As noted by AnandTech, Intel this week quietly released an updated processor price list which includes several new Skylake chips that could be used in an updated 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro.
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The direct upgrade path for the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro would use the following quad-core chip options: a 2.6 GHz Core i7-6770HQ, a 2.7 GHz Core i7-6870HQ, and a 2.8 GHz Core i7-6970HQ, all coming in at the same price points as the Haswell variants currently used in the MacBook Pro.
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Perhaps a more intriguing but less likely scenario involves a series of new mobile Xeon E3 chips. These chips could offer even better CPU, graphics, and memory performance, although pricing becomes an issue with the highest-performing chip in the family.
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As for the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, Intel announced chips appropriate for those machines back in September, although it suggested the chips would not actually be launching until early 2016. Those chips have been included on Intel's price lists for several months, but have been slow to show up in the wild. A claimed benchmark for a 13-inch MacBook Pro running one of these chips last week appears to have been a fake.
Most of Apple's Mac lineup is in need of updates, as Intel's Skylake delays have hampered Apple's ability to launch refreshed models. But with the Skylake logjam finally starting to break, Apple appears set to update its entire notebook lineup over the next several months. Opportunities for major product introductions could come at Apple's rumored March media event or at WWDC likely scheduled for mid-June, although smaller updates could come at any time via press release.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)Are you a video editor, or work with really large images on a daily basis? Other than that, I don't see a good reason for having anything over 16gb (RAM).
I don't need to explain why I need it. My question still stands:As a developer, there have been times when I ran out of memory (on my 8GB machine), but that can easily be fixed by optimizing code. Even the newest games don't need anywhere near that much memory.
When will MacBooks feature 32gb of RAM?
Are you a video editor, or work with really large images on a daily basis? Other than that, I don't see a good reason for having anything over 16gb (RAM).
I don't understand why people constantly ask this question. Just because You don't have use for more RAM doesn't mean others don't have legitimate uses for it. My 32GB iMac is quite frequently a limitation when running VMs and router simulations or when stitching large panoramas in PhotoShop. I can only run 12 or the possible 20 Cisco IOS-XR and NS-OX routers with 32GB.As a developer, there have been times when I ran out of memory (on my 8GB machine), but that can easily be fixed by optimizing code. Even the newest games don't need anywhere near that much memory.
64GB would be great but Haswell capped at 32GB for the desktop processors but Skylake can support 64GB. So for me, if they would extend the 32/64GB limit over to the Macbook Pro it would make my VM work much easier.
Are you a video editor, or work with really large images on a daily basis? Other than that, I don't see a good reason for having anything over 16gb (RAM).
I heard of this OS X feature called multitasking which apparently runs more than 1 program at a time. So even very optimized programs might collectively need abundant RAM so that each can get the memory they need. I have 24GB on one of my Macs, am not doing daily video editing or editing large image files, but can easily- and often- bump into that 24GB capacity.As a developer, there have been times when I ran out of memory (on my 8GB machine), but that can easily be fixed by optimizing code. Even the newest games don't need anywhere near that much memory.