Yes. GPUs should have their own RAM, and when the RAM in the system can't be upgraded or replaced, it creates an idiotic artificial limit.
To add to your point, with the HD3000, it only allocates a higher amount of ram to the gpu in systems with 8GB or more installed. You can look it up on intel's site, mactracker, wiki, etc. This makes it even more limiting on an Air like machine. Obviously that was the HD3000, so that number will not always remain static. I think with 8GB of ram installed it gives the gpu 512MB or something like that. Lack of addressable ram can be an issue. It would show up in gaming, but I only mention that because of how noticeable it would be if the system has to cache textures due to insufficient ram allocation.
Well let's not say that. For one thing 64GB is way too small for a modern laptop called a Pro. With that type of arrangement I'd have to say the minimal flash storage size would have to be 256GB. Mainly because 128GB is just a hair to small if you are a user of a number of large apps.
That magnetic drive, for bulk storage, is important though. Especially if you consider that it doesn't look like flash will ever catch up with magnetic technology cost per bit wise.
The other thing here is that of the flash soldered onto the motherboard. I don't think the technology is ready for that yet. In fact just the opposite as the high density flash solutions are less reliable. I must admit though that you seldom hear about SSDs going bad in AIRs.
That's crazy. 64 GB is plenty for just the OS and apps. Even if you have a lot of apps, you can manage with 64 GB. If you have a separate platter drive, 256 GB is WAY overkill.
I hope they refresh this line also. My 1,1 will be obsoleted by Mountain Lion, and I would consider buying a new one just so I could continue my current configuration for a few years longer.
Thirded (not a real word, I know).
I jumped the gun and sold my iMac last fall in anticipation of a Mac Pro refresh that has yet to materialize.
What is the wattage of the current MacBook Airs, in particular the top end; 13-inch featuring 256GB, 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor 4GB memory and 256GB flash storage?
[/Quote]
Frankly off the top of my head I can't remember. I know it was discussed at length here in the past. 17 watts comes to mind but I think that is low.
[Quote]
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacBook Pro
Would you feel the same if the performance of the Intel HD 4000 integrated GPU was found to be comparable to mid-level discrete graphics processors?
The new intel GPU is a big unknown. Most of the testing done with leaked parts has been highly biased and frankly rigged to show the GPU in the best possible light. What we would need is shipping hardware with shipping Apple drivers. It isn't just normal GOU functionality you need to compare either as these chips will become OpenCL engines so it is reasonable to compare their performance running such code also.
On top of all of that there are the rumors about HiDPI screens that might be possible in future Macs. If these come we might actually see real world performance regressions. Of course this is speculation, you really can't tell until that elusive shipping hardware comes.
On top of all of that Mac still need to get faster, much faster actually with each release. Stagnation simply because Apple wants to rely upon integrated GPUs will not go over well. That of course is if the GPU is as bad as Intels record here indicates is possible. In a nut shell MBP graphics solutions are barely passable now, we need to move forward not backward. However I don't see Apple going integrated only in the next gen MBPs, integrated GPUs simply aren't ready for Pro level work. Even AMDs coming Trinity chip still wouldn't pass for a Pro level laptop GPU.
Speaking if AMD, most testing so far indicates that Intels new GPU will not ebpven catch up to the GPU in AMDs Llano chip. A chip that will be over a year old by the time Ivy Bridge is on the market in force. Supposedly within two months or so AMD will be shipping Trinity with a 50% faster GPU. In the end intel will be lagging integrated GPUs from AMD for another year or two, they will not even come close to contemporary mid level descrete GPU performance.
All this being said I do expect integrated GPUs to be the way of the future, I just don't see them offering that sort of performance with Ivy Bridge no matter how much it is improved over the previous generation.
Would you feel the same if the performance of the Intel HD 4000 integrated GPU was found to be comparable to mid-level discrete graphics processors?
Intel HD 4000 is released after the 7000 series Notebook and desktop discrete GPUs from AMD which only reinforces reality--Intel cannot match remotely the capabilities of AMD and their discrete GPU technology. The same with Nvidia.
Hell, AMD is already testing their 8000 series GPGPUs.
So no, with the emergences of OpenCL integrated into LLVM/Clang and how Apple leverages the GPGPUs for process tasks the more power the discrete GPU the more responsive the system, overall.
The love affair between Apple and Intel dried up long ago. I wouldn't expect any kind of exclusivity deals. Obviously Apple has contracts with them, like other oems. These guys tend to get access before distributors and shops like Newegg.
Mixing it up would mean using AMD chips in the AIRs and the Minis replacement. In the end I think it hurts Apple more than it helps them to be tied to one vendor. Apple has implied in the past that they like to minimize the number of suppliers they use but that can lead to problems if a supplier doesn't have your best interest at heart. In the case of Intel I really don't think they like the influence Apple has over the marketplace.
Quote:
The 55W chip is an intel extreme part. It will not make it into a mac. This is just sloppy reporting. Remember a few months ago when I mentioned they cited the wrong part for the fall refresh? I was right because I just went with the logical replacement rather than internet kool-aid. Apple has never once used one of the extreme edition parts. You gain very little speed at the cost of battery life and double the price. I see no reason for them to change policies now. In terms of real performance gains, Anandtech has never been that impressed with these (used anandtech reference to annoy you slightly).
Well that explains a lot. My point remains though, even a 45 watt part needs to be cooled and going too thin will compromise that. Plus I don't see Apple dropping the descrete GPU in the Mac Book Pros this year.
As to Anandtech well I think they have potential to do good but in far too many cases their reporting just looks like a press release for Intel. I especially don't like the way they tweaked GPU driver settings to make Ivy Bridges GPU look possibly better than it is. Being an Apple forum we really need to wait anyways to see what the Ivy Bridge machines ship with. Drivers for GPUs have never been Apples strong points.
What I'd like is a small (perhaps 64 GB) SSD -perhaps on the motherboard- for the OS and a larger platter drive for data. I don't expect it to happen that way, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Well let's not say that. For one thing 64GB is way too small for a modern laptop called a Pro. With that type of arrangement I'd have to say the minimal flash storage size would have to be 256GB. Mainly because 128GB is just a hair to small if you are a user of a number of large apps.
That magnetic drive, for bulk storage, is important though. Especially if you consider that it doesn't look like flash will ever catch up with magnetic technology cost per bit wise.
The other thing here is that of the flash soldered onto the motherboard. I don't think the technology is ready for that yet. In fact just the opposite as the high density flash solutions are less reliable. I must admit though that you seldom hear about SSDs going bad in AIRs.
The idea is to have a smallish SSD drive dedicated to the OS and applications for performance reasons, then have magnetic storage for data. If it's too large, it starts to get too expensive to drive down through the entire product line to the 13" MB/MBP.
I agree that a socketed SSD would be a better design, for easy replacement in the event of a failure. Otherwise, you'd be looking at a complete motherboard swap.
Would you feel the same if the performance of the Intel HD 4000 integrated GPU was found to be comparable to mid-level discrete graphics processors?
It won't, no need to hypothesize about it. HD4000 will be a lot better than anything Intel had before, but it will not even come close to the discrete GPU's in the current MBP's, let alone anything better released after that. For a laptop that can easily set you back $1500, IMO that's unacceptable, even despite everything else that will be great about it.
That's crazy. 64 GB is plenty for just the OS and apps. Even if you have a lot of apps, you can manage with 64 GB. If you have a separate platter drive, 256 GB is WAY overkill.
Actually this is a hard learned lesson from way back in 2008 when I got my MBP. I think with in a day I had surpassed 70 GB of stuff installed. It adds up quick. Look at what happens when you install XCode, open Office, Eclipse, a couple of web browsers, Mac Ports, a few graphics programs like Gimp, a VM or two and other apps.
I was actually shocked at how fast the capacity iPod that 200GB drive disappeared. Note too this is before I even had an iTunes account. or for that matter any media to amount to anything. That media currently resides on an external disk.
In the end I ended up ditching Open Office for Apples "office" apps, removed Mac Ports in favor of Homebrew and did a number of other refactorings. In the end I'm pretty confident when I say 64 GB is too small these days for an app / boot drive. Even Apple has heard the whine form it's XCode users as they have dramatically trimmed that apps install profile along with the documentation it installs. Even iBooks author downloads to a huge impact on you disk drive.
Remember I'm talking about a MBP used as a machine by someone more than a novice to do more than the average person does with his machine. However I'm not by any measure a power user, nor do I get into some of the demanding graphics work that many on the forum do. So by that measure I don't think to many MBP users would be happy at all with a 64 GB boot / app drive.
Here is just a quick few install numbers from my Applications directory. Not that often stuff gets installed elsewhere so these are minimals.
Adobe Reader 296MB
Aperture 304 MB (an old version)
DraftSight 265 MB
Garage band 300MB
Gimp 222 MB
Firefox 78MB
IBooks Author 322 MB
IMovie 236 MB
Inkscape 284 MB
IPhoto 388 MB (an old version)
iTunes 222 MB
IWeb 441 MB
Lyx 461 MB
Solid works eDrawings 206MB this isn't even a CAD system
Virtual box 225 MB
WebKit 144 MB
XCode 4.49 GB
iWork 705MB
These are not everything on disk but represent some of the bigger things in just the Apps directory. Right now finder reports 15 GB of space used in then Applications directory, 19 GB in the Library directory, 5 GB in the System directory, /usr has 9 GB of data in use. So you see we have already basically used up that 64 GB drive before we have even started on the users directories.
Now look at my home directory, it is at almost 100 Gb even. Yes it needs to be pruned but I don't expect a major reduction in space usage. Now mind you most of my media files are on another drive. Of that 25 GB sits in the Library directory which is a pain to clean up, because you need to figure out what is stale and unneeded. Speaking of which Apple needs to put better controls into uninstallers as much gets left around the disk that doesn't need to be there.
In the end though it is very very easy to go past the 64 GB mark just with App installs.
Intel HD 4000 is released after the 7000 series Notebook and desktop discrete GPUs from AMD which only reinforces reality--Intel cannot match remotely the capabilities of AMD and their discrete GPU technology. The same with Nvidia.
Hell, AMD is already testing their 8000 series GPGPUs.
So no, with the emergences of OpenCL integrated into LLVM/Clang and how Apple leverages the GPGPUs for process tasks the more power the discrete GPU the more responsive the system, overall.
GPU usage doesn't always involve OpenCL either. In any event each release of Mac OS has integrated GPU acceleration into various parts of the software base. One has to think carefully about this because the advantages of a good GPU might show up where the don't expect it.
Even if an app doesn't use GPU acceleration directly it will often through Apples lower level libraries.
The idea is to have a smallish SSD drive dedicated to the OS and applications for performance reasons, then have magnetic storage for data. If it's too large, it starts to get too expensive to drive down through the entire product line to the 13" MB/MBP.
Thus I see no point in putting in a SSD that is too small to handle an average MBP users app install. My point is that you can easily, within a day, install more apps and stuff that will effectively use up all of that space.
The problem here is that many seem to mis the most important point here, people buy MBPs because they need extra capacity or performance. Honestly the AIRs are very nice machines but beyond the smallish screens I couldn't justify one myself based on the tight storage situation in the machines. Putting that limitation into a MBP would be insanity on Apples part.
Quote:
I agree that a socketed SSD would be a better design, for easy replacement in the event of a failure. Otherwise, you'd be looking at a complete motherboard swap.
There is a risk factor too. If your HD is on the motherboard and repair requires a swap then you leave that drive open for inspection from third parties. A plug in drive can always be smashed with a hammer.
In any event I like the idea very much of an hybrid machine that puts bulk storage on a magnetic drive. It will likely be the only reasonable approach for some time. My only problem is the tendency of people to underestimate what would be the optimal size for that SSD. To that end I will proclaim loudly that 64 GB is far too little. For most users even 128 GB is cutting it close. Most users here being people that buy MBPs for their capabilities beyond the lower end machines.
Intel HD 4000 is released after the 7000 series Notebook and desktop discrete GPUs from AMD which only reinforces reality--Intel cannot match remotely the capabilities of AMD and their discrete GPU technology. The same with Nvidia.
Hell, AMD is already testing their 8000 series GPGPUs.
Wait, are you suggesting differences in product line numbers between different manufacturers is evidence that one is inferior to the other? nVidia's on their 600 series. Does that mean it's much worse than the Intel 4000?
I don't disagree that the performance is worse on the Intel stuff, but saying the numbers have anything to do with that is fallacy.
I think with in a day I had surpassed 70 GB of stuff installed. It adds up quick. Look at what happens when you install XCode, open Office, Eclipse, a couple of web browsers, Mac Ports, a few graphics programs like Gimp, a VM or two and other apps.
Every time someone installs Eclipse, a kitten dies.
I need to replace my Mac Pro at work here... :-/. Sucks they haven't addressed this yet. Fuck reform on patents, I say reform on Apple for a new Mac Pro movement! hehe....
I have a 2010 11 Air, id love to get an Ivy bridge 13 air!!!
Recently i got the lamborghini vx7 gaming laptop, its very non portable, so id love to get a new air, 15 or 17 inch slim pros wouldnt help me too much.
That's crazy. 64 GB is plenty for just the OS and apps. Even if you have a lot of apps, you can manage with 64 GB. If you have a separate platter drive, 256 GB is WAY overkill.
I'm not going to look through the list right now, but some of my applications go into several gigabytes. For people who game on their computers, games take up way too much storage space. If you use parallels or bootcamp, that's another chunk of space. These things fill up fast, and were you assuming the system use this smaller disk for pagefile/caching as that is typically done on the boot drive. If so you do need some free space on there. OSX has a really weird file system, so I'd give it breathing room no matter what.
Frankly off the top of my head I can't remember. I know it was discussed at length here in the past. 17 watts comes to mind but I think that is low.
That is the listed spec on those cpus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
All this being said I do expect integrated GPUs to be the way of the future, I just don't see them offering that sort of performance with Ivy Bridge no matter how much it is improved over the previous generation.
It would make more sense when it at least becomes a flat sidegrade going from a discrete gpu to integrated. It doesn't make that much sense to essentially make the macbook pros into Airs given that people who are okay with some of the limitations are likely to buy an Air already. If there's very little differentiation in terms of ports, storage, and raw power, that may actually kill them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
In any event I like the idea very much of an hybrid machine that puts bulk storage on a magnetic drive. It will likely be the only reasonable approach for some time. My only problem is the tendency of people to underestimate what would be the optimal size for that SSD. To that end I will proclaim loudly that 64 GB is far too little. For most users even 128 GB is cutting it close. Most users here being people that buy MBPs for their capabilities beyond the lower end machines.
I wouldn't buy it with 64 GB. I think my powerbook G4 had almost that much (I think it was 40GB), and I had a firewire drive hooked up to it much of the time. That was a decade ago.
Comments
Yes. GPUs should have their own RAM, and when the RAM in the system can't be upgraded or replaced, it creates an idiotic artificial limit.
To add to your point, with the HD3000, it only allocates a higher amount of ram to the gpu in systems with 8GB or more installed. You can look it up on intel's site, mactracker, wiki, etc. This makes it even more limiting on an Air like machine. Obviously that was the HD3000, so that number will not always remain static. I think with 8GB of ram installed it gives the gpu 512MB or something like that. Lack of addressable ram can be an issue. It would show up in gaming, but I only mention that because of how noticeable it would be if the system has to cache textures due to insufficient ram allocation.
No that isn't it.
iLeonard?
Well let's not say that. For one thing 64GB is way too small for a modern laptop called a Pro. With that type of arrangement I'd have to say the minimal flash storage size would have to be 256GB. Mainly because 128GB is just a hair to small if you are a user of a number of large apps.
That magnetic drive, for bulk storage, is important though. Especially if you consider that it doesn't look like flash will ever catch up with magnetic technology cost per bit wise.
The other thing here is that of the flash soldered onto the motherboard. I don't think the technology is ready for that yet. In fact just the opposite as the high density flash solutions are less reliable. I must admit though that you seldom hear about SSDs going bad in AIRs.
That's crazy. 64 GB is plenty for just the OS and apps. Even if you have a lot of apps, you can manage with 64 GB. If you have a separate platter drive, 256 GB is WAY overkill.
I hope they refresh this line also. My 1,1 will be obsoleted by Mountain Lion, and I would consider buying a new one just so I could continue my current configuration for a few years longer.
Thirded (not a real word, I know).
I jumped the gun and sold my iMac last fall in anticipation of a Mac Pro refresh that has yet to materialize.
What is the wattage of the current MacBook Airs, in particular the top end; 13-inch featuring 256GB, 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor 4GB memory and 256GB flash storage?
[/Quote]
Frankly off the top of my head I can't remember. I know it was discussed at length here in the past. 17 watts comes to mind but I think that is low.
[Quote]
Would you feel the same if the performance of the Intel HD 4000 integrated GPU was found to be comparable to mid-level discrete graphics processors?
The new intel GPU is a big unknown. Most of the testing done with leaked parts has been highly biased and frankly rigged to show the GPU in the best possible light. What we would need is shipping hardware with shipping Apple drivers. It isn't just normal GOU functionality you need to compare either as these chips will become OpenCL engines so it is reasonable to compare their performance running such code also.
On top of all of that there are the rumors about HiDPI screens that might be possible in future Macs. If these come we might actually see real world performance regressions. Of course this is speculation, you really can't tell until that elusive shipping hardware comes.
On top of all of that Mac still need to get faster, much faster actually with each release. Stagnation simply because Apple wants to rely upon integrated GPUs will not go over well. That of course is if the GPU is as bad as Intels record here indicates is possible. In a nut shell MBP graphics solutions are barely passable now, we need to move forward not backward. However I don't see Apple going integrated only in the next gen MBPs, integrated GPUs simply aren't ready for Pro level work. Even AMDs coming Trinity chip still wouldn't pass for a Pro level laptop GPU.
Speaking if AMD, most testing so far indicates that Intels new GPU will not ebpven catch up to the GPU in AMDs Llano chip. A chip that will be over a year old by the time Ivy Bridge is on the market in force. Supposedly within two months or so AMD will be shipping Trinity with a 50% faster GPU. In the end intel will be lagging integrated GPUs from AMD for another year or two, they will not even come close to contemporary mid level descrete GPU performance.
All this being said I do expect integrated GPUs to be the way of the future, I just don't see them offering that sort of performance with Ivy Bridge no matter how much it is improved over the previous generation.
Would you feel the same if the performance of the Intel HD 4000 integrated GPU was found to be comparable to mid-level discrete graphics processors?
Intel HD 4000 is released after the 7000 series Notebook and desktop discrete GPUs from AMD which only reinforces reality--Intel cannot match remotely the capabilities of AMD and their discrete GPU technology. The same with Nvidia.
Hell, AMD is already testing their 8000 series GPGPUs.
So no, with the emergences of OpenCL integrated into LLVM/Clang and how Apple leverages the GPGPUs for process tasks the more power the discrete GPU the more responsive the system, overall.
The love affair between Apple and Intel dried up long ago. I wouldn't expect any kind of exclusivity deals. Obviously Apple has contracts with them, like other oems. These guys tend to get access before distributors and shops like Newegg.
Mixing it up would mean using AMD chips in the AIRs and the Minis replacement. In the end I think it hurts Apple more than it helps them to be tied to one vendor. Apple has implied in the past that they like to minimize the number of suppliers they use but that can lead to problems if a supplier doesn't have your best interest at heart. In the case of Intel I really don't think they like the influence Apple has over the marketplace.
The 55W chip is an intel extreme part. It will not make it into a mac. This is just sloppy reporting. Remember a few months ago when I mentioned they cited the wrong part for the fall refresh? I was right because I just went with the logical replacement rather than internet kool-aid. Apple has never once used one of the extreme edition parts. You gain very little speed at the cost of battery life and double the price. I see no reason for them to change policies now. In terms of real performance gains, Anandtech has never been that impressed with these (used anandtech reference to annoy you slightly
Well that explains a lot. My point remains though, even a 45 watt part needs to be cooled and going too thin will compromise that. Plus I don't see Apple dropping the descrete GPU in the Mac Book Pros this year.
As to Anandtech well I think they have potential to do good but in far too many cases their reporting just looks like a press release for Intel. I especially don't like the way they tweaked GPU driver settings to make Ivy Bridges GPU look possibly better than it is. Being an Apple forum we really need to wait anyways to see what the Ivy Bridge machines ship with. Drivers for GPUs have never been Apples strong points.
What I'd like is a small (perhaps 64 GB) SSD -perhaps on the motherboard- for the OS and a larger platter drive for data. I don't expect it to happen that way, though.
Well let's not say that. For one thing 64GB is way too small for a modern laptop called a Pro. With that type of arrangement I'd have to say the minimal flash storage size would have to be 256GB. Mainly because 128GB is just a hair to small if you are a user of a number of large apps.
That magnetic drive, for bulk storage, is important though. Especially if you consider that it doesn't look like flash will ever catch up with magnetic technology cost per bit wise.
The other thing here is that of the flash soldered onto the motherboard. I don't think the technology is ready for that yet. In fact just the opposite as the high density flash solutions are less reliable. I must admit though that you seldom hear about SSDs going bad in AIRs.
The idea is to have a smallish SSD drive dedicated to the OS and applications for performance reasons, then have magnetic storage for data. If it's too large, it starts to get too expensive to drive down through the entire product line to the 13" MB/MBP.
I agree that a socketed SSD would be a better design, for easy replacement in the event of a failure. Otherwise, you'd be looking at a complete motherboard swap.
An illustration of customers for said notebook range planned for the 2012.
Would you feel the same if the performance of the Intel HD 4000 integrated GPU was found to be comparable to mid-level discrete graphics processors?
It won't, no need to hypothesize about it. HD4000 will be a lot better than anything Intel had before, but it will not even come close to the discrete GPU's in the current MBP's, let alone anything better released after that. For a laptop that can easily set you back $1500, IMO that's unacceptable, even despite everything else that will be great about it.
That's crazy. 64 GB is plenty for just the OS and apps. Even if you have a lot of apps, you can manage with 64 GB. If you have a separate platter drive, 256 GB is WAY overkill.
Actually this is a hard learned lesson from way back in 2008 when I got my MBP. I think with in a day I had surpassed 70 GB of stuff installed. It adds up quick. Look at what happens when you install XCode, open Office, Eclipse, a couple of web browsers, Mac Ports, a few graphics programs like Gimp, a VM or two and other apps.
I was actually shocked at how fast the capacity iPod that 200GB drive disappeared. Note too this is before I even had an iTunes account. or for that matter any media to amount to anything. That media currently resides on an external disk.
In the end I ended up ditching Open Office for Apples "office" apps, removed Mac Ports in favor of Homebrew and did a number of other refactorings. In the end I'm pretty confident when I say 64 GB is too small these days for an app / boot drive. Even Apple has heard the whine form it's XCode users as they have dramatically trimmed that apps install profile along with the documentation it installs. Even iBooks author downloads to a huge impact on you disk drive.
Remember I'm talking about a MBP used as a machine by someone more than a novice to do more than the average person does with his machine. However I'm not by any measure a power user, nor do I get into some of the demanding graphics work that many on the forum do. So by that measure I don't think to many MBP users would be happy at all with a 64 GB boot / app drive.
Here is just a quick few install numbers from my Applications directory. Not that often stuff gets installed elsewhere so these are minimals.
- Adobe Reader 296MB
- Aperture 304 MB (an old version)
- DraftSight 265 MB
- Garage band 300MB
- Gimp 222 MB
- Firefox 78MB
- IBooks Author 322 MB
- IMovie 236 MB
- Inkscape 284 MB
- IPhoto 388 MB (an old version)
- iTunes 222 MB
- IWeb 441 MB
- Lyx 461 MB
- Solid works eDrawings 206MB this isn't even a CAD system
- Virtual box 225 MB
- WebKit 144 MB
- XCode 4.49 GB
- iWork 705MB
These are not everything on disk but represent some of the bigger things in just the Apps directory. Right now finder reports 15 GB of space used in then Applications directory, 19 GB in the Library directory, 5 GB in the System directory, /usr has 9 GB of data in use. So you see we have already basically used up that 64 GB drive before we have even started on the users directories.Now look at my home directory, it is at almost 100 Gb even. Yes it needs to be pruned but I don't expect a major reduction in space usage. Now mind you most of my media files are on another drive. Of that 25 GB sits in the Library directory which is a pain to clean up, because you need to figure out what is stale and unneeded. Speaking of which Apple needs to put better controls into uninstallers as much gets left around the disk that doesn't need to be there.
In the end though it is very very easy to go past the 64 GB mark just with App installs.
Intel HD 4000 is released after the 7000 series Notebook and desktop discrete GPUs from AMD which only reinforces reality--Intel cannot match remotely the capabilities of AMD and their discrete GPU technology. The same with Nvidia.
Hell, AMD is already testing their 8000 series GPGPUs.
So no, with the emergences of OpenCL integrated into LLVM/Clang and how Apple leverages the GPGPUs for process tasks the more power the discrete GPU the more responsive the system, overall.
GPU usage doesn't always involve OpenCL either. In any event each release of Mac OS has integrated GPU acceleration into various parts of the software base. One has to think carefully about this because the advantages of a good GPU might show up where the don't expect it.
Even if an app doesn't use GPU acceleration directly it will often through Apples lower level libraries.
The idea is to have a smallish SSD drive dedicated to the OS and applications for performance reasons, then have magnetic storage for data. If it's too large, it starts to get too expensive to drive down through the entire product line to the 13" MB/MBP.
Thus I see no point in putting in a SSD that is too small to handle an average MBP users app install. My point is that you can easily, within a day, install more apps and stuff that will effectively use up all of that space.
The problem here is that many seem to mis the most important point here, people buy MBPs because they need extra capacity or performance. Honestly the AIRs are very nice machines but beyond the smallish screens I couldn't justify one myself based on the tight storage situation in the machines. Putting that limitation into a MBP would be insanity on Apples part.
I agree that a socketed SSD would be a better design, for easy replacement in the event of a failure. Otherwise, you'd be looking at a complete motherboard swap.
There is a risk factor too. If your HD is on the motherboard and repair requires a swap then you leave that drive open for inspection from third parties. A plug in drive can always be smashed with a hammer.
In any event I like the idea very much of an hybrid machine that puts bulk storage on a magnetic drive. It will likely be the only reasonable approach for some time. My only problem is the tendency of people to underestimate what would be the optimal size for that SSD. To that end I will proclaim loudly that 64 GB is far too little. For most users even 128 GB is cutting it close. Most users here being people that buy MBPs for their capabilities beyond the lower end machines.
Intel HD 4000 is released after the 7000 series Notebook and desktop discrete GPUs from AMD which only reinforces reality--Intel cannot match remotely the capabilities of AMD and their discrete GPU technology. The same with Nvidia.
Hell, AMD is already testing their 8000 series GPGPUs.
Wait, are you suggesting differences in product line numbers between different manufacturers is evidence that one is inferior to the other? nVidia's on their 600 series. Does that mean it's much worse than the Intel 4000?
I don't disagree that the performance is worse on the Intel stuff, but saying the numbers have anything to do with that is fallacy.
I think with in a day I had surpassed 70 GB of stuff installed. It adds up quick. Look at what happens when you install XCode, open Office, Eclipse, a couple of web browsers, Mac Ports, a few graphics programs like Gimp, a VM or two and other apps.
Every time someone installs Eclipse, a kitten dies.
i want imac updates please.
+++
Recently i got the lamborghini vx7 gaming laptop, its very non portable, so id love to get a new air, 15 or 17 inch slim pros wouldnt help me too much.
Either way, I'm excited about the line-up.
That's crazy. 64 GB is plenty for just the OS and apps. Even if you have a lot of apps, you can manage with 64 GB. If you have a separate platter drive, 256 GB is WAY overkill.
I'm not going to look through the list right now, but some of my applications go into several gigabytes. For people who game on their computers, games take up way too much storage space. If you use parallels or bootcamp, that's another chunk of space. These things fill up fast, and were you assuming the system use this smaller disk for pagefile/caching as that is typically done on the boot drive. If so you do need some free space on there. OSX has a really weird file system, so I'd give it breathing room no matter what.
Frankly off the top of my head I can't remember. I know it was discussed at length here in the past. 17 watts comes to mind but I think that is low.
That is the listed spec on those cpus.
All this being said I do expect integrated GPUs to be the way of the future, I just don't see them offering that sort of performance with Ivy Bridge no matter how much it is improved over the previous generation.
It would make more sense when it at least becomes a flat sidegrade going from a discrete gpu to integrated. It doesn't make that much sense to essentially make the macbook pros into Airs given that people who are okay with some of the limitations are likely to buy an Air already. If there's very little differentiation in terms of ports, storage, and raw power, that may actually kill them.
In any event I like the idea very much of an hybrid machine that puts bulk storage on a magnetic drive. It will likely be the only reasonable approach for some time. My only problem is the tendency of people to underestimate what would be the optimal size for that SSD. To that end I will proclaim loudly that 64 GB is far too little. For most users even 128 GB is cutting it close. Most users here being people that buy MBPs for their capabilities beyond the lower end machines.
I wouldn't buy it with 64 GB. I think my powerbook G4 had almost that much (I think it was 40GB), and I had a firewire drive hooked up to it much of the time. That was a decade ago.