MBA Sandy Bridge CPUs

[Hellhammer]

So probably aug/sept will be the refresh of the MBA because they do not want to start to late to prevent not to be able to deliver MBA's anymore.

I think the EOL of C2D isn't a reliable indicator of the next refresh. Intel's dates are just Intel's. Apple could technically order 5 million C2Ds on April 29th to keep the supplies steady.

 

[neteng101]

Apple could technically order 5 million C2Ds on April 29th to keep the supplies steady.

The last shipment date isn't until Oct, so its conceivable they'll keep taking in shipments until then, which is about the right time for a refreshed MBA to appear.

Not crazy about Intel graphics, but the extra CPU muscle possibilities is really interesting.

 

[mutsaers-vr.nl]

if 5 million C2D are still available by than !!

I think the EOL of C2D isn't a reliable indicator of the next refresh. Intel's dates are just Intel's. Apple could technically order 5 million C2Ds on April 29th to keep the supplies steady.

 

[fyrefly]

Sounds like people are thinking with their hearts instead of brains. I have been there before. In addition, Intel is making C2D until October and hasn't discontinued it as some say.

I would personally say that wishing for AMD Llano or other AMD solution is far more pie-in-the-sky then hoping for a SB refresh in June or October.

Apple enjoys very preferential treatment from Intel. They developed Thunderbolt together. Apple got first crack at fixed Mobile chipsets from Intel (the current MBPs are some of the very first shipping SB laptops). There's absolutely no reason for Apple to move away from Intel, or to piss Intel off by putting AMD chips into the MBA.

Bottom line is money. Plain and simple: If the MBA is selling well still in Spring/Summer (40% of Apple Laptops Sold in Q410 by Apple were MBAs) then we'll probably see C2D last till the Fall before a Pre-Christmas 1 yr refresh. IMHO. If the sales don't hold out and people (as many already are) think that the 13" MBP has an i5/i7, so why not the MBA - then it'll be sooner (June/July?).

Of course no-one knows for sure ('cept for Apple). But money talks. Jobs has said this many times. Apple's strategy is simple: they put out products. If people like them, people buy them. If not, people don't buy them and Apple either re-thinks, updates or drops them.

I think a lot of people will be disappointed if they really think the MBA is getting updated in June. Apple used to update Mac models like MBP but even those are on one year cycles.

The MBP had almost a year between updates 'cause there were no other chips to put into them. Between last year's Arrandale and this years Sandy Bridge, there's not much Apple could have updated (though they did add BTOs of the faster i7 2.8Ghz chip when it came out in fall 2010).

Apple was also a victim (as was everyone else) of the Sandy Bridge defect. Though, as mentioned, because of their special relationship with Intel, they got first crack at the fixed chipsets.

In addition, Apple marketed the original MBA and loved it too.

Yep. And it updated it ~9 months later. (1st Gen MBA shipped Jan 30th, 2008 - Nvidia 9400m model shipped October 14th, 2008). Just 'cause they promote the crap out of something doesn't mean they're gonna update it sooner or later. It's about sales and margins. (I'd surmise the 1st/2nd gen update was about both - make it cheaper so more people buy, and standardize the 9400m over all the machines so lower component costs).

Finally, the Intel chipsets are going to bring similar poor performance in low voltage models which Apple has to be concerned about. I predict a lot of disappointment in June even if it's updated with a downgraded graphics system.

It's a fact. The i5/i7 17W chipsets graphics frequencies are lower. But we're talking 350Mhz-950Mhz/1Ghz (depending on chip) instead of 650Mhz-1.3Ghz. It's a 300Mhz difference.

I dunno what they means to the end user. Do you? Does anyone yet? Have we seen benchmarks for these lower-clocked GPUs compared to a 320M or 9400M yet? The 650Mhz compares about 10% less than the 320M.

And while we can all assume the 350Mhz base-frequency means less performance, I dunno how much that'll be.

That being said, I have an i5 Arrandale MBP and I have it set to always be on the Integrated Graphics chip while on battery. That Intel IGP clocks in at 5000Mhz-700Mhz. Again a higher base-frequency, but a lower top frequency. Regardless, I've never had a problem with the IGP while surfing, YouTube, typing, email, etc... which is all the stuff MBAs were built for.

In Summary, while I believe the 320M is awesome, I think it spoiled us. And it's something we can't get back. Intel's BS lawsuit, as you've rightly pointed out, has screwed us all. But we've gotta move forward. Right now the HD 3000 graphics are the best we're gonna get under the MBA's low TDP restrictions.

Of course, Apple *could* wait till Ivy Bridge. But I seriously doubt they're gonna wait a full 14-16 months to update their new flagship (and currently highest selling) product. And IMHO, if they somehow do wait that long, the MBA won't account for 40% of their laptop sales for very much longer.

 

[theSeb]

Thats what they said back in the 2009 refreshes, its just to cover up for the poorer power system. I still get around 7 hours of battery out of my '09 macbook pro 13", with many users reporting up to 10 hours or more with last years revision.

I call BS on Apple's claim.

Current benchmarks by the likes of anandtech show that the 2011 MBP line-up has the same (or better) battery life when compared to the 2010 range. Apple has changed the way it reports the battery life. It's a simple fact not matter what you call.

 

[jeromekwok]

We haven't heard any real rumours on what CPUs we expect the MacBook Airs to have on refresh, so this is for your entertainment.

I've done a lot of searching to work out what we might expect for the 11" and 13" models of the MacBook Air. Now firstly, I did some predictions on the MBP processors which can be found here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1101568/
Apple hadn't used quad-core processors in its laptops before, so it was a bit harder to predict.

With the MBAs, it should be a lot easier. To start off with, the values I got for the TDP of the GeForce 320M iGP weren't the same, I heard different values quoted, ~12W from forums and 20W from wikipedia. In my working, I used the 320M at 12W TDP, which seems the fit best in comparison to the new MBP battery life. All the predictions have been done on the specs of the current MacBook Airs and the current Sandy Bridge Mobile Processors see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge.

11 Inch MacBook Air
The current 11" MBAs have 1.4 and 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs with GeForce 320M iGP, with a TDP for CPU/iGP combo is 10+12=22W.

Therefore, most logical processors are the ultra low power Sandy Bridge mobile processors, i5-2537M, i7-2617M and i7-2657M. At current price points, it makes sense to go with the i7 chips, the i7-2617M and i7-2657M at 1.5 and 1.6GHz each. These are dual core and two-threads-per-core (2C/4T) and have a TDP of 17W, 5W less than currently required.

This will increase the performance of the CPUs considerably, as when needed, they will boost to 2.3/2.4GHz on dual core and 2.6/2.7GHz on single core. The performance of the graphics chips will be comparable to before, if not just slightly slower due to the lower turbo clock on the Intel HD 3000 iGP for these CPUs.

The power management features on these processors will reduce the power required considerably when the CPUs are not stressed. So added to better performance, it will result in much cooler & quieter laptops and also longer battery life.

13 Inch MacBook Air
The current 13" MBAs have 1.86 and 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs (2C/2T) with GeForce 320M iGP, with a TDP for CPU/iGP combo is 17+12=29W.

In this case, most logical processors are the low power Sandy Bridge mobile processors, i7-2629M and i7-2649M at 2.1 and 2.3GHz each with 2C/4T and TDP of 25W, 4W less than currently required.

Again, the new Sandy Bridge CPUs will increase performance a lot. The CPUs will boost to 2.7/2.9GHz on dual core and 3.0/3.2GHz on single core. The performance of the graphics chips will be similar to previous, and the HD 3000 iGP has a higher turbo clock for the low-power SB than the ultra-low-power SB mobile processors (+10% increase).

Again, the power management features on these processors will reduce the power required considerably when the CPUs are not stressed. So added to much better performance, it will result in much cooler & quieter laptops and also longer battery life.

Summary
11" MBA: 1.5 & 1.6GHz dual-core i7 Sandy Bridge processors @17W
13" MBA: 2.1 & 2.3GHz dual-core i7 Sandy Bridge processors @25W
=
Faster, quieter, cooler laptops whose batteries last for longer. The CPUs will be much more powerful than before, in fact performance on the 13" MBA may be more powerful than some of mid-2010 15" MBPs.

You need to add 3.4W for QS67 chipset, so MBA 11" will have 17+3.4=20.4W, just a little less than 22W with C2D NV combo.

 

[vingochr]

You need to add 3.4W for QS67 chipset, so MBA 11" will have 17+3.4=20.4W, just a little less than 22W with C2D NV combo.

Chipset TDPs were not included on either part, as differences are likely negligible. Even if the C2D chipset TDP was zero, as you've shown, it still means SB TDP max is less.

In reality SB has much better power saving features, (eg can turn off turboboost), so we would expect average TDP for SB to be much less than TDP max in comparison to the C2D which has less power saving features. Additionally, C2D chips will be stressed much more due to less computing power than SB (~1.8x if you compare SB and C2D clock-for-clock, we'll see if this holds true for LV and ULV chips)

 

[Cheffy Dave]

Thanks everyone, for all of this discussion, I learned a lot, and that's why I visit here so much.This is one of the best forums on the net

 

[vingochr]

Adding costs in

Summary
11" MBA: 1.5 & 1.6GHz dual-core i7 Sandy Bridge processors @17W
13" MBA: 2.1 & 2.3GHz dual-core i7 Sandy Bridge processors @25W
=
Faster, quieter, cooler laptops whose batteries last for longer. The CPUs will be much more powerful than before, in fact performance on the 13" MBA may be more powerful than some of mid-2010 15" MBPs.

I just realised I never included the 1k unit budgetary price on each of these chips. Note that I have not included the 320M price as I haven't found it.
(For SB processors X/T notation is X=base clock and T=max turbo clock)

Current MBAs
11" MBA: 1.4 & 1.6GHz 10W Core 2 Duo CPUs with ~12W NV 320M IGP, 800MHz FSB and 3MB L2 cache at $262 & $289
13" MBA: 1.86 & 2.13GHz 17W Core 2 Duo CPUs with ~12W NV 320M IGP, 1066MHz FSB and 6MB L2 cache at $284 & $316

Proposed MBAs
11" MBA: 1.5/2.6 & 1.6/2.7GHz 17W i7 SB CPUs w/ Intel HD 3000 IGP (350/950 & 350/1000MHz), 1333MHz RAM and 4MB L3 cache at $289 & $317
13" MBA: 2.1/3 & 2.3/3.2GHz 25W i7 SB CPUs w/ Intel HD 3000 IGP (500/1100 & 500/1100MHz), 1333MHz RAM and 4MB L3 cache at $311 & $346

Although the price isn't as right with the ULV i5 SB, I'll put it in here still for comparison:
11" MBA: 1.4/2.3GHz 17W i5 SB CPU w/ Intel HD 3000 IGP (350/900MHz), 1333MHz RAM and 3MB L3 cache at $250

NB Although the 13" MBP has a higher base and turbo clock for the Intel HD 3000 (650/1200MHz) than the 25W i7 SB chips, the 25W chips have a higher max. turbo clock on the CPU than the 13" MBP (2.3/2.9GHz). Apple may choose to use the 17W SB processors on all MBAs due to this, which will result in better battery life and (hopefully) cheaper laptops.

 

[Hellhammer]

Chipset TDPs were not included on either part, as differences are likely negligible. Even if the C2D chipset TDP was zero, as you've shown, it still means SB TDP max is less.

In reality SB has much better power saving features, (eg can turn off turboboost), so we would expect average TDP for SB to be much less than TDP max in comparison to the C2D which has less power saving features. Additionally, C2D chips will be stressed much more due to less computing power than SB (~1.8x if you compare SB and C2D clock-for-clock, we'll see if this holds true for LV and ULV chips)

320M is the chipset. Thus you must include the chipset TDPs in SB MBAs.

 

[rovex]

See, I said there would be a refresh. Would be preposterous*to continue with C2D.