Montevina MBP MB Speculation Thread - Page 2

A total redesign of MBP line will require Apple engineers to look several years ahead, given the length of history since the day of aluminum PowerBook. There maybe an intermediate minor updates such as keyboard, trackpad, possibly new LCD panels that can be housed in the same top cover, perhaps a bit contour on the shape, but not much on overall thickness. A new case redesign that involved thickness for thermal exchange, several components in current MBP need to be considered:

* thickness of super drive (not sure if pro line users are ready for external MBA super drive)
* thickness of DVI connector (moving toward lower profile HDMI or DisplayPort as some other emerging Montevina notebooks)
* thickness of LCD panel (moving toward thinner LED panels)

The redesigned case will need to cope with first generation Nehalem mobile chip (Auburndale, Clarksfield, 35W~45W Q3 2009) until Intel shift to 32nm Westmere (the Nehalem refresh, 25W~35W H1 2010). Thus the case redesign that involve overall thickness may commence around that time. The first Nehalem chip (45nm) will be built with a pair of Penryn cores that led to die size increase for mobile platform, it further suggests thermal challenge on thinner chassis than the current design.

The current MBP design will likely to support two iterations of Montevina refresh and first generation of Nehalem mobile chip.

* DC Intel T9600 Penryn 2.8GHz 1066MHz 6MB 35W (Montevina Update, Q2 2008)
* DC Intel T9800 Penryn 2.93GHz 1066MHz 6MB 35W (Montevina speedbump refresh, Q1 2009)
* QC Intel QX9300 Penryn 2.53GHz 1066MHz 12MB 45W (Montevina refresh BTO, Q1 2009)
* QC Intel Q9100 Penryn 2.26GHz 1066MHz 12MB 45W (Montevina refresh BTO, Q1 2009)
* DC Intel Auburndale 35W~45W (Calpella Update, Q3 2009)

The two QC chips mentioned above are just speculation since there are rumors suggesting that Intel will make one of those chip (Q9100) a 35W part. If the 35W QC chip indeed turn out to be an option, expect QC mobile computing before thinner case redesign take place.

Since you waited quite some time for this upgrade, it's best you wait at least until August 08 and see if Apple will release new Montevina MBP. If no update after August 08, your fall back plan would be just buying the current 15" MBP.


Apple has done that before during Santa Rosa MBP with LED screen update back in June 5th, 2007 while the promotion was going on. It wouldn't be surprised if Apple will do that again in the future.

Nehalem generation will certainty be a great for desktop (Mac Pro) update during 2009, but not a very good option for mobile platform until Nehalem refresh (Westmere, 25W~35W) 32nm in H1 2010. That's the mobile Nehalem to wait for!

Before all processor update take place, let's hope we get DDR3L as option for Montenvina update. DDR3L is lowered to 1.35V from 1.5V according to JEDEC, another 20% saving in power. Source

DDR3 price will drop soon as Intel is subsidizing the cost to push PC manufactures migrate to DDR3. Additionally, it is cheaper to manufacture DDR3 now. Expect DDR3 price to fall within 10% of DDR2 price as mobile platforms pick up.

FYI. here and here. True, early adopters will pay higher premium.


Other points you mentioned seemed like what other would hope for. Though the smaller trackpad probably won't ever happen since the introduction of MBA. Apple introduced multi-touch trackpad which will only lead to larger trackpad for future MBP and MB.

Have you tried uncheck "Ignore accidental trackpad input" under System Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse -> Trackpad? This helps a bit.

Thanks BJNY for sharing this information. For those interested in product specification, please find PDF here. If 17" Montevina MBP release after the 15" MBP around Q3 2008, this will be the better LCD panel option.

Some preferred ATI solution and others preferred Nvidia offering. As Montevina MBP is approaching, speculation on various video cards emerged from other Montevina notebook vendors. These two GPUs are being used in Montevina notebook for 15" and 17" application. From the initial glance, both shared 55nm fabrication process. Here is brief feature set at glance:

ATI Mobility HD3600 Specs
* 378 million transistors using 55nm fabrication process
* Unified Superscalar shader architecture
* Microsoft® DirectX® 10.1
* OpenGL 2.0
* 128-bit DDR2/GDDR3/GDDR4 memory interface
* Native PCI Express 2.0 x16 bus interface
* ATI Avivo HD Video and Display architecture
* ATI PowerPlay 7.0 power management technology

Nvida 9650M GT
* 55nm fabrication process
* Up to 40% faster performance than the previous generation of GeForce 8M notebook
* New PureVideo® HD video processing for improved color and contrast
* Full support for the latest Blu-ray Profile 2.0 features and Blu-ray Live
* Extensive multi-display connectivity with support for all the latest display standards including DVI, HDMI 1.3, Display Port 1.1, and VGA
* Support for the new MXM version 3.0 graphics module specification

Consider the feature announcement of Snow Leopard (10.6), support of Nvidia CUDA in WWDC08 and recently announced ATI HD3870 for Mac Pro, which GPU do you think will likely be the candidate for pro line mobile platform update? If neither, please suggest which GPU would be included in Montevina MBP.