Tired of desperately searching for a powerful yet svelte laptop to carry with you on life’s journeys while still getting 5+ hours of battery life? Currently the two words “powerful” and “runtime” don’t go together. To have one you must sacrifice the other. But Intel has something up their sleeve…
For gamers on the go, nothing is perhaps more exciting and useful as the Alienware M11X — an 11″ mini gaming rig of surprising power. The current proc beating at the heart of Dell’s mini-LAN decimating beast is homely Core 2 Duo. Even with that, it’s still the fastest 11″ laptop on the market.
But a new video floating around YouTube has Dell’s head of consumer operations (Pearce Clune) for the Middle East and Africa letting slip a juicy tidbit concerning a processor upgrade for Alienware’s baby.
Core i3, i5, and i7′s all around! Yeah! An already fast laptop is getting a swift kick in drive bay. Now all that needs to happen is that mobile GPU getting some more attention.
I for one can’t wait to get my hands on an M11X with a quad-core i7. That would be the be all end all of mobile computing. IPad what…
Video of the slip after the jump…
School — it’s a time for fall, school supplies, falling leaves, and…processors? Yes, says Intel. In Q4 of this year, a new Core i5 580m processor will debut bringing with it more speed and power. Specifically, the 580m will be clocked at 2.66GHz, up from the old predecessors 2.53GHz. Even better, the super speedy TurboBoost feature that overclocks a single core when multiple aren’t needed will apparently push the 580m up to a rather brisk 3.33GHz compared to the outgoing 540m’s 3.06GHz.
Is your drool cup full after weeks of waiting for any new news regarding Core i5/i7 updated Macbook Air/Pros and Mac Pros? I just as much as anyone love a well put together computer with beastly internals to match. But a $400 premium for Intel’s “latest” Core i5/i7 chips? Ya, no thank you. The image above was captured from Austrailian site, PC Authority. Whether the prices listed are USD or not I’m not sure, which could explain the price discrepancy. If these are an early look at the new pricing however, it’s pretty disappointing.
The current Macbook Pro for instance jumped from a starting price of $1,499 to $1,899. If the only real changes are the Core i5/i7 chips, “rip-off” would be a good place to start with the descriptions. I mean, it’s not like a Core i7 980x is going in this thing. The Mac Pro could see the 980x and is of course an option with a heavy pricetag, but that shouldn’t effect the starting price much if any.
I’m still eager for the official new systems none the less. I’m just hoping (along with millions of other people) that Apple didn’t jack up the prices by $400 or more just for the new processors. If they do, will it change your purchasing decision one way or the other?
Update: After taking a quick job through the inter webs, it’s not Australia alone that’s displaying weird pricing. New Zealand is also getting in on the pricing inconstancies. At this point, I’m going to say it’s nothing more than a few people (myself included) forgetting about the whole price difference from land mass to land mass for a few seconds, getting all riled up. Though we should know the truth soon enough.
Are new Macbook Pros right around the corner? You could say the leaked images a couple of days back showing a Core i7 Macbook Pro being put through the paces as nothing more than some clever Photoshop mastery. I’m more of an optimist however. I’m choosing to take the higher road. A road which eventually leads to new, more powerful Macbook Pros. You could say my head is stuck up in the clouds and that I’m a too much of a dreamer. That may be true, but the images above combined with new evidence of disappearing SKU’s in store inventory points to the inevitable — that’s right, new Macbook Pros.
What of these disappearing SKU’s? The image above comes courtesy of some random Best Buy employee. What you’re looking at is the internal system page for the Macbook Pro 13″ — no longer available for order. I haven’t heard of any bizarre display, aluminum, silicon, ram, etc. shortages within the last month so why would they disappear if something newer and better wasn’t about to replace it?
If Apple were still attending Macworld, I’m sure we’d hear of the new hardware then. But, seeing as how they up and left that party, it appears we’ll have to wait until Apple announces their own little shindig or simply uploads the new goods to the store on a Tuesday some not too distant Tuesday morning.
I really don’t care how they do it. I just want my Core i7 17″ Macbook Pro. Anyone else getting antsy?
Those with itchy trigger/mouse fingers longing to order a new top-o-the-line Macbook Pro need to get control of themselves and holster their weapons for a brighter horizon is upon us. Would you be so eager to drop 2-3 large on a MBP knowing that Arrandale (read: Core i5/i7) processors are just around the corner from release, bringing a new generation of speed and power in the smallest most energy efficient package yet? Hmm, worded like that, even the king edition of a MBP somehow loses a bit of its luster. Don’t get me wrong, current MBP’s are the fastest iterations ever. But with Core i5/i7 quad cores packing speeds of 2.4GHz and 2.66GHz respectively, how could you not want to wait? Of course, those of you fortunate enough to have the bank account(s) to support buying new $2K+ computers every couple of months do not apply. I hate you. (Just kidding…I envy you).
How long until we can poke and prod such fine examples of beauty and power? According to Fudzilla, such treats could come as soon as January 3rd. There’s only one problem with that date — Apple never releases anything on Sunday or the weekend for that matter. Other than that, an early January release doesn’t seem too far off. I mean, the MBP line is due for a refresh in early 2010 if past refresh cycles are followed coupled with the introduction of newer Core i5/i7 architecture in the iMac line a couple months back.
Early 2010 seem plausible for Arrandale based MBP’s? January 3rd is highly unlikely. In fact, I wouldn’t hold your breath. But January/early 2010…? Now we’re talkin’
Results above are in 64-bit mode
When the new iMac’s were announced a couple months back, I like many of you were awestruck. The form was somehow even more delicious than previous generations with upgraded hardware that left me wanting two. Unfortunately for those who were ready to throw down cash on the spot for a new Core i7 beast, a November shipping date put a temporary block on the speed party. Well, it’s November and said units are now shipping with benchmarks starting to trickle in. What’s the initial consensus? The 27″ Core i7 iMac is the best $200 (for an upgrade — $2199 overall) ever spent.
Benchmarks for the Core 2 Duo iMac’s have been around since the announcement of the new machines, but the Core 2′s while fast, are old news. I already assumed performance upgrades via the Core 2 would be barely noticeable. After seeing early reviews of those units, I can honestly say I was right. The main reason to get a 27″ iMac with the stock Core 2 was simply for the price. But then the Core i5 came along brining quad-core goodness. And boy was it fast, much faster than the Core 2 models — but the Core i7 is faster.
How much faster? Chances are I probably lost you waaaay back at the beginning with the graph image above. But just in case you managed to make it past, the Core i7 iMac’s are a full 35% faster than even the Core i5 models. The sweetest part of all is that the speed increase can be had for a paltry $200! That’s a steal. Seriously. Looking at the benchmarks above and comparing them to Geekbench results of the latest Mac Pros shows that the new i7 iMac’s are extremely close in comparison. Justifying a Mac Pro just become a tad harder…didn’t it?
Oh the geek inside of me is giddy. News of quad-core mac’s are starting to trickle forth thanks to two new Macbook Pro model numbers referenced in the latest Snow Leopard 10.6.2 build seeded to devs. Such an update isn’t too far from reality as the last update bestowed upon these mobile workhorses was way back in June at the Worldwide Developers Conference. An update must be close if the Macbook Pro’s are to remain near the top of the heap. All fingers point towards Intel Clarksfield chips being integrated (read: Core i5/i7 chips) with better power management, increased performance, and the ability to kick any processor up a few notches when extra peeds are needed. Processors aren’t the only talk of the town though as out goes Nvidia in favor of ATI’s latest 4500 mobile GPU cards which should bring a rather nice increase to mobile graphics performance. It’ll be interesting to see how the use of ATI GPU’s affects the current power/battery saving scheme Apple has crafted by using both an integrated Nvidia 9400 GPU along with a dedicated Nvidia 9600GPU.
None of this has been confirmed yet, but again, such upgrades are highly suspected and are likely to happen relatively soon. Glad you held of on getting those new unibody MBP’s? I know I am. Core i7 equipped 17″ MBP here I come!
Those of you looking forward to a July release for Intel’s Core i5 chips will sadly have to wait a tad bit longer. The reason for the delay according to DigiTimes is a stockpile of old inventory that Intel wants/needs to move before introducing any more new silicon into the market. Translation: “We don’t have anyone to compete with, so, we’ll squeeze every last dollar out of old product that we can…we’re not going anywhere.” Someone, whether it be AMD or some other processor manufacturer needs to put the pedal to the metal and start putting more pressure on Intel. Monopolies and lack of competition are never a good thing for us consumers. Agree?
Source: Engadget, PC Perspective, Image Source
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