I want a Macbook Air with Llano

Does anyone else think Llano would be awesome in the macbook air?

I'm thinking the quad core A8-3500M that everyone is reviewing would be awesome as it has a lower TDP.

The thing that is keeping me from buying a MBA has been poor graphics performance. I'm waiting till they improve that IGP. I don't give a rats about top end CPU power.

 

Llano mobile parts are 35W or 45W. These aren't likely to work in the Air because their thermal output is too high and battery life would be too short. The chips may be too big as well - the motherboard in a MacBook Air is tiny. These are the same reasons why Apple puts Intel LV and ULV processors into the Air instead of the 35W Intel parts.

The GeForce 320M in the current MacBook Air does quite well considering its power consumption. I can run STALKER on my 11" Air, which is something I can't do with any other ultraportable. Can't play the latest games though.

What I'd like to see is Llano in a cross between the current MBA 13 and MBP 13. No ULV CPU, decent graphics, no optical drive, integrated SSD, normal complement of ports, and with the 1440x900 non-glass screen from the MBA 13. It wouldn't be quite as thin and light as the current MBA 13 because they still need to thermally manage the bigger CPU and have a bigger battery, but they could probably get the weight down to 3.5 lbs.

 

I'd love one of these. I might just get a Sandy Air in July anyway.

 

I don't think a quad core A8 can fit inside... It would catch on fire anyway.

I'm thinking more like the A4 or A6 since they're dual cores and they have lower TDP. That would still be stretching reality... but I'm still wishing.

 

Apple could put a LLano in the Airs; they'd need AMDs help, and it'd probably not be worth it. The very first Airs in 2008 had undervolted C2D chips in there.

"The MacBook Air uses the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor and Intel 965GMS chipset with integrated Gfx using a new miniaturized package technology. This new CPU and chipset allows for approximately 60% reduction in total footprint. The Core 2 Duo Processor TDP is 20 watts. The Macbook Air is using existing Core 2 Duo technology with a lower voltage spec in a new miniaturized packaging design. It is not a ULV processor."

They could theoretically do the same with LLano chips.

 

The C2D used in the macbook air has a TDP of 17W, but it has no integrated memory controller, no QPI/Hypertransport interconnect, no integrated GPU. These things are on the northbridge which Llano doesn't use.

TDP figures I have seen for the northbridge sit it at 20W. So the combined platform tdp is 37W, which is more than the 35W tdp of the A8-3500M.

Llano die size is only 5% larger than sandy bridge, and because it gets rid of the northbridge you actually save space.

 

where are you seeing those northbridge TDP values?

sandy bridge has a north bridge?

 

No. Both Llano and Sandy Bridge have integrated Northbridge and they are both two chip solutions. You forgot about the controller hub (Southbridge) which is a small external chip on both platforms. And although nVidia doesn't publish TDP for the 320M chipset, its predecessor in the Air, the 9400M, had a TDP of 12W.

I think maybe you're mixing up the low voltage and full voltage mobile platforms because AMD and Intel have released theirs in opposite order. AMD released their low voltage version of Fusion first, followed by the full voltage version. Intel did the opposite with Sandy Bridge.

Llano is the full voltage version of AMD Fusion. The desktop Llano chips are part of the Lynx platform, the mobile Llano chips are part of the Sabine platform. Sabine consists of a 35W or 45W Llano APU + Hudson controller hub. AMD already released their low voltage version of Fusion earlier this year. That platform is called Brazos and it consists of a 9W Ontario APU or 18W Zacate APU + Hudson controller hub.

The Cougar Point chipset for Sandy Bridge and Hudson chipset for Fusion both have a TDP around 6W. The new MBP 13 has a 6W chipset + 35W Sandy Bridge CPU = 41W TDP for both. If that doesn't work in a MBA 13, then the 35W Llano won't either.

 

The A4 is actually a single-core processor and the A5 is the most recent one of Apple's chips that is out. However, that is the ARM platform and now we are back to those dumb rumors that Apple is switching to ARM for their computers. The A4 or even A5 would be terribly slow even when compared to a MBA from 2008. Those ARM processors just weren't designed to run a full fledged OS. They do fine with iOS and any other mobile OS (Android, webOS, Windows Mobile, and whatever Nokia and BlackBerry are pushing out as last ditch efforts) but they were never designed to run Windows, a full Linux/Unix/*nix distro, or Mac OS. It would be like installing Windows 7 on a desktop from 2002 with a 700MHz Pentium III processor.

 

^^^ He was talking about Llano I think. I think the variants are A4, A6, and A8.

Anyways...

I am looking to buy a iMac + MacBook Air combo for college next year.

The only thing I desperately want is 7 hours of realistic battery life on the 11" Air and 4 GBs of RAM standard. I don't care if it's any faster.

 

i know what you're trying to say here. but technically brazos and llano(i hope i got the codenames right - not much of an amd guy personally) are different architectures.

lol. not talking about arm cpus here.

 

My mistake, I thought someone was bringing up the whole Apple switching to ARM rumor again.

 

That wasn't really a rumor. Just hypothetical and speculative discussion. No one seriously thinks apple is switching to ARM notebooks any time soon.

 

I don't think anytime soon, but I think eventually they will.

 

Why? ARM doesn't have any substantive processors for notebooks or desktops yet.

 

Sandy Air

I'd love a 14" version, slightly heavier with 1680x1050 and 12 hour life browsing Flash sites. Well, we'll see. I hope 4GB is standard.

 

That would've been lovely indeed. Just hope they keep 16:10 screen.