours. I couldn't believe it. In my lightest test, the new 15-inch MacBook Pro lasted eight hours and eight minutes. That's with the screen at half brightness (completely usable) and no funny optimizations. The notebook is just playing music and surfing through a lot of my old reviews.

....the older MacBook Pro could only manage 3 hours and 17 minutes in the same test. The new notebook lasted almost twice as long. Mathematically, this doesn't make sense. There's only a 46% increase in battery capacity, there shouldn’t be a ~100% increase in battery life...ever."

The Best Battery Life I’ve Ever Seen, Anandtech

I guess you can't delete a comment.

Z*z**

The 17" Dell Studio quad-core Intel Core i7 machine gets only 3.5 hours with an 9-cell, 85W battery on a WiFi test in at least one independent review. That is larger than the MBP's 73W battery and the significantly larger than the 56W battery used in the average 15" Dell Studio with the default battery size.

It's hard to find reviews on the Dell Stdio 15 with the 720QM, but there are plenty of other machines with reviews. The 6-cell battery life is the downfall of all the ones I read. The machine is already excessive without adding a decent 9-cell battery that still doesn't outlast the MBP battery. Part of this is Windows fault as they Mac OS X is shown to have much more efficient power management, but that would make you think Dell would be concerned with a little more.

I'm always amazed at the people that think that Apple should put the fastest possible processor into their machines without considering the size or weight of the chassis to maintain a decent battery life. The current systems are finally getting into a good place with battery duration, but I won't be happy until 12 hours of WiFi use can be had, which will meet my average mobile day needs.

Note that Apple also uses li-poly-ion batteries, which I think allows for more power in a smaller size and weight than li-ion batteries. (I'll have to check into that, can't remember everything all the time)

Why has no one noticed the scores for the older Macbooks are tested against 64-bit Geekbench while the new i7 is tested with 32-bit? Meaning the new i7's compared to the older Core2's are further out than you think. They would score probably in the 6000's running the 64-bit test. You need to release 32-bit core 2 numbers. Your comparing different tests. My Core2 2.8Ghz scores 3898 in 32-bit Geekbench. 4312 in 64-bit.
About IPS:
They are available up to 30in already. Cinema displays use IPS panels. LG makes them not Apple. Apple sources LCD panels. LG may have created a 10" one but they would be the ones who would need to pull the trigger for 13", 15", etc and after years and years they have left those sizes absent from their IPS panel range. Not sure why unless it has something to do with the backlight and form factor.

That's more in keeping with what I thought it was. I wonder where the 4 hour rating came from?

And what did Apple do in 2009 to increase the battery life so dramatically?

With the latest MBP, Apple redesigned the battery. Instead of having a battery compartment, they removed the compartment and designed a larger battery to fit there. Many users have not liked the idea of losing removable batteries. If you go to the Apple site they explain why they did this. Personally, I like the idea. I generally have more than enough battery charge to do what I have to and not carry a power cord. With my older Macs I took the power cord rather than extra batteries.

1) Battery capacity. Changing from a user-replaceable battery to internal allowed for a substanially bigger battery in the same space.

Late-2008 13" MB. = 45W battery
Late-2008 15" MBP = 60W battery
Late-2008 17" MBP = 68W battery

.Mid-2009 13" MBP = 58W battery
.Mid-2009 15" MBP = 73W battery
.Mid-2009 17" MBP = 95W battery
2) Better power management system.

3) Use of Lithium-Ion Poymer batteries over Lithium-Ion allows for a better shaped battery.

Or you can read about it: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/battery/

Me too. I used to have 2 extra batteries. It's a PITA to switch sitting on a plan and it requires closing whatever you were doing, though you didn't have to turn it off if you're quick about it. Charging is really the worst part of the whole setup.

Those users who still have a problem with the battery duration can buy an external battery that plugs into the MagSafe adapter. It can charged along with your machine and you don't have to shut anything down or take anything apart to use it.

The fact is most people didn't buy extra batteries like we did, despite wanting a longer duration.

It could be a Hackintosh. This is something just off the machine in my signature, which has proven to be as reliable as any real Mac:

Section\tDescription\tScore\tGeekbench Score
Geekbench 2.1.4 for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit)
Integer\tProcessor integer performance\t11867\t11608
Floating Point\tProcessor floating point performance\t19320
Memory\tMemory performance\t2383
Stream\tMemory bandwidth performance\t2169
System Information

Operating System\tMac OS X 10.6.2 (Build 10C540)
Model\tMacPro2,1\tMotherboard\tApple Computer, Inc. Mac-F4208DC8 PCB Version
Processor\tGenuine Intel(R) CPU @ 2.66GHz
Processor ID\tGenuineIntel Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 5
Processors\t2\tThreads\t8
Cores\t8\tMemory\t12.0 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Processor Frequency\t3.09 GHz\tBus Frequency\t1.33 GHz
L1 Instruction Cache\t32.0 KB\tL1 Data Cache\t32.0 KB
L2 Cache\t4.00 MB\tL3 Cache\t0.00 B
BIOS\tApple Computer, Inc. MP21.88Z.005C.B01.0608221120
Integer Section

Section Score\t11867\t

Blowfish
single-threaded scalar\t1940
85.2 MB/sec\t

Blowfish
multi-threaded scalar\t14998
614.6 MB/sec\t

Text Compress
single-threaded scalar\t2662
8.52 MB/sec\t

Text Compress
multi-threaded scalar\t20085
65.9 MB/sec\t

Text Decompress
single-threaded scalar\t2355
9.68 MB/sec\t

Text Decompress
multi-threaded scalar\t19063
76.0 MB/sec\t

Image Compress
single-threaded scalar\t2593
21.4 Mpixels/sec\t

Image Compress
multi-threaded scalar\t20245
170.3 Mpixels/sec\t

Image Decompress
single-threaded scalar\t2602
43.7 Mpixels/sec\t

Image Decompress
multi-threaded scalar\t16244
265.0 Mpixels/sec\t

Lua
single-threaded scalar\t4505
1.73 Mnodes/sec\t

Lua
multi-threaded scalar\t35112
13.5 Mnodes/sec\t

Floating Point Section

Section Score\t19320\t

Mandelbrot
single-threaded scalar\t2238
1.49 Gflops\t

Mandelbrot
multi-threaded scalar\t18020
11.8 Gflops\t

Dot Product
single-threaded scalar\t4052
1.96 Gflops\t

Dot Product
multi-threaded scalar\t34090
15.5 Gflops\t

Dot Product
single-threaded vector\t3149
3.77 Gflops\t

Dot Product
multi-threaded vector\t28573
29.7 Gflops\t

LU Decomposition
single-threaded scalar\t1562
1.39 Gflops\t

LU Decomposition
multi-threaded scalar\t12237
10.7 Gflops\t

Primality Test
single-threaded scalar\t5650
843.9 Mflops\t

Primality Test
multi-threaded scalar\t33693
6.25 Gflops\t

Sharpen Image
single-threaded scalar\t6392
14.9 Mpixels/sec\t

Sharpen Image
multi-threaded scalar\t50524
116.4 Mpixels/sec\t

Blur Image
single-threaded scalar\t7856
6.22 Mpixels/sec\t

Blur Image
multi-threaded scalar\t62449
49.1 Mpixels/sec\t

Memory Section

Section Score\t2383\t

Read Sequential
single-threaded scalar\t2230
2.73 GB/sec\t

Write Sequential
single-threaded scalar\t2972
2.03 GB/sec\t

Stdlib Allocate
single-threaded scalar\t2822
10.5 Mallocs/sec\t

Stdlib Write
single-threaded scalar\t2253
4.66 GB/sec\t

Stdlib Copy
single-threaded scalar\t1638
1.69 GB/sec\t

Stream Section

Section Score\t2169\t

Stream Copy
single-threaded scalar\t2092
2.86 GB/sec\t

Stream Copy
single-threaded vector\t2324
3.01 GB/sec\t

Stream Scale
single-threaded scalar\t2198
2.85 GB/sec\t

Stream Scale
single-threaded vector\t2234
3.02 GB/sec\t

Stream Add
single-threaded scalar\t2088
3.15 GB/sec\t

Stream Add
single-threaded vector\t2417
3.36 GB/sec\t

Stream Triad
single-threaded scalar\t2229
3.08 GB/sec\t

Stream Triad
single-threaded vector\t1770
3.31 GB/sec


As you all can see it id's itself as a Mac Pro2,1. The processors are dual qc 2.66 engineering samples, overcloced to 3.09 GHz via tape mod;they run in the high 30s even at full cpu use.

That's nice - do Dell's computers run OS X?

most people like myself rarely use the laptop without it being plugged in. 3 hours of battery is almost always plenty for me.

Is that really most people? If so, then what is the point for most people having a truly portable computer? Would people use them more remotely if the batteries lasted longer? I plug mine in after about 6 hours. Regardless of the inconvenience, I have no choice but to plug it in if I want to continue using it.

'Bout time, thats all I can say. I hope they are going to use discreet switchable AMD graphics for the whole MBP lineup. Even for the bottom line 13 inch, leaving the graphics to the on board IGP on Arrandale is unacceptable at its price, although being Apple it would still sell.

Why on earth would I return something that works great and does everything I need because something a little faster (and most likely no other difference) came out soon after? Sure, it would have been nice if this came out first, but this computer does everything I need (and then some). It would be a waste of a restocking fee.

not that i'm going to whine... but apple decided to replace my old macbook pro (due to logic board issues) with a brand new unibody macbook pro. They screwed up that old one way too many times via apple care... Long story short, the order for the new unibody macbook pro was placed on Feb 5, 2010 and it will arrive around Feb 10... Do you think Apple would just give me the new i7/i5 specs since I had it customized for the antiglare screen?

The order clearly states it's a C2D, but I've heard reports that people received mac minis in the past with upgraded processors that contradict their order forms...

It seems to me that Apple is holding their MBP Upgrades back until Nvidia finishes testing on their optimus technology, as reported by some hardware sites.

Why do i think so? Well, i was getting suspicious over a statement you can read on the Hardmac Website.

http://www.hardmac.com/news/2010/01/...HardMac.com%29

According to them, they got word that the technology will be able to switch between the integrated GPU and the dGPU, yet you can´t read any details about that in Nvidias official Blog. In fact, there are no details at all on their blog entry of january, only a simple announcement which states that we should wait until next month. So Hardmac´s claim is either fake or Nvidia might have signed an NDA until the new Macbooks are announced, which seems more likely to me.

So it was just a bigger battery?

Thanks. The MBP battery life is truly impressive.

Dunno. Why would anybody want to?

There's at least 140,000 full applications for my Dell, with over 3 billion downloads. How's OSX in comparison?

Too bad you bought it from Apple instead of Best Buy, eh?

There's always next time...

You forgot to mention there is also over 250,000 viruses for your Dell running Windows.

By the sounds of it a Quad-Core is unlikely?

Still, I would be upgrading from a G4 1.66Ghz, so I think I *might* notice a little improvement...


ps Gotta say, though, using the G4 shows up some blatant dumb-ass design and process prioritisation "issues" in OSX.5, like the fact it is happy to let the Mail app delay the display of the login window then the typing of the password. FAIL^3.

I had hoped you understood my answer to your original question,

"And what did Apple do in 2009 to increase the battery life so dramatically?"

You don't have to be a genius to understand that by redesigning the battery, as Apple did to fit into the space where they removed the battery compartment components and compressing the layers into sheets rather than cylindrical shaped cells would in essence give you a larger battery--DUH. But that is only a part of it. Go to the Apple website, as I originally suggested, and watch the clip about the battery technology @ http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/features.html and click onto "Breakthrough Battery". Also read solipsism below my post that you are referring to. If you need more battery life then get an external one or carry a power cord.

Meh, I work right next to a mall with an Apple store and I just went and bought it during my break. Besides, I wanted to avoid BB trying to "optimize" my Mac. Or worse, saying they don't have any non pre-optimized Macs and making me pay for this service I didn't want.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Best Buy, but I just feel dubious towards some of their "Geek" Squad services.

Oh well. I guess we'll see what happens next Tues. I suppose we would have heard by now from some friendly BestBuy employee or something.

Either it's gonna be a "silent" update, or February 16th then.

Back in 2008, the Penryn MBPs were introduced on Feb 16th, weren't they?

What would happen if he bought it from Best Buy. They allow returns if the product has been upgraded in a certain amount of time or ... ? Please explain

- DP

There's not much point - on the mobile side it's only 25% faster and 30% more power draw. If it was say 70% faster then it would be worth it.


It's become common that spec updates are silent. I think every update up until the WWDC will be silent. Not even an iPad introduction event because we've already seen it.

The laptops are needing some Core i updates ASAP so I'd expect any day now and that covers this month. I expect minor Mini and Macbook spec bumps too. Then it's Mac Pro with 6-core ( http://hothardware.com/News/Intel-De...re-Processors/ ) in March, then iPad no 3G in April, iPad w 3G in May, then new iphone + WWDC June/July and so on.