Is anyone else here afraid that some of these flawed chips will make it into the new MBPs? If I was buying this revision, I'd probably hold back until I was CERTAIN the flawed chips were not in these machines.
The flaw won't affect the MacBook Pro.
Cougar Point rev. 1 has two good working SATA channels and 4 that degrade over time. The MBP doesn't need more than two SATA channels.
Even if they end up using the flawed chipset they need to delay shipment so everyone thinks they're using the new fixed one. That way they avoid bad publicity. At the same time the delay means the general public who don't pay attention to these things will continue to pay top dollar for last year's technology. Double win for Apple.
Is anyone else here afraid that some of these flawed chips will make it into the new MBPs? If I was buying this revision, I'd probably hold back until I was CERTAIN the flawed chips were not in these machines.
That's silly for two reasons:
1. It is extremely unlikely that Apple would do that.
2. Even if they did, how many SATA hard drives are you going to have inside your MBP? Why isn't 2 good channels enough?
It would not really matter for a MBP which only uses two SATA ports.The other 4 (the ones with the potential problem) go unused.
But it would still feel like you were paying for parts with a known defect.
i actually always look at these defects as something unique, especially when they don't affect the actual machine. That way, you're one of the only ones in the whole world who owns a 2011 macbook pro from the first batch. same idea with coins and say... gta hot coffee capable version?
1. It is extremely unlikely that Apple would do that.
Apple would have gone out of business long ago if they waited for silicon to become bug free or free of indefined behaviour. Even if the SATA bug is fixed there are a host of other hardware issues with Sandy Bridge. None of these issues will stop people from shipping Sandy Bridge hardware.
As to Apple do they really care if ports that are never used and can't be used have bugs in them? Think about it, there are a number of ports on intel chipsets that never get used in Apple hardware, it makes no difference if they work or not.
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2. Even if they did, how many SATA hard drives are you going to have inside your MBP? Why isn't 2 good channels enough?
This is the key. The high performance ports work fine. Frankly they can't build the type of Mac Book Pro I'm looking for but they can very likely build the machine that Apple is likely to build. You see I'd would want more than two channels available to support multiple Blade SSD slots.
However I don't see Apple doing this right away. So the current hardware is viable in a new MBP. Apple may be forced to sell the SB hardware side by side with the Core 2 machines simply due to Intel having limited hardware to sell for a couple of months.
All of this is interesting but I'm still surprised that there have been zero leaks about the coming MBPs. The only info published to date has to do with inventory levels. There is nothing available about the hardware. This is very strange so close to a major release.
Comments
Is anyone else here afraid that some of these flawed chips will make it into the new MBPs? If I was buying this revision, I'd probably hold back until I was CERTAIN the flawed chips were not in these machines.
The flaw won't affect the MacBook Pro.
Cougar Point rev. 1 has two good working SATA channels and 4 that degrade over time. The MBP doesn't need more than two SATA channels.
Even if they end up using the flawed chipset they need to delay shipment so everyone thinks they're using the new fixed one. That way they avoid bad publicity. At the same time the delay means the general public who don't pay attention to these things will continue to pay top dollar for last year's technology. Double win for Apple.
Is anyone else here afraid that some of these flawed chips will make it into the new MBPs? If I was buying this revision, I'd probably hold back until I was CERTAIN the flawed chips were not in these machines.
That's silly for two reasons:
1. It is extremely unlikely that Apple would do that.
2. Even if they did, how many SATA hard drives are you going to have inside your MBP? Why isn't 2 good channels enough?
It would not really matter for a MBP which only uses two SATA ports.The other 4 (the ones with the potential problem) go unused.
But it would still feel like you were paying for parts with a known defect.
i actually always look at these defects as something unique, especially when they don't affect the actual machine. That way, you're one of the only ones in the whole world who owns a 2011 macbook pro from the first batch. same idea with coins and say... gta hot coffee capable version?
That's silly for two reasons:
1. It is extremely unlikely that Apple would do that.
Apple would have gone out of business long ago if they waited for silicon to become bug free or free of indefined behaviour. Even if the SATA bug is fixed there are a host of other hardware issues with Sandy Bridge. None of these issues will stop people from shipping Sandy Bridge hardware.
As to Apple do they really care if ports that are never used and can't be used have bugs in them? Think about it, there are a number of ports on intel chipsets that never get used in Apple hardware, it makes no difference if they work or not.
2. Even if they did, how many SATA hard drives are you going to have inside your MBP? Why isn't 2 good channels enough?
This is the key. The high performance ports work fine. Frankly they can't build the type of Mac Book Pro I'm looking for but they can very likely build the machine that Apple is likely to build. You see I'd would want more than two channels available to support multiple Blade SSD slots.
However I don't see Apple doing this right away. So the current hardware is viable in a new MBP. Apple may be forced to sell the SB hardware side by side with the Core 2 machines simply due to Intel having limited hardware to sell for a couple of months.
All of this is interesting but I'm still surprised that there have been zero leaks about the coming MBPs. The only info published to date has to do with inventory levels. There is nothing available about the hardware. This is very strange so close to a major release.