Apple: Hardware News and Discussion Thread
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Still complete fail 100%. The 13in still only has a 1280x800 screen resolution. They should have put 1440x900 in it instead and 1680x1050 in the 15in model. I refuse to buy laptops with such shitty resolution. Its the first thing I base my purchase on. Doing design work on small resolution screens sucks.
). Other than that, 2.2GHz Core i7 and AMD Radeon 6750M ftw! 
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New MacBook Pro Benchmarks Show Massive Improvement
Friday February 25, 2011 03:15 AM
PrimateLabs has compiled GeekBench results for the new Sandy Bridge MacBook Pros released just yesterday, and the results are impressive. The results show GeekBench results ranging from 5900 to 10164 across all models. What makes this particularly impressive is that the new low-end 13" MacBook Pro (2.3GHz Dual i5) scores near last year's top-end 15"/17" MacBook Pro (2.8GHz Dual i7).
Browsing through the complete list of benchmarks shows the new MacBook Pros in context with the other Macs. The top-of-the-line MacBook Pro now outrank many of last year's desktop machines including the Mac Pro and iMac. PrimateLabs concludes:
The performance of the new MacBook Pros is amazing. The slowest MacBook Pro performs on par with the fastest previous-generation MacBook Pro, and the fastest MacBook Pro is 80% faster than the fastest previous-generation MacBook Pro.
In fact, if you look at our Mac Benchmark charts, you'll see that the fastest MacBook Pro is faster than a lot of Mac Pros (including the current generation of Mac Pros). The new MacBook Pros truly are portable workstations.
As always, benchmarks are an artificial gauge of performance, but can be useful in head to head comparisons. These numbers also primarily reflect CPU/Memory performance and don't take into account differences in graphics hardware.
Friday February 25, 2011 03:15 AM
PrimateLabs has compiled GeekBench results for the new Sandy Bridge MacBook Pros released just yesterday, and the results are impressive. The results show GeekBench results ranging from 5900 to 10164 across all models. What makes this particularly impressive is that the new low-end 13" MacBook Pro (2.3GHz Dual i5) scores near last year's top-end 15"/17" MacBook Pro (2.8GHz Dual i7).
Browsing through the complete list of benchmarks shows the new MacBook Pros in context with the other Macs. The top-of-the-line MacBook Pro now outrank many of last year's desktop machines including the Mac Pro and iMac. PrimateLabs concludes:
The performance of the new MacBook Pros is amazing. The slowest MacBook Pro performs on par with the fastest previous-generation MacBook Pro, and the fastest MacBook Pro is 80% faster than the fastest previous-generation MacBook Pro.
In fact, if you look at our Mac Benchmark charts, you'll see that the fastest MacBook Pro is faster than a lot of Mac Pros (including the current generation of Mac Pros). The new MacBook Pros truly are portable workstations.
As always, benchmarks are an artificial gauge of performance, but can be useful in head to head comparisons. These numbers also primarily reflect CPU/Memory performance and don't take into account differences in graphics hardware.
Nice.
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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380921,00.asp
The Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (Thunderbolt) is the fastest, most technologically advanced laptop to grace our Labs benches.
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There is a dual core as well, I'm quite certain this one is a 2.66 (marketed at 2.7 ghz)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge <-- check under Mobile processors
Second edit: It is a (2620M) i7
Last edited by Ken1997TL; Feb 25, 2011 at 03:27 PM.
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nnInn
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Not all i7's are quad.
There is a dual core as well, I'm quite certain this one is a 2.66 (marketed at 2.7 ghz)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge <-- check under Mobile processors
Second edit: It is a (2620M) i7
There is a dual core as well, I'm quite certain this one is a 2.66 (marketed at 2.7 ghz)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge <-- check under Mobile processors
Second edit: It is a (2620M) i7
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I noticed the battery life on the new 13's is now 7 hours (vs the 10 hours from the previous gen). All these improvements in performance that are gained with the new processors, will that make a noticeable and/or significant difference for simple tasks like web browsing, streaming video, etc.? I always like the latest and greatest, but if it doesn't make much of a difference for my needs, and it gets 3 extra hours of battery life, I might wait and see if I can pick up an older one on clearance or something (does apple even do that?)
Last edited by Shadzilla; Feb 25, 2011 at 04:53 PM.
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Though based upon the benchmark tests, it should be quite fast (relatively) and more than enough for what I'll do with it.
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I noticed the battery life on the new 13's is now 7 hours (vs the 10 hours from the previous gen). All these improvements in performance that are gained with the new processors, will that make a noticeable and/or significant difference for simple tasks like web browsing, streaming video, etc.? I always like the latest and greatest, but if it doesn't make much of a difference for my needs, and it gets 3 extra hours of battery life, I might wait and see if I can pick up an older one on clearance or something (does apple even do that?)
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http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/24/mac...-battery-life/
so since the MBA? 
Now that the news about the new MacBook Pros is out there, one thing that may disappoint someone just reading the spec sheet is battery life. Across the board, the Pro is now rated at 7 hours. While still very solid, this is actually a step down from the previous versions which were rated at 8 to 9 hours for the 15 and 17-inch models, and 10 hours for the 13-inch model. So what gives?
Well, just as they sort of quietly announced with the new MacBook Airs late last year, Apple has begun using a new method of battery life testing. And they feel it’s much more accurate in real world scenarios. Specifically they call this the “Wireless Web protocol testing”.
Essentially what it means is that they set each device to 50 percent display brightness and go surf the 25 most popular websites. Apple tells us that they do whatever is the main function on those websites over and over again, including playing Flash video. Yes, real-world testing for Apple means testing Flash performance as well.
Apple notes that results may vary still based on configuration and your usage patterns. But unlike with previous ratings, that has the possibility to be a good thing too (as in battery life could actually be better than stated). ”We want this to be as realistic as possible,” a spokesperson tells us.
Well, just as they sort of quietly announced with the new MacBook Airs late last year, Apple has begun using a new method of battery life testing. And they feel it’s much more accurate in real world scenarios. Specifically they call this the “Wireless Web protocol testing”.
Essentially what it means is that they set each device to 50 percent display brightness and go surf the 25 most popular websites. Apple tells us that they do whatever is the main function on those websites over and over again, including playing Flash video. Yes, real-world testing for Apple means testing Flash performance as well.
Apple notes that results may vary still based on configuration and your usage patterns. But unlike with previous ratings, that has the possibility to be a good thing too (as in battery life could actually be better than stated). ”We want this to be as realistic as possible,” a spokesperson tells us.
so since the MBA?
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I bought mine at the end of May and forgot about the free iPod thing...it started a week or two later at the beginning/middle of June. Granted, that was 2008, so I'm not sure if they changed start/stop dates since.
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On a serious note, there is nothing special about it. I used some standard kingston ram in my pre-unibody MBP and it's been working fine since Nov/2007. Like any other computer, just be sure to match RAM specs and you should be fine. However, a good thing to do is simply search to see what brands of RAM and which modules people have been running successfully in their Apple computers and use that as a starting point. Another thing that is helpful to know, I've heard that if you put aftermarket RAM in your machine and go to the Genius bar to have your machine looked at, they won't touch it. You'll have to remove it and put back the standard ram.
I Played it safe when I had problems with my Logic board and did just that. I'm glad I did because I got a new logic board, who knows if they wouldn't have done that had they seen that I modified the system while I was under warranty with aftermarket RAM. 
Last edited by Sly Raskal; Mar 1, 2011 at 05:56 PM.
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