Component Gurus of NBR: Speculation for Summer 2012

Hi all,

I'm not sure if this fits with this subforum best, but I figured I'd ask anyway.
I'm looking to possibly upgrade to a new laptop next year sometime, waiting for Ivy Bridge and possibly Windows 8. So in Q2/Q3 2012, What kind of hardware can I realistically expect to see in the fastest ~$1500 laptop?
For further refinement, I'd prefer 4+ hours browsing the web and 15.6" as a centerpoint.

CPU: Ivy Bridge is coming. I have no idea how performance or power consumption is compared to Sandy Bridge. Past generations have improved on their predecessors by 10-20%. Is Ivy Bridge even more?
AMD's Fusion A8 is also out now and is weaker than Sandy Bridge's CPU, but stomps its IGP. Is its line a viable option?

RAM: DDR3 will be the norm still. 8GB modules are just coming out and are super expensive. What speeds/capacities are realistic?

Storage: The biggest 7200rpm drive is 750GB. An 8GB Momentus XT is coming out. I have no bearing on SSDs really, other than they're about $1-$1.50/GB. I've heard the 32nm SSDs aren't as good (reliable) as previous gens... What kind of storage could I expect solid state or platter-wise?

GPUs: I would ideally like something with hybrid graphics for my next purchase. Toshiba's X775 is the only laptop to support Optimus on the 560m. I don't know about AMD's high performance graphics options. Would the GTX 600M/Mobility 7000 series be out by then? Any thoughts on performance?

Connectivity: USB 3.0 will hopefully be the norm. Will there still be any leftover 2.0 ports?
Expresscard is a dying standard but is still pretty fast. Is Expresscard 2.0 implemented? Is Thunderbolt or Lightpeak coming? Would an eGPU be viable on a system like this?
Any other ports that you think will be deprecated or added?

Thanks all!

Disclaimer: This thread is purely for speculation and for fun given the above constraints and shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Mods: If this isn't the place to dream about future hardware, then feel free to move or close this thread.

 

Please see my thread on Ivy Bridge, it is regularly updated. I just posted about Ivy Bridge bringing 35W quad cores.

 

I was literally just reading that, I quite enjoy the "Forget x, y is coming out" threads! I'm trying to look beyond just chipset and CPU architectures, too.

 

USB2.0 will stay around until at least windows 8. Main reason being, Win7 apparently doesn't support USB3.0 natively, and no chipset designer is moving to full USB3.0 yet, either.

 

Aha see, but I think in Ivy Bridge USB 3.0 will be supported natively. Windows 8 is just around the corner (dev preview tonight!)

 

and for the rest of the year

 

I want to see a real ultraportable, like 13" and 4lbs, with MXM 3.0 A and optimus.

There ARE MXM notebooks with switchable graphics. So you COULD have a gtx 560m with that, but you'd have to build it yourself. The MSI ge600 and ge620 are the only models I know of where this would be possible.

 

AMD Bulldozer...

See here. It's desktop, but will get similar in laptops.

 

@niffcreature: In my OP I said the Toshiba X775 has Optimus with a 560m, but I haven't heard of the MSI GE600 series.

@HTWingNut: I just read about that on Ars yesterday, pretty neat. I haven't heard much on performance or efficiency is though... any word on that?

 

No, nothing much on the mobile front so far. But it could be a good contender especially for price.

 

13" with MXM, unforunteatly, is unlikely, IMO. Not unless if you are willing to have a very fat laptop (relatively). 14" and larger can do *assuming normal bezel size* since the larger size of those laptops allow for a thicker size to begin with. Because it's not only physical space in the laptop, it's also the mainboard space, KB/palmrest space, MXM card space, HSF space, and bottom cover space we have to consider

I mean, even Sony's SA/SB/SC line is rather thick as it is, and it's pulling out nearly all the stops to make it thinner (short of pulling the ODD drive).


Otherwise, small laptops will be like the m11x (which I have had 3 of), which is extremely bulky for it's size. It's heavier than my 14" Acer 4820

Llano and Bulldozer support one this AMD has lacked for a long time: C6 power state on the CPU (GPU had it since a long time ago). It finally allows AMD CPU/APU to be as power efficient as Intel CPU during idle (though intel still has a few innovations, despite being fabbed on Bulk instead of SOI), though Llano only has two main voltage rails, so there are very few cases where C6 can be truely utilized (a cost saving measure, unfortuneately ).

Either way, it's the primary reason why (and not 32nm SOI), why Llano has such a vast improvement in battery life over previous AMD setups, that it's even competitive with the lower edge of Intel

I hope, with Bulldozer being AMD's top dog, we won't see the cost cutting in the power delivery system that we saw with Llano...

 

Well here's to a competitive side from AMD!

That's true, a modular graphics card will add a bit of bulk. I probably won't want an ultrabook or similar since I'd like graphics horsepower. Unless there's a Thunderbolt port!

I did not know that, that's pretty interesting! I'm quite excited for Bulldozer and Llano to establish a solid line against Intel.


I just saw an article on Ars and then ran across this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...out-apple-domain-asus-acer-join-struggle.html
Super excited!

 

Portable, powerful, cheap; pick 2 out of 3, because you cannot get them all. Sub 14" laptops generally emphasize portability, with exception to the M11x. Integrated graphics have caught up to the point where it outperforms older discreet cards but with much lower power consumption. You shouldn't be trying to do serious serious work on an ultra portable anyway. Nothing like rendering on a 1368x768 screen.

 

Yeah I much prefer the 15.6" form factor since it can be large enough for a numpad and decent resolution screen. This G50vt is a bit chunky though. I would hope that throwing $1.5k at a new laptop next year is enough to get something kind of portable and powerful.

 

Hee Hee, Sony supremacists know of the SA's 13.3" 1600x900 and the Z2's 13.1" 1600x900 standard config displays Z2 also get an option for a 1920x1080 13.1" display

It makes a lot more sense in photography and 3D ani/modeling, admittedly.

 

Oh no I know about Sony's Z and S/SA series, sure powerful and portable but $$$

One Z started at like...2500 and easily hit like close to 6k fulled loaded...I'd rather take an x220 tablet instead..