THE NEW MACBOOK PRO'S ARE HERE!! THE NEW MACBOOK PRO'S ARE HERE!!

An integrated GPU is a simple graphics controller located on the motherboard. Meaning you cant upgrade it. Its also much slower than a dedicated card, has no memory of its own and has to borrow that memory from the system. It be bad for gamers and slower for video editors who like to render a lot. That said, early benchmarks seem to indicate that the integrated GPU in the new MBs are pretty darn fast and basically kill any low end dedicated GPUs out there. So will it work for video editors? Sure. Just not as fast. Some of the "geeks" on this forum can go into much more detail than I can.

Michael Horton
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Thanks Joe for your reply.
I do value your judgement and will order one with 512SSD and 8 GB ram.
Now i only hope that my Sony S xS cards will work with it.
Bob Jackson

You may want to do a little more research about the SxS cards first cause I do not know the answer to that.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Thanks for getting back Mike. I won't be buying for a while yet, but will be travelling in the summer with this machine so the 13 is quite appealing, and with the thunderbolt port it ought to be pretty fast either way. With the cash saved i'd buy a thunderbolt compatible external HD and a big monitor, so i think it could be a formidable system even with the integrated GPU.

I'll no doubt hear more on the pro's and con's when i have the cash in my hand and am ready to buy, but the price difference is over 500 quid ($750) so it's definitely worth considering the smaller machine. And of course the 13 is rather cute.

Also know the 13 inch has a lower res screen. Not an issue when plugging in an external, but.....

Michael Horton
-------------------

Anyone know how the SS drives compare to the 7200 rpm drive with regard to access times?

Never mind, saw the post about SSD

Check out bare feats dot com
They probably got benchmarks

Michael Horton
-------------------

Might not work at moment.
Ill keep my old MBP until they (Sony)get it right.
Can't seem to get any info as of now.
Ordered this afternoon.

So what are the new MacPros going to look like? For sure more than 1 Thunderpolt port. Could be absolutely awesome and raise the bar way up. And a lot of opportunities for 3rd party hardware suppliers; affordable SAN, GPU extensions, Raids, Control Surfaces, Tablets, etc.

Should be quite an interesting year, especially if we do see the new FCStudio soon.

Once again, feeding the piggy bank.

Really happy to see that they've added a new high-speed port to the whole line, been holding on to my 2008 15" because of the ExpressCard slot. Once Thunderbolt adapters hit the streets I'll feel good about upgrading to a machine that can hook up to anything I throw at it (and still fit on a seatback tray on a plane).

JVK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

BTW...if you are buying it, DO NOT buy the 8GB RAM UPGRADE from Apple ($200 upgrade). I bought mine from OWC for $117 and will install it myself. There are smart ways to save a few bucks and this is one of them. Every penny counts...which goes towards MORE PLUG-INS!!

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I almost ALWAYS buy the smallest RAM package from Apple when I get a new Mac; they're always cheaper from 3rd-party vendors and easy enough to install on your own.

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

A little FYI...

Apparently, the SSDs that Apple ships in the new MBPs will degrade in speed/performance after several months...

It has been suggested that after market SSDs have better performance stability over time...

Something to check into before adding the extra expense of an Apple-provided SSD to one of the new MBPs.

In other words, it might make sense to get a "stock" MBP with a 7200 rpm drive and minimal RAM, then buy a third-party RAM upgrade and a third-party SSD.

In the past few days OWC has added a 16 GB upgrade kit for the new MBPs, though it's very expensive versus the 8 GB upgrade kit:

OWC 2011 MBP RAM Upgrades


-Dave

It arrived in 5 days from China.
Slowly setting it up.
yes I went for 8GB ram and the 512GB SSD.
Going to be awhile until i get FCP and all of my plugins setup.

Quote
D-Mac
A little FYI...

Apparently, the SSDs that Apple ships in the new MBPs will degrade in speed/performance after several months...

It has been suggested that after market SSDs have better performance stability over time...

Please provide some reputable test results to back up a statement like that. It has been suggested by who? Please post some links. I personally will save the $500 and take the Apple 512 GB SSD BTO upgrade for $1100 instead of OWC's 480 GB SSD for $1599. I am confident Apple would not put a failing SSD in their brand new monster.

FYI...that link you posted does not go to OWC...and who in their right mind is going to pay $1599 for a 16 GB RAM upgrade for a laptop when an 8 GB upgrade is $112?? I will go out on a limb and say nobody unless they hit the lottery. Not even sure why this is offered when on the Apple Website it clearly states:

All MacBook Pro models support up to 8 gigabytes of RAM.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Quote
Joey
Please provide some reputable test results to back up a statement like that. It has been suggested by who? Please post some links. I personally will save the $500 and take the Apple 512 GB SSD BTO upgrade for $1100 instead of OWC's 480 GB SSD for $1599. I am confident Apple would not put a failing SSD in their brand new monster.

It's fairly well known among the super techie computer HW crowd. A HW engineer at our local Mac User Group mentioned this tonight at the meeting. I'll contact him for some sources and report back.

And, no one said "failing" at all. Please don't misquote what I wrote. The type of SS tech used by Apple becomes "less efficient" over time (it's part of the physics of a certain generation of this technology). The OWC SSDs use a newer "generation" of SS technology, which explains the price difference.

My use of precise terminology may have not been the best in my previous post. However, I do know that the controllers used in the Apple-provided SSDs will result in slowdowns over time, as a function of how the controller read-writes-erases data. Windows 7 is the only OS that can optimize this process. The controllers used in the newer SSDs, such as those sold by OWC and others, have controllers that don't need to rely on the operating system for maintaining optimal performance.

It may not be the best comparison, but think of how regular hard drives slow down as their capacity nears something like 70 to 80 percent (it varies). The SSDs that Apple is currently using will slow down as the percentage of "memory locations" used gets larger and larger. This isn't necessarily related to capacity (for the SSDs). It is related to how much of the SSDs "memory locations" have been accessed at one time or another. This is getting a bit too technical now (and my attempt to simplify the explanation may be getting close to distorting reality, so I'll stop)...


Now, if Apple adds better SSD controller support to the next OS version ( "Lion" ), the current crop of Apple-provided SSDs may be able to regain their original performance.

It should be noted that any slowdowns don't mean that performance will drop to that of regular spinning platter hard drives.

Quote
Joey
FYI...that link you posted does not go to OWC...

Thanks for pointing that out. Silly clipboard error (I was using Screen Sharing and forgot to transfer the clipboard contents properly).

Quote
Joey
and who in their right mind is going to pay $1599 for a 16 GB RAM upgrade for a laptop when an 8 GB upgrade is $112?? I will go out on a limb and say nobody unless they hit the lottery. Not even sure why this is offered when on the Apple Website it clearly states:

All MacBook Pro models support up to 8 gigabytes of RAM.

Yes, like any new RAM module to come onto the market, especially the highest density models, these 8 GB modules are very pricey right now (and will be until next year some time, or ???). I know a few people who would pay that price for that amount of memory.

FYI, Apple always uses numbers that reflect generally available sizes at the time of the introduction of a new computer model. These 8 GB modules are brand new to the market, which is why Apple doesn't list them in their specs (and won't, though they may publish a KnowledgeBase article).

For example, last year's "mid-2010" Mac Pro (from Apple's User Guide):

Quote
Apple
An 8-core or 12-core Mac Pro has two processors and eight memory slots. You can
install a total of up to 32 GB of memory.

But, in fact, 8 GB modules have been available for some time, allowing you to put 64 GB of RAM in the latest Mac Pros (dual processor models with 8 slots). If 12 GB or 16 GB modules become available, they'll probably work in the Mac Pros, as well.


-Dave

Joey,

I haven't heard back from the engineer I talked with this evening, but here are two sources, in case you'd like to learn more about this issue with some SSDs:

diglloyd's Seasoning SSDs for Testing

BareFeats' MacBook Pro drive roundup


-Dave

Interesting points. It is also worth noting that those are accelerated tests and they may not reflect accurately on real world performance. I know that SSDs do suffer from wear and tear, like everything else. Just gotta figure out how much and how much in a day to day editing scenario.

That said, I am impressed with the speed on the SSD drives. I've seen a MacBook air (1.8ghz processors) do a full restart in under 10 seconds. This could speed up processing speed as indicated in the benchmarks, as you now have faster access to data. The big issue for me is price. I'd probably get it when the price drops by about 50%, although with the cloud, future mass demand may not be in storage size of drives. But we'll see.



www.strypesinpost.com

Someone mentioned a modular design on the Mac pros. That is very interesting and I can see it happening, with a basic module setup and you can choose the processor speed, ram configuration, and PCIe expansion chassis, thunderbolt expansion switcher, etc.. Basically, the Mac can be made smaller for most people, and bigger for others who need it. The design of the Mac Pro has hardly changed in the last 6 years and a modular approach could reduce manufacturing cost and waste.



www.strypesinpost.com

Thanks for those links Dave. This is VERY interesting information...and the first I am hearing of this. Barefeats is all I had to see. Hmmmm...This needs more research....

Barefeats "Bottom Line" still rings in my ears:

Quote

BOTTOMLINE
If you can take the financial heat, an SSD will turbo charge your MacBook Pro's drive operations. For large block transfers, an SSD can be as much as 2.7x faster than the fastest notebook HDD. For small random transfers, it can be as much as 8.5x faster. We have posted our operations per second data (because it is incomplete), but an SSD will process as much as 100x more per second than the fastest HDD.

Oh and:

Quote

And, no one said "failing" at all. Please don't misquote what I wrote.

When you say "the SSDs that Apple ships in the new MBPs will degrade in speed/performance after several months...", that is failing in my opinion.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I am wondering...I have replaced internal elements of my MBP but outside of Applecare. Can anyone speak ACCURATELY to if you manually replace the drive in your Macbook Pro - does that void Applecare? Please provide a verification link if you can.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

grafixjoe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks for those links Dave. This is VERY
> interesting information...and the first I am
> hearing of this. Barefeats is all I had to see.
> Hmmmm...This needs more research....
>

Same for me. I haven't followed the details of SSDs very much, as their lower capacities and high prices haven't seemed compelling enough to me yet (but, like a lot of things, that is changing day-to-day it seems).

Like Gerard said, a year or two from now the prices may be much closer to hard drives.


> Oh and:
>
> And, no one said "failing" at all. Please don't
> misquote what I wrote.
>
> When you say "the SSDs that Apple ships in the new
> MBPs will degrade in speed/performance after
> several months...", that is failing in my opinion.

I probably should have responded along the lines of "I probably wasn't clear enough"... But, I think it's a bit more clear now what I meant to say (hopefully, fingers and toes crossed).


I will likely buy a new MBP soon, and I will seriously consider getting a SSD as the main drive. I may opt for a third-party SSD drive, and put the Apple-provided hard drive (7200 rpm version) into a portable (Thunderbolt?) case. Either option (Apple or 3rd-party SSD) is a good choice if you've got the extra cash. We'll see...


-Dave

For anyone interested in the SSD discussion that has sprung up. I have been doing my usual insane research which entails contacting Pros that I know are using Macbook Pros with SSDs...and a big confirmation from one of my Adobe CS% Tour pals...he says his Apple SSDs performance has slowed down since the purchase. He advised me to get the free 7200 RPM drive when ordering my MBP and WAIT for Intel and other companies to release more affordable Enterprise-class SSD drives down the road.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

reports of a possible external display issue cropping up with the first gen TB MBP's :
[www.macrumors.com]

Andy,

Apple is aware of that issue...and that is with the 24" Display and Apple officially discontinued the 24-inch LED Cinema Display last July alongside the introduction of a new 27-inch model. I personally have not heard of any issues with that model.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

BACK FROM THE DEAD...this is regarding the Apple SSD Performance issue...I have learned that 10.6.7 update now supports TRIM for the SSD which keeps the performance up on those drives. GOOD NEWS!!!!!!

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Back from the dead again... I have the 17" MBP with upgraded processor and the 250 GB SSD drives. A full restart happens in about 17 seconds. This is compared to the over 2 mins on an '08 2.5Ghz Core 2 Duo MBP. I'm looking at upgrading the RAM. Not sure if I should go with Apple or Kingston. Are there any quality hits with Kingston or is Apple RAM just a waste of money?



www.strypesinpost.com

I don't know if you can order these where you are but OWC RAM is in my laptop and my desktop. Great shipping and service all round. I have always been curious as to who makes their RAM.

[eshop.macsales.com]

Ridiculously cheaper than the Apple BTO kind.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

I have the fully loaded 17" quad core 2.3 i7 / 512 SSD. I took the stock RAM and upgraded the RAM to 8 GB myself from OWC for $100 less than Apple (at the time...RAM prices change daily). A little more of a P.I.T.A. to change out as there is no "RAM door"...you have to take off the entire back panel.

I simply cannot get over how fast this machine is. Faster than any tower I ever owned or used at work (currently an 8 Core / 24 GB RAM). Mine boots in around 10 - 12 seconds...renders my AE projects in 1/4 time. iStat menus shows 8 cores at the top (hyperthreaded of course) and the renders use every bit of them! Apps are screaming (Cinema 4D launches in 2 seconds flat). I also picked up the 27" Cinema Display. Very happy with it all

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

That is a very encouraging endorsement Joey. Tricked out the way you have it puts the machine a bit under 4 grand in my country. But if it performs as fast/faster than a desktop and Thunderbolt will give us the I/O for our future raid devices and ostensibly capture cards, electronic scopes and so on, then it looks like desktop replacements have truly arrived once all the thunderbolt gak is readily available.

Yet another expense. Oh well.