Chart Suggests Speed-Bumped 15-Inch Retina MacBook Pros with 16GB of RAM Standard Coming Soon

[TSP23]

Do we think the 13 inch will have 16 gb of RAM across the board?

 

[barkmonster]

These days at viewing distance 300dpi on a phone is acceptable,,, Over that and since "their so small you can't see the dots". why would that is indicate a difference ? since the eyes can't see higher than that.

today's laptop even the "Retina" have over the top resolutions, and as Apple says "shows of photos" as the main target...

We will get to a point when the resolution will increase, and displays have to be bigger.... because you cannot no longer fir x number of pixels within the same size display, so you have to increase the viewable (either shrink the bezels. or bigger screen is another way)

Then, you'll get to the point of,, "these phones are too big being 8' phone", and then we'll be an uproar as to wanting these much bigger resolutions, but in order to do that we must have a massive phone..

thus,, we're going from a "brick" phone of the old days, to a "big" display

end result. ? Times haven't changed much

I always found 17" monitors too high res but 19" just right. Now I use a 23" 1920x1080 screen as my main display and in recent years 21:9 displays with a 2560x1080 is becoming common and they come in 29" (Equivalent DPI to 23" at 1920 width with the horizontal resolution of 2 x 19/17" LCDs) or 25" (equivalent to 17" at 1280 width with the horizontal resolution of 2 x 17/19" LCDs).

The fact you sit much closer to a laptop screen than a desktop means they can have some very high resolutions that would be impractical at the viewing distance of a typical desk and monitor but they can't go too high because you'd still get eye strain.

 

[PocketSand11]

Yep -- there are people (like myself) who only want a single machine that can be used both for work and for some gaming as well. My own needs are pretty pedestrian at this point (Diablo III, Minecraft, TF2, other Source games), but a dGPU will come in handy for D3 at least.

Luckily, the latest MBPs can handle those and almost any other game easily, as can my '08 Mac Pro (now that it has a GTX 650Ti). I don't really know what a laptop with a GTX 880 with 8GB VRAM is supposed to be used for… I know someone who has that in his 10lb 1337 gaming rig laptop, and he admits that it's overkill.

----------

It also has 8GB of RAM, which is more than I'll ever need.

He said 8GB VRAM, not RAM.

 

[kenroberts83]

I study electronics and electrical engineering, don't think of me as some peasant who knows nothing of lithography and semiconductors. But if you knew anything of what's been happening in the world of semiconductor fabrication you would understand Intel hasn't exactly been putting the pedal to the metal to try and push these things out. Why? Because it has zero competition and would only be competing with itself. This is why I made that comment, I realise any shrinking of transistors is difficult, infact its what of the most advanced pieces of technology we humans have, I also know it's governed as much by economics as it is by science.

Intel was meant to have these things cooking years ago, no it looks like a 2015 launch. Just look at what happened when AMD handed them their asses and they accelerated Core 2, was pretty incredible.

Intel has competition, it's just not in the desktop space. Their primary competitive threat right now is from ARM. Hence the push for low-power processors.

 

[neversink]

I'm more bothered by the ever growing list of Apple products that look increasingly semi-abandoned.

I imagine you are talking hardware as well as software.

 

[12dylan34]

Sucks to be 2 days outside of my return window. Decided to pull the trigger because there was no indication of an update...

Nobody supposes Apple may give me any mercy for an exchange, do they? I should't expect them to but a guy can hope.

 

[RoboWarriorSr]

Does this mean that the Macbook Pro will get another price drop? I'm curious to know if the baseline 750m would be cheaper than the current model with 750m with the student discount.

 

[rasputin1969]

So if the current 8GB/256GB mid-range 13 inch gets replaced with a 16GB/512GB model for the same price I think I'll pull the trigger.

This will be the last update before Yosemite hits, and after beta testing it since DP 1 I've decided I'll stick with Mavericks until I'm forced to upgrade.

 

[TSP23]

So if the current 8GB/256GB mid-range 13 inch gets replaced with a 16GB/512GB model for the same price I think I'll pull the trigger.

This will be the last update before Yosemite hits, and after beta testing it since DP 1 I've decided I'll stick with Mavericks until I'm forced to upgrade.

How likely do you guys think this is?

 

[rasputin1969]

If I was a betting man I'd say 8GB/256GB will be upgraded to 16GB/256GB.

 

[poematik13]

What's your point?

Name an apple laptop that has:

The 4th generation Intel® Core™ i7 Processor
17.3" Full HD anti-glare LCD
GeForce GTX 880M DDR5 8GB
Exclusive Super RAID 2 with 3 SSD RAID0 with 1500MB/s reading speed!
32GB of RAM
Support for 3 External displays

Pro tip: you cant.

and a battery life of 10 whole minutes! enough time for you to find a wall outlet to plug it in, so your cool ELITE GAMER LED'S can light up the room

 

[Enraginangel]

Nice update, but I think I'll hold out another year before replacing my mid-2010 MBP.

I'm in the same boat as you. I have a hackintosh with similar specs as your iMac and the same 2010 MBP as well as a retina iPad mini. I really want a new MacBook but this minor refresh completely turns me off. I'll have to tough it out and wait until Broadwell comes out.

 

[Cougarcat]

I'm in the same boat as you. I have a hackintosh with similar specs as your iMac and the same 2010 MBP as well as a retina iPad mini. I really want a new MacBook but this minor refresh completely turns me off. I'll have to tough it out and wait until Broadwell comes out.

I keep telling myself this, but now I'm thinking that even Broadwell might not be worth it. It's just going to be a die-shrink, meaning it's not going to be much faster. The main benefit will be battery life, but nine hours is already plenty for me. Skylake is going to be the one with all the goodies--DDR4 RAM, faster thunderbolt. But the way intel is going I bet we don't see it til mid-2016. Intel isn't making this easy.

Like you, I have a hackintosh so I don't need anything now. Then again, we'll see what tomorrow brings. If there's a bump in SSD capacity, it might make it worth it. I don't know how much further I can last with this crappy 13" resolution.

 

[827538]

Intel has competition, it's just not in the desktop space. Their primary competitive threat right now is from ARM. Hence the push for low-power processors.

I agree, but even sticking with their 20nm fabs they still outclass anyone else producing ARM chips. I believe they are about to start fabricating them soon as well.

 

[alphaod]

Looks like standard spec bump fare.

No need for an upgrade for me.

 

[Burger Thing]

and a battery life of 10 whole minutes! enough time for you to find a wall outlet to plug it in, so your cool ELITE GAMER LED'S can light up the room

He has a point. At the present moment Apple doesn't really have a top of the line mobile solution for graphics intensive stuff or video editing.

Apple's offerings are thin, small and light. Unfortunately not too powerful either.

I also don't understand why some of you are so against people wanting to have an MBP which would be great for gaming, too. It is really not that hanging out in MacRumors or drinking latte in Starbucks all day long is morally superior in any way

 

[kenroberts83]

$700 for a mediocre GPU upgrade? Bit rich.

Yeah the high-end 15" is ridiculously overpriced, in my opinion. I'd like to see the prices come back down to where they were prior to the introduction of retina and SSD's. It's got to happen eventually, they can't be selling a ton of laptops at $2600 a pop.

 

[SarcasticJoe]

I understand fully the implications of a 14nm transistor size and how advanced that is. But like in my previous reply to another comment this has more to do with economics and lack of competition than engineering challenges.
14nm second gen FinFET is an engineering marvel, as is the doped silicon it's made from, but if AMD offered a modicum of competition then Broadwell would likely be available right now, not in 2015.

I'd say you're overestimating the skills of the people who run Intel's manufacturing department here... AMD spun off it's manufacturing division back in 2009 as a contract manufacturing company and they've got no reason not to get their 14nm process that they've been working on with Samsung to work.

Sure, if AMD was as strong as it was back when they spun off their manufacturing division then Intel might have been forced to delay the 14nm process and right now be making Broadwell chips with the 22nm process. However AMD has always been the scruffy little competitor Intel has kept around to avoid antitrust investigations. AMD never had anything close to the resources of Intel and were able to stay competitive trough clever engineering, being able to avoid making the same design mistakes as Intel and siphoning technology from companies like DEC and their Alpha line of processors.

The reason why we are where we are these days is that Intel eventually got wise, learned from their own mistakes (remember Netburst?), had a look at what AMD was doing (remember how the initial Athlon 64's performed compared to their Intel counterparts?) and did the same except with a lot more resources.

 

[Ries]

and a battery life of 10 whole minutes! enough time for you to find a wall outlet to plug it in, so your cool ELITE GAMER LED'S can light up the room

8 Hours.

My macbook pro is connected to the charger 95% of the time, battery hardly matters for me.

 

[lezmace]

Is there any Chance that the integrated gpu gets an update?

 

[lezmace]

No

 

[Gruntos]

New MacBook pro 15inch

Looking at the Apple site today, the 15inch MacBook Pro range had been updated. I know this was coming but did you get a press release that it was update this morning?


"Intel’s fourth-generation quad-core processors house the processor, L3 cache, Intel Iris Pro Graphics and fast 1600MHz memory controller on a single chip. These processors feature Turbo Boost technology that automatically boosts the processor clock speed based on workload, giving you extra processing power when you need it. And Hyper-Threading technology allows two threads to run simultaneously on each core. This enables the processor to deliver a faster performance by spreading tasks more evenly across a greater number of cores."

Processor

2.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz [- £150.00]
2.8GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.0GHz



Talking to the Apple Tech guy these are the new Core i7 Haswell processors. The price seams the same too .

 

[poematik13]

He has a point. At the present moment Apple doesn't really have a top of the line mobile solution for graphics intensive stuff or video editing.

Apple's offerings are thin, small and light. Unfortunately not too powerful either.

I also don't understand why some of you are so against people wanting to have an MBP which would be great for gaming, too. It is really not that hanging out in MacRumors or drinking latte in Starbucks all day long is morally superior in any way

i know tons of video editors that photographers that use rMBP's. its literally the standard on most productions, second only to the mac pro

 

[MacBH928]

But the continued lack of decent graphic hardware, and I'm not saying good or even up-to-date, for the premium premium price we pay, is going to force me to switch back to PC after 10 years of using Macs.

It started with that integrated GPU non-sense,

I am not too technical but I don't understand what Apple did with this GPU thing. I did try a Gamecube Emulator on my core2duo macbook( '08) and it worked fine, few frame drops but playable. So I tested it on a 2012 macbook air(4 years technology difference) and the Emulator was moving in slow motion. I had significantly better performance on the 4 years older laptop!

I am not sure if this is moving forward or backward for Apple, not sure why its happening, but its embarrassing. To put things into perspective, the difference between the macbook air and Nintendo Gamecube is the same difference between the release of Playstation 1 and Playstation 3.

 

[Burger Thing]

i know tons of video editors that photographers that use rMBP's. its literally the standard on most productions, second only to the mac pro

No disrespect, but I believe you don't know *any* video editor and no, rMBPs and Mac Pro are certainly not the standard. In case of the Mac Pro not anymore, sadly.