Intel Arrandale Benchmarks Show Major Improvements for Future MacBook Pros
Anandtech provides an overview of the newly announced chips which run as fast as 2.66GHz (Dual Core) as a base speed with Turbo speeds as high as 3.33GHz. Direct comparisons of the 2.53GHz Arrandale and the 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo currently used in the MacBook Pro showed notable improvements at the same clock speed:
The performance advantage was even more impressive for Cinebench (38-43%) and x264 HD encoding (26-45%), along with notable improvements of the integrated graphics performance. Anandtech found battery life to be on-par with the current Core 2 Duos, but this is expected to improve with later generations of Arrandale. In conclusion:
From the balanced notebook perspective, Arrandale is awesome. Battery life doesn't improve, but performance goes up tremendously. The end result is better performance for hopefully the same power consumption. If you're stuck with an aging laptop it's worth the wait. If you can wait even longer we expect to see a second rev of Arrandale silicon towards the middle of the year with better power characteristics.
Apple is, of course, expected to use these processors in their next generation MacBook Pros, though the exact timeframe for the adoption remains unknown.Top Rated Comments
(View all)
not like these CPU's were a big secret, Intel announced that they were going to release them over a year ago
I haven't been following this stuff for years. Just bought a few Macs for home, office and travel through November and December. My Core2Dou machines will be fine for my needs.
Improved integrated graphics? Improved over what? The X3100? The current Intel mobile CPUs don't include GPUs, unlike Arrandale.
And the current MBPs have nVidia 9400M GPUs, which work quite well in my humble opinion. So far those intel integrated GPUs have performed poorly.
Improved integrated graphics? Improved over what? The X3100? The current Intel mobile CPUs don't include GPUs, unlike Arrandale.
I doubt the graphics perform anywhere near as well as the 9400m, I also doubt that the Intel graphics support OpenCL. All new Macs have to support OpenCL really. So either Apple's going to have to put a dedicated graphics chip in their Macbook and 13" MBP, or maybe use their chip company to make a new chipset controller with decent graphics silicon in.
February-March? Doesn't seem too hard. Would Apple update the MBPs prior to releasing an announcement of the tablet though? I'd imagine they'd do it afterwards.
i can see a notebook refresh being the opening act of the tablet unveiling on the 26th (if that is in fact when it happens).
[ Read All Comments ]
Analytics firm Chitika today released a report showing that by its metrics iOS has now surpassed OS X in overall web traffic share in the United States. Chitika's methodology involves an analysis...
One of the most frequent reasons for an iPhone to go on a trip to the Apple Store's Genius Bar is because of water damage. Typically, a water damaged iPhone can be replaced for a flat $199...
TheVerge's Joshua Topolsky summarizes the iPad 3 casing findings reported earlier today, but also adds his own sources regarding some details of the iPad 3.
Image from RepairLabs
As...
Last July, Apple discontinued the white MacBook from its consumer lineup, pushing consumers toward the company's popular MacBook Air line or the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The company didn't kill...
Popular iPhone Twitter client Tweetbot has finally arrived on the iPad, with a user interface instantly familiar to any current Tweetbot user. Designed for the Twitter power-user, Tweetbot packs a...
