When will the 13 MBP be updated with a i5 or i3 processor?

Will the 13 inch model be updated with the newer processor anytime soon? Thank you.

 

Not til next year I presume. They just updated the 13 MBP in April.

 

no, not anytime soon...

 

I doubt they'd make one bit of difference for most things.

 

Next spring/summer probably, and most likely with the i5. It'll make a significant difference for gaming and encoding/decoding tasks.

 

Seriously.

I think it's entertaining how people just assume having an i series processor is going to change their life.

That being said, I'll stick with a C2D and SSD instead of having to take a hit on battery life (25W vs 35W TDP) and heat generated.

If your Macbook is running slow, change your Hard Drive. Simple. If you must have an i series processor in a 13" form factor there's the Sony Vaio Z.

 

Completely agree with this.

 

but but.. an i3 would cook me breakfast... or something... I mean you can see bar graphs that are different in benchmarks. I wouldn't want my friends to know I didn't get the newest CPU!

 

Or maybe people like having the latest and greatest? I for one would not buy an laptop with an old generation processor once the new ones are out. Also, you cannot directly compare the TDP or a Core 2 and a Core i, they are different and in fact the Core i at 35W uses about the same as a Core 2 at 25W.

 

Still the current C2D beats out the competitors Core i3 processors like the crap Asus U30JC.

 

That's nonsense, but I don't feel like arguing. So I'll let you kindly explain how TDP (a standard measure indicating the heat generated by the processor) cannot be directly compared between these two processors ... Obviously Intel must not know what they're doing, right?

Lastly the "latest and greatest" doesn't gain you much in this case.

i3 processors don't bring anything new to the table worth writing home about, sure it would have been nice to have them but at the cost of increased heat dissipation on an already warm notebook? No thanks.

As for the i5 series ... Greater TDP, and battery life will take a hit. If you need an i5 get a 15" MBP, it's form factor is better suited for such heat as it has a greater surface area to radiate it.

 

Yea, it has a greater TDP, but that's because the graphics in the new i-series are on-die (ie included with the processor) so to compare the two, you have to take the TDP of the core2duo and gfx, and compare it to the TDP of the i-series processor.

You'll find that they're on-par, or the i-series being a little less. Why else would the battery life get better by 3-ish hours? The battery isn't THAT much bigger.

 

why?? the C2D is pretty much same as i3 in term of performance and battery consumption...an i5 would drain out the battery of 13" too quick, i5u and i7u....well they are too expensive and not as powerful...

 

the improved battery life is most due to an improved power management, and u also forget to mention the 320m, it should consume less power than 9400m~

 

The MBP 13 doesn't use an i series processor, the battery life improved due to:

1. 320m vs the 9400m
2. Bigger battery

Note that the TDP of the P8400, P8600, P8700 and P8800 are identical, so processor was not a factor with the battery life increase this April.

 

That's great and all, but all I said was I like having the latest when I buy a new laptop. And as for the TDP thing, with Nehalem Intel removed the northbridge and added the graphics to the cpu die. To calculate TDP of Nehalem, as said above you need to take the cpu and graphics TDP's of Core 2 to match the 18/25/35W TDP of a Core i3/i5/i7.

For example the total TDP of the C2D SU9400 and graphics northbridge for my Acer 3810T is about 22W while my new Acer 1830T with a Core i5-430UM and graphics is 18W.

 

The i5 with its integrated GPU uses about the same amount of power as the Core 2 + a GPU.

The 13 inch Core 2 has slightly better battery than the 15 inch because nVidia's switchable graphics today still drains significant power even when the GPU isn't active.

 

There's nothing wrong with wanting the best, but if the best doesn't offer anything better, what's the point?

 

I'm sure I'm not alone in saying I'd rather have the 310m over Intel's integrated solution. The only reason they are on the 15" and 17" is because there's a dedicated card to fall back on.

 

I don't upgrade every year.

 

the integrated graphic of i5 is far from as powerful as 320m, i think it is also less powerful than the previous 9400m. even if what you said is correct (i5 w/ integrate graphic use same amount of power as C2D + GPU chip), i would rather take the C2D + a more powerful GPU instead. i5 w/o a discrete GPU is < c2d w/ discrete GPU.

 

Yes the 15 and 17 models have the Intel integrated graphics chip which is bleh. If they somehow combined the new 320m instead of the Intel chip with the new dedicated graphics chip, they'd own.

 

if nvidia could make chipsets for the Core i family... they wouldn't have ever used the Intel graphics in the first place. It would have been like a 320 and 335m or whatever

 

When the i5 hits the MBP13, it'll most definitely have discrete switchable graphics. When you're on battery you don't need graphics power anyways.

FYI the power consumption of the 320M+25W core 2 is slightly higher than the i5. If the current MBP13 had the i5 without discrete graphics, then the battery would be rated at about 11-12 hours.

 

ITT: We confuse complete package thermal design power with actual power consumption.

The Core i3-M is (slightly) more power efficient at a given performance level than the Core 2 Duo. The extra 10W is for the IGP and SMT. If you aren't using the IGP, it doesn't draw any power. So in essence, if you're using a discrete GPU and running a two-threaded application on equally clocked Core i3 and Core 2 Duo CPUs, the Core i3 would still draw slightly less power and produce slightly less heat, while providing better performance. Remove the discrete GPU and allow the application in question to fully utilize the extra threads on the Core i3-M, and it would draw more power than the Core 2 Duo, however total system power draw would be similar as the Core 2 Duo notebook would have a separate IGP that was still drawing power. And of course, the Core i3 would finish the operation in question far more quickly, for a variety of reasons (namely SMT, architectural improvements, and vastly superior memory bandwidth).

Not that any of this would come across as more than a few minutes of battery life or a couple of seconds shaved off here and there in typical usage, but it's an important differentiation from a purely technological standpoint.

 

Unbeknownst to you common folk, the next MBP 13 will have an i7 920XM along with a GTX 480 SLI.

Pfft, and you guys were hoping for simply an i series processor. You see, Apple's already got you covered, they're thinking ahead of the game.

All you need to do now is figure out which one of your children you could live without.

 

i'm guessing the next upgrade will be sandy bridge for 13". apple might skip nehelems for 13" altogether*

unless ofcourse C2D's are eoled by Intel..

 

Indeed. Apple will use the iX chips when they decide (if ever, I fear) to add switchable graphics into the 13 MBP.

The restriction of being limited to the inferior performance of the Intel GPU chip has already been confirmed to be a primary reason for Apple's decision to use the Core2 architecture in their update of the 13 model. Jobs himself has said that their priority was to improve overall system and graphics performance rather than focus on a smaller, incremental cpu bump that the majority of users wouldn't notice.

 

I go from an iMac 3.06 C2D to a 2.0 C2D 13 MBP honestly you dont even notice. Then again im not a power user just photography. The 2.0 C2D 13 MBP is my favorite machine. I just wish i had a backlit keyboard dang it.

 

Don't all 13 MBP's have backlit keyboards? I though only the non-Pro unibody Macbook's did not come with backlit keyboards?

 

You are correct i call it a MBP it is just dosent say so.