New MacBook Pros Gain Thunderbolt, Goes AMD

[Marcus Yam]

No more Nvidia GPUs and IGPs.

New MacBook Pros Gain Thunderbolt, Goes AMD : Read more

 

[caeden]

If it wasnt for the OS I would so want one of these! Thankfully this means lightpeak/Thunderbolt (hate the new name) will be coming to the PC soon!

 

[wolley74]

Wonder when they'll make thunderbolt SSDs, would make them faster still

 

[verenos]

IS this the official specs or just more speculation?

 

[shotgunpadre]

99 cents too much! I'm not going to buy a mac..

 

[Wish I Was Wealthy]

Hail Intel,but not AMD though...

 

[rhino13]

So is this out now? I thought Sandy Bridge was still having issues.

 

[Wish I Was Wealthy]

We now see a "Thunderbolt emerge from Light Peak"...

 

[Wish I Was Wealthy]

Bad luck about the ATI graphics though...

 

[Wish I Was Wealthy]

Maybe they should of held back because of the cougar chipset issue,then they would of had time to try to make a gaming mobile/laptop pc...

 

[Blink]

Hooray for my AMD stock!

 

[molo9000]

Bad update.
Still only a 1280x800 glossy display on the 13" model and HD3000 isn't as good as Nvidia's 320m. (which is entirely Intel's fault)
The $999 cure2duo MacBook most likely has better gaming performance than the $1199 core i5 MacBook Pro!
Strange how they quietly adjusted battery life from 10hours down to 7hours even on the unchanged MacBook. 10hours on the old models was never realistic, but 7hours is slightly understated.

Thunderbolt is the only good thing about this update. Let's hope it catches on... Firewire was clearly superior to USB but it never really caught on.
The name "Thunderbolt" sucks though. It's completely meaningless. With "Firewire" you could at least guess what it was. "Thunderbolt" could be anything.

 

[burnley14]

Thanks for implementing this new tech Apple! Now the rest of the laptop manufacturers will be forced to do the same, and sell them for cheaper no less!

 

[waikano]

[citation][nom]caeden[/nom]If it wasnt for the OS I would so want one of these! Thankfully this means lightpeak/Thunderbolt (hate the new name) will be coming to the PC soon![/citation]
Bootcamp, Run Windows 7 all day long...oh wait might not have drivers yet for Thunderbolt, but other than that would be a fine machine either way.

 

[mchuf]

Wow, I'm very surprised and impressed that Apple will be using the latest tech on their MacBooks. It does suck that a $1200 laptop will be using intgrated graphics. Did Apple reveal what the prices for the i7 models will be? And what specific GPU's will be available? 1 gb of vram is great, unless it's in a low level entry type of card. And why does Apple still not have a HDMI port? HDMI is the standard that is used in nearly every new consumer electronic product. It's kind of sad that you pay a premium for a MacBook Pro and still need an adaptor to plug it into 90+% of new displays.

 

[rohitbaran]

Well, implementing thunderbolt in Macs spells their arrival to the PC as well in near future. Also, the move from nVidia to AMD graphics is good, considering that recent nVidia cards have been power hungry monsters. I hope this benefits AMD which has been struggling due to all the firings of top executives.

 

[waikano]

[citation][nom]molo9000[/nom]Bad update.Still only a 1280x800 glossy display on the 13" model and HD3000 isn't as good as Nvidia's 320m. (which is entirely Intel's fault)The $999 cure2duo MacBook most likely has better gaming performance than the $1199 core i5 MacBook Pro!Strange how they quietly adjusted battery life from 10hours down to 7hours even on the unchanged MacBook. 10hours on the old models was never realistic, but 7hours is slightly understated.Thunderbolt is the only good thing about this update. Let's hope it catches on... Firewire was clearly superior to USB but it never really caught on.The name "Thunderbolt" sucks though. It's completely meaningless. With "Firewire" you could at least guess what it was. "Thunderbolt" could be anything.[/citation]

Giz has a little write up on the battery life, and an explanation for shorter battery life.

http://gizmodo.com/#!5769265/why-the-new-macbook-pros-have-shorter-battery-lifehttp://gizmodo.com/#!5769265/why-the-new-macbook-pros-have-shorter-battery-life

 

[dorkusm]

Meh. Who cares? They're still too expensive for those of us who have to eat and don't care about carrying around something with an Apple logo for a status symbol.

 

[sonofliberty08]

is that mean the new apple lineup will also come with the sb cougar point bug ?

 

[dgriffs]

The battery life was never realistically 10 hours. It also says 7 hours on the regular macbooks now but the hardware is still the same. Its just a more accurate measurement of battery life.

I was excited about getting a mbp but i'm disappointed that there is no discrete graphics card in the 13" model. I would love to have the 15" version but extra inches of screen and a mediocre graphics card is not worth another $600.

 

[rpotratz_98]

Aside from the processors going to quad core I'm a bit disappointed. 8 Gig memory limit for a 64 bit machine is not cool for a refreshed design. I can' believe they left out USB 3.0 as well. This is also there professional series notebooks, yet they continue to use consumer level graphic chipsets. Why not use a fire gl chipset or a quatro chipset? At least most high end applications have certified those cards.

 

[rpotratz_98]

Aside from the processors going to quad core I'm a bit disappointed. 8 Gig memory limit for a 64 bit machine is not cool for a refreshed design. I can' believe they left out USB 3.0 as well. This is also there professional series notebooks, yet they continue to use consumer level graphic chipsets. Why not use a fire gl chipset or a quatro chipset? At least most high end applications have certified those cards.

 

[razor512]

the move to the onboard intel only crap video is a really bad move, this means that people who don't want the insanely expensive macbook pro wont actually be able to use it for much professional/ system intensive applications such as 3d modeling or other tasks that require a decent videocard and proper hardware acceleration. (upgrading to that model will mean lower gaming and workstation app performance)


The FacePalm... I mean FaceTime app is useless anyway, far more people have skype.

 

[lasaldude]

Great a quad core at 2.3 GHz!

 

[Ragnar-Kon]

[citation][nom]dgriffs[/nom]I was excited about getting a mbp but i'm disappointed that there is no discrete graphics card in the 13" model. I would love to have the 15" version but extra inches of screen and a mediocre graphics card is not worth another $600.[/citation]
Completely agree. Although to be honest if I was one of the product engineers on the MBP lineup I would probably not have put discrete graphics in the 13" model. More cooling to worry about in a smaller space, not to mention you would have to up the price.
I am actually rather surprised that they decided to go all the way up to a Radeon HD 6750M. I was expecting the highest GPU model to me a HD 6390.

[citation][nom]dorkusm[/nom]Meh. Who cares? They're still too expensive for those of us who have to eat and don't care about carrying around something with an Apple logo for a status symbol.[/citation]
They are rather expensive but I use my current Macbook Pro on a daily basis and LOVE it. Having said that, when I was looking for a laptop, I required nearly every feature that a Macbook Pro has on it, so the price was justified and actually roughly similar to the one Windows laptop (which was $80 cheaper) I managed to find with similar features. But once I realized that running Mac OS allows me to run some Unix-based apps and Final Cut Pro, buying the Macbook Pro was an easy choice.
Still would never waste my money on a Apple desktop though.