SillyDog701

[Antony]

Apple® today updated the MacBook Pro line with faster processors, powerful next-generation NVIDIA graphics and even longer battery life. The popular 13-inch MacBook Pro features the new NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor for up to 80 percent faster graphics and a groundbreaking 10-hour built-in battery.* The new 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models feature Intel Core i5 and i7 processors and Apple’s new automatic graphics switching technology that toggles seamlessly between powerful NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M and energy efficient Intel HD Graphics processors.

All 13-inch MacBook Pro models now include faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 4GB RAM, a 10-hour built-in battery and the new NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor. With 48 processing cores, the new NVIDIA GeForce 320M is the fastest integrated graphics processor on the market, ideal for graphics intensive applications or high performance games. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is available in two configurations: one with a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 250GB hard drive priced at $1,199; and one with a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 320GB hard drive priced at $1,499.

The new 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models are up to 50 percent faster than the previous systems. Using Intel’s state-of-the-art 32 nanometer process, Intel Core i5 and i7 processors integrate the memory controller and Level 3 cache for faster access to system memory. Hyper-Threading technology improves data throughput by creating virtual processing cores, while Turbo Boost optimizes performance between the two processor cores, accelerating the system from 2.66 GHz to 3.06 GHz for intensive dual core tasks, and up to 3.33 GHz for single core tasks.

All models have following standard specifications:

• 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
• a slot-load 8X SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
• Mini DisplayPort (VGA, DVI and HDMI adapters sold separately);
• AirPort Extreme® 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• Gigabit Ethernet port;
• iSight® video camera;
• one FireWire® 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
• SD card slot;
• glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard

The specifications for each models are as following:
13-inch MacBook Pro (2.4GHz: US$1,199; or 2.66GHz: US$1,499)

• 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;
• 2.4 GHz or 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
• 1066 MHz front-side bus;
• NVIDIA GeForce 320M integrated graphics;
• 250GB or 320GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• two USB 2.0 ports;
• combined headphone/line in (analog/digital);
• built-in, 63.5WHr lithium polymer battery; and
• 60 Watt MagSafe® Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options for the 13-inch MacBook Pro include the ability to upgrade to 8GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a 320GB 5400 rpm or a 500GB 5400 rpm hard drive, a 128GB, 256GB or 512GB solid state drive.


15-inch MacBook Pro (2.4GHz: US$1,799; (2.53GHz: US$1,999; or 2.66GHz: US$2,199)

• 15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
• 2.4 GHz or 2.53 GHz or 2.66 GHz Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache;
• integrated Intel HD Graphics + NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M discrete graphics with 256MB or 512MB (2.66 GHz model) of VRAM;
• 250GB or 320GB or 500GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• two USB 2.0 ports;
• combined headphone/line in (analog/digital);
• built-in, 77.5WHr lithium polymer battery; and
• 85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options for the 15-inch MacBook Pro include the ability to upgrade to 8GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a high resolution 15-inch 1680 x 1050 display in glossy and antiglare, a 500GB 5400 rpm or 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB, 256GB or 512GB solid state drive.


17-inch MacBook Pro (2.53GHz: US$2,299)

• 17-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1920 x 1200, glossy display;
• 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache;
• integrated Intel HD Graphics + NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M discrete graphics with 512MB of VRAM;
• 500GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• three USB 2.0 ports;
• combined headphone/line in (analog/digital);
• built-in, 95WHr lithium polymer battery; and
• 85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options for the 17-inch MacBook Pro include a 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, a 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB, 256GB or 512GB solid state drive, antiglare display.



You can order the new MacBook Pro from Apple Online Store or Apple Online Store (Australia) via SillyDog701's link and support SillyDog701.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3

[Mandrake]

Unimpressive to say the least. Why is the 13" model using outdated Core 2 Duo CPUs? Why are there no options for the Core i7 quad core CPUs? Why don't these notebooks have the new much faster Mobility Radeon 5xxx GPUs?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[richard mitnick]

Antony-

Well, this is a first, me on a Mac thread.

I saw the news about MacBooks having i5 and i7 processors. But I could not determine which ones, die size, THD watts - important for heat. I looked on the Apple web site, and found nothing.

I have just been through this process while specing up my new Dell Studio14. There are specifically mobile processors, some with a 32nm die, some with 45nm. I went to a local Best Buy, our big retailer, and I literally went around feeling the bottoms of Windows and Mac laptops for heat. On both i3 and i5, some were hot and some were cool. Heat is the laptop performance killer. I chose an i5-520M, 32 nm die, but THD 35 watts, the best I could get with decent speed. It is a trade off.

I now have my Core 2 Duo, i5-520M, and Atom N270 computers on really good chill pads. A good chill pad, Targus to be specific, will be basically an open grate, as little solid surface as possible. Then pull the laptop down a tad from the solid back so that the power supply is as much on the open grate as possible. I still have some heat; but not as much.

There is then the further question: even if I drive off as much heat as possible, what about the fact of its generation in the first place? Is the chill pad really doing a lot of good?

So, the question of which i5 and i7 processors are being used in the new Macs becomes a serious issue. Some mobile processors are not really so hot - oops, I mean so good.

>>RSM

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) WinNT-EVR 14.02.2010

[iJohnE]

Unimpressive to say the least. Why is the 13" model using outdated Core 2 Duo CPUs? Why are there no options for the Core i7 quad core CPUs? Why don't these notebooks have the new much faster Mobility Radeon 5xxx GPUs?

I at least expected to see them using the Core i3's. Looks like I'll be sticking with PCs.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[richard mitnick]

John, if you are looking at a laptop try for a 32nm die low THD figure. This is all available at Intel's site.

>>RSM

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ImageShackToolbar/5.2.4 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[iJohnE]

Richard and Mandrake, I'm confused about what you mean with die size. Could you explain, please?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[richard mitnick]

John-

The larger the number, the hotter the chip will get. Here is an explanation from Wikipedia:



"The 32 nm process (also called 32 nanometer node) is the next step after the 45 nanometer process in CMOS manufacturing and fabrication. 32 nm refers to the expected average half-pitch of a memory cell at this technology level. The two major chip rivals, Intel and AMD, are both working on a 32 nanometer process for logic, which uses significantly looser design rules. AMD spent time refining its 45 nm process while researching 22 nm. AMD has partnered with IBM on this process, as it did with the 45 nm process. IBM and the Common Platform already has a 32 nm high-k metal gate process available.[1][2] Intel demonstrated the first working 32 nm processor on February 10, 2009. Intel started selling its 32 nm processors on January 7, 2010 as Core i3, Core i5, and dual-core mobile Core i7.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Technology demos
* 2 Processors using 32nm technology
* 3 References
* 4 Further reading
* 5 External links

[edit] Technology demos

IMEC (Belgium) demonstrated a 32 nm Flash patterning capability based on double patterning and immersion lithography in October 2006.[3] The introduction of double patterning may offset some of the cost advantages of moving from one node to the next, but may be unavoidable in order to reduce memory cell area.

TSMC similarly used double patterning combined with immersion lithography to produce a 32 nm node 0.183 μm2 six-transistor SRAM cell in 2005.[4]

IBM demonstrated a 0.143 μm2 SRAM cell, produced using electron-beam lithography and optical lithography on the same layer. It was observed that the static noise margin (sensitivity to input voltage fluctuations) degraded significantly in going to such a small SRAM cell size. The poly gate pitch was 135 nm.[5]

Intel showed the first 32 nm test chips to the public on September 18, 2007 at the Intel Developer Forum. At the release, several technical details were disclosed. A second-generation high-k gate dielectric and metal gate were used. The cell size was 0.182 μm2 and the chip contained almost 2 billion transistors. 193 nm immersion lithography was used for the critical layers, while 193 nm or 248 nm dry lithography was used on less critical layers. The critical pitch was 112.5 nm. At this pitch, the lithography polarization effects are extremely important.[6]

IM Flash Technologies launched a 32 Gbit NAND Flash built on 34 nm design rules in May 2008. This design rule could only be accomplished with double patterning using 193 nm lithography tools.

In late October 2007, Samsung disclosed a 30 nm NAND Flash patterning process, using self-aligned double patterning. Starting from a 60 nm half-pitch pattern, new material was deposited and etched in between features to produce a 30 nm half-pitch pattern. Presumably, this can be repeated once more for 15 nm half-pitch.

As of 2008, the use of double patterning for 32 nm lithography appears inevitable, due to the lack of availability of alternative lithography techniques which meet manufacturing targets (such as throughput).

The successors to 32 nm technology will be 22 nm, and then 16 nm technology per ITRS."

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ImageShackToolbar/5.2.4 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[Antony]

Hello Richard,

Apple's laptop has a reputation of being pretty hot (temperature wise), as they pack quite a fair bit into pretty confined spaces.

I saw the news about MacBooks having i5 and i7 processors. But I could not determine which ones, die size, THD watts - important for heat. I looked on the Apple web site, and found nothing.

Well, those detail is usually not the highlighted as Apple fashion. However, if you wait a few days, there should be third party figuring out exactly which chip Apple uses on the new MBP.

According to Apple, the Intel Core i5 and i7 are 32-nanometer, that's pretty much all.

I now have my Core 2 Duo, i5-520M, and Atom N270 computers on really good chill pads. A good chill pad, Targus to be specific, will be basically an open grate, as little solid surface as possible. Then pull the laptop down a tad from the solid back so that the power supply is as much on the open grate as possible. I still have some heat; but not as much.

There is then the further question: even if I drive off as much heat as possible, what about the fact of its generation in the first place? Is the chill pad really doing a lot of good?

Firstly, from my university's Thermodynamics (Physics), we shouldn't expect something like a laptop generates absolutes no heat. Each transformer generates heat.

You might want to read this page MacBook Pro - the Environment, particularly each PDF pages for the specified models. The higher the energy efficiency, the better the product for the environment. (To Apple-basher's dismay, Apple has been leading the industry on the commitment to the environmental friendly products.) Former US Vice President Al Gore has been a member of Apple's Board of Directors since 2003.

Personally, I don't use any cooling pads. My age old PowerBook (12-inch 1.33GHz G4) has been on for 24/7 for the past two years (Laurent's been using as his PC died), and it was placed on top of a wooden table without any special cooling thing.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3

[Antony]

Why is the 13" model using outdated Core 2 Duo CPUs?

According to Steve Jobs, "far faster graphics and 10 hour battery life trump 10-20% faster CPU,"
(source)

Why are there no options for the Core i7 quad core CPUs? Why don't these notebooks have the new much faster Mobility Radeon 5xxx GPUs?

Well, it is important to focus on the overall size (and weight), and the battery power.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3

[Antony]

Primate Labs has published benchmarks of the new MacBook Pros.

The new MacBook Pros are faster than previous generation, it is no surprising. Now, the slowest Core i5 (2.40GHz) is still faster than previous fastest Core 2 Duo (3.06GHz) processor despite running at a much lower frequency. That might be a surprise to some people.

(I guess I might have some troubles comparing clock frequencies with Don.)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100315 Firefox/3.5.9

[richard mitnick]

If you look at http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=47341 whihc is the spec page for the i5-520M, you will see that it will actually get up to 2.933Ghz with the "Turbo" boost, "Turbo" being the euphemism for factory overclocking.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ImageShackToolbar/5.2.4 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[Mandrake]

The new Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs are based on the Nehalem micro-architecture. Nehalem uses a brand new system architecture that offers far more memory and system bandwidth along with much lower latencies. The result is that any Nehalem based CPU will be significantly faster than one based on the Core micro-architecture at the same frequency.

In desktop CPUs, all Core i3 CPUs are dual core. The Core i5 6xx are dual cores, and the Core i5 7xx are quad core. All desktop Core i7 parts, with the exception of the six core i7-980X, are quad core parts.

Mobile is a bit more confusing, but all the mobile Core i3 and i5s are dual cores. There are also Core i7 dual cores along with i7 mobile quad core parts. The 720M, 820M and 920XM are quads, all the others are dual cores.

Intel Turbo Boost technology can also boost performance. A slight boost is possible when all cores are actively in use, but a much greater boost in frequency is possible when some of the processor cores are not in use and can thus be powered down.

The quad core parts are all 45nm (Nehalem). The dual and six core parts are 32nm (Westmere).

The mobile quad core parts are all much faster than the dual core variants, so it's very surprising that Apple didn't offer them in at least the 17" model. I'd also have thought that the Radeon 5xxx parts with their impressive performance and good power consumption would have made sense too.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[richard mitnick]

Mandrake-

Wow! Thank you for the depth of your description of the "i" line.

In my new laptop, I have the i5-520M, dual core, but hyper threaded. This was the best compromise that I could get with 4 threads at some amount of speed and with hopefully less heat. The main purpose of this machine is to crunch data for projects running software from http://boinc.berkeley.edu , including http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org.

Are you able to address the subject of the gain with hyper threading? I have heard that the gain of running four threads instead of the just two cores might only be 20% . I do have 4 gigs of DDR3 (dual channel?) 1066 Mhz DRAM. Sorry, I don't know to what the expression "dual channel" refers; but it is in the DRAM description on my invoice.

Thanks again.

>>RSM

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ImageShackToolbar/5.2.4 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[Mandrake]

Sure, I'll do my best to explain this to you.

This is a system diagram for a Core i7 9xx CPU.



You can see at the top the Core i7 CPU. The Core i7 CPU has the memory controller integrated onto the CPU die. This is in contrast to the older Core 2 CPUs which had the memory controller on the northbridge.

You can see this below in the system diagram for a Core 2 CPU:



Notice that the memory is on the P45 northbridge, which is in contrast to the Core i7 diagram above. With the move to the Nehalem micro-architecture, a big deal was replacing the front side bus that the Core 2 CPUs used with the new Quick Path interconnect. If you have a look at the bandwidth figures for the connections between the CPU and northbridge, you'll notice that the Core i7 system enjoys more than double the bandwidth in that regard. But that's not all, since on the Core 2 CPU to get data that is in memory to the CPU you have to use that front side bus. On the i7 this is unnecessary since the memory controller is on the CPU die.

This brings us to the number of memory channels. As you can see, the Core i7 system has a triple channel memory interface with three memory channels whereas the Core 2 system had a dual channel memory architecture with two memory channels. Having more memory channels means that a system can handle more memory, and has more memory bandwidth to use since each memory channel is essentially a link between the memory and the memory controller on the CPU. This is particularly important in servers where systems with more than four cores are used. Adding more memory channels adds to the 'die size' of the CPU and makes the motherboards more complex to make. This is why Intel scales the number of memory channels to suit the needs of the various market segments. Intel's mobile and mid-range desktop platforms use a dual channel architecture. Intel's high end desktop and dual processor server platforms use a triple channel interface while Intel's highest end four processor and higher platforms use a quad channel memory interface.

A simple way of looking at it is to consider lanes on a highway. You can add more lanes to a highway to make traffic flow more quickly but it adds complexity and additonal cost. The same is true with CPUs, it's just all about finding that trade-off.

Hyper-Threading is Intel's name for their implimentation of SMT (Simultaneous multithreading). Hyper Threading allows two processing threads to run on each processor core, increasing performance by up to 30% in some workloads.

Intel has a page on HyperThreading with a demo that shows how HT works and how it can increase performance.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

[richard mitnick]

Mandrake-

Thanks you so much for a stunning display. I watched the videos, even though they deal with Xeons, I think that they did a great job of illustrating what is going on in the CPU's.

>>RSM

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ImageShackToolbar/5.2.4 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)