Haswell MBP

A

Andyk5

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 27, 2011
Messages
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Hey guys, I currently have an Ivy bridge 2.3 Ghz 15" MBPr and I am still within the return period with it. I love this laptop, it is by far the best laptop I ever had and I had many. I use it for circuit design, filter coefficient calculations and hardware language simulations. Since some of the software I use is not available in OSX, I have to use a virtual machine program such as as Parallels 8. I have other virtual machine programs but I do like the simplicity and the interface of Parallels.

Long story short, although I enjoy my laptop very much there are a couple things that I would like to be improved on. The laptop does get warm on the bottom and hot right above the keyboard under stress, battery life is excellent but I can always use more, CPU again excellent for daily use but I would not mind a bit more snappiness in my simulations which usually max out one core and mostly CPU dependent. Running a windows operating system in parallel is also not helping the heat, battery life and computing power. Graphics card, weight, shape, screen, keyboard, power brick, portability thickness etc.. all perfect no modifications needed.

So it looks like Haswell CPU's are going to bring significant, power savings and increased computing muscle. Power savings to me means less heat and better battery life, computing muscle would make my job much easier with the simulations. So Any news on when the MBPr will be released with a Haswell generation CPU? Obviously it will be after Haswell is released but I am wondering if they will be out at the same time. This is my first MAC and I am not familiar with apple's time frame on when they implement new generation hardware on their products. Immediately? they wait a couple months for them to mature and work out the bugs, if there are any?
If this is a 2-4 month time frame and I can get my hands on a Haswell MBPr around April, I will return mine and wait for it. If it is 1 year away, then I'll just enjoy what I have.
 
Its pretty hard to predict when Apple will update there hardware, but in general I think haswell is still a ways off especially for the mobile cpus.
 
According to this buyers guide you still have about 4 months till we will see a new MBP. http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

If the new MBP pop in 3-4 months they will probably contain the new lower power IVB http://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-ivy-bridge-core-pentium,19572.html

Apple may hold off and release the MBP later if they can get Haswell. This would mean a 6month+ wait. Haswell would obviously bring alot of compelling options making Apple wait. Such as a faster intel gpu and data connectivity with sleeping (soi3).

Apple has worked out deals to get processors early from Intel before. MBP also have great resale. If you need a working laptop now then I would just sell it off and buy haswell when it comes out. If you can deal with not having a laptop for 6-8 months then you can return it now.
 
Haswell isn't due until H1 2013. Ivy Bridge was supposed to come out Q1 2012 but was delayed until April due to the economy, so I wouldn't start expecting Haswell to be released until at least late April. Possibly later.

Once Haswell is released, then Apple will eventually update their product lines. WWDC in June is probably the earliest likely release date, with the back to school events in late July/early August being the second most likely.

Basically, you have about six months to go before the prospect of a new rMBP is realistic.

Personally, I'm trying to keep my 2010 MBP going until 2014; Broadwell looks pretty epic.
 
I'm hoping we see Haswell in a 13" Retina MBP by summer of 2013. I had a 15" Retina for a few weeks. It was an amazing machine, but a lot more computer than I needed in a laptop. Were a laptop my only computer, I'd have kept it. Like Terpfen, I'm just using an older MBP for now. It'll do until Haswell finds its way into a 13" Retina. :D
 
There's always something on the horizon. Unless the horizon is "next week" -- and it isn't -- it's not worth waiting.
 
XenIneX said:
There's always something on the horizon. Unless the horizon is "next week" -- and it isn't -- it's not worth waiting.
Click to expand...

I don't agree, this is an almost $2500 laptop purchase which I am planning to keep for at least 3 years. I have specific needs and already own a couple laptops. It is worth the wait if there is a significant change is on the horizon. I do not have the luxury to change laptops, cellphones, displays etc.. every new generation therefore, getting a new generation at the beginning of its life cycle like haswell, instead of getting the current generation at the end of its life cycle like Sandy/Ivy bridge for full price (tnx apple) is not the best idea.
Yeah if there was a significant discount for buying the ivy bridge MBPr's instead of haswell, I would do it but I am pretty sure the MBPr haswell is going to be exact same price as a current Ivy MBPr.
 
What other laptops do you have that can keep pace with the MBPr battery-wise?

AFAIK, Haswell is a performance upgrade, meaning better performance per clock, but the thermals should be about the same. In fact, it looks like TDP is going up by 2 watts with the laptop CPUs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_(microarchitecture) (expected 37, 47, and 57 watt chips). So your heat and battery life are going to be about the same at best.

Is it worth waiting at least 6 months for an expected 10% performance increase? You could easily get that today by returning your 2.3ghz MBPr for the 2.6ghz one. Your battery life and heat would still be about the same.

The real performance per watt improvements are going to come with Broadwell and that's a ways off.

There's no such things as a perfect laptop, you're always accepting some sort of compromise. That won't change no matter how long you wait.
 
You make a good argument Zinn, I was thinking that there was going to %15 or more across the board, performance, heat and power savings. At least that is what internet articles make out of the Haswell.

Let me ask you guys this, Broadwell is the second hump of the Haswell generation, why is it bringing so much of a performance increase. I have a 2600k sandy OC 4.4 in my desktop and I work with ivy bridge cpu's daily ( No OC) and I don't see a major difference. Ofcourse this is a desktop setting and power savings and heat don't come in to play but just for performance it does not seem like a good enough update and Ivy bridge is the polishing of sandy. It is the 4s of I phone 4 in my opinion. I thought broadwell would follow the same path, improving on Haswell making most sandy/ivy bridge user to wet their pants but usually not enough to justify a jump from Haswell to Broadwell.
 
Andyk5 said:
Let me ask you guys this, Broadwell is the second hump of the Haswell generation, why is it bringing so much of a performance increase.
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What performance increase? Everything I've seen says it's mostly just a die shrink with an iGPU bump, same as Ivy Bridge was.

I have a 2600k sandy OC 4.4 in my desktop and I work with ivy bridge cpu's daily ( No OC) and I don't see a major difference. Ofcourse this is a desktop setting and power savings and heat don't come in to play but just for performance it does not seem like a good enough update and Ivy bridge is the polishing of sandy. It is the 4s of I phone 4 in my opinion. I thought broadwell would follow the same path, improving on Haswell making most sandy/ivy bridge user to wet their pants but usually not enough to justify a jump from Haswell to Broadwell.
Click to expand...
Most SB/IB users are on a 3+ year upgrade cycle; they don't wet their pants over a 2-gen processor bump. (or wet their pants over processors at all...) Most SB/IB users will be buying in again at Skylake/Skymont, if not later. Exception, of course, for if x86 tablets really take off; Broadwell might work enough magic in the ULV space to accelerate adoption...
 
XenIneX said:
What performance increase? Everything I've seen says it's mostly just a die shrink with an iGPU bump, same as Ivy Bridge was.


Most SB/IB users are on a 3+ year upgrade cycle; they don't wet their pants over a 2-gen processor bump. (or wet their pants over processors at all...) Most SB/IB users will be buying in again at Skylake/Skymont, if not later. Exception, of course, for if x86 tablets really take off; Broadwell might work enough magic in the ULV space to accelerate adoption...
Click to expand...

I think Intel should hire you as their marketing coordinator, you seem to know everything that every intel cpu purchaser has ever done or though of. Also if you read messages about, it is discussed that the real bump in performance is coming with Broadwell not Haswell, so your information on the subject maybe flawed.
 
XenIneX said:
What performance increase? Everything I've seen says it's mostly just a die shrink with an iGPU bump, same as Ivy Bridge was.
Click to expand...

Haswell is a tock, not a tick. It's a new chip. Its relative performance increase over Ivy Bridge is unknown since it's not out yet.

Broadwell will be a die shrink of Haswell with what is purported to be a significant IGP performance improvement. Though it's Intel, so "significant" is a relative term.
 
Andyk5 said:
You make a good argument Zinn, I was thinking that there was going to %15 or more across the board, performance, heat and power savings. At least that is what internet articles make out of the Haswell.

Let me ask you guys this, Broadwell is the second hump of the Haswell generation, why is it bringing so much of a performance increase. I have a 2600k sandy OC 4.4 in my desktop and I work with ivy bridge cpu's daily ( No OC) and I don't see a major difference. Ofcourse this is a desktop setting and power savings and heat don't come in to play but just for performance it does not seem like a good enough update and Ivy bridge is the polishing of sandy. It is the 4s of I phone 4 in my opinion. I thought broadwell would follow the same path, improving on Haswell making most sandy/ivy bridge user to wet their pants but usually not enough to justify a jump from Haswell to Broadwell.
Click to expand...

Assuming Haswell will simply be better for heat and power consumption in a laptop is a mistake. A more power efficient CPU will often mean the OEM uses a smaller battery and shrinks the thermal control hardware to a smaller size.

I've had a pile of laptops for work over the last decade. I am responsible for a variety of development and testing that results in me flipping through laptops quickly. In my experience, heat and power consumption never really get better. Computer power keeps going up, but its rare that I've had a laptop which did not "run hot" OR quickly kill the battery with a high CPU load.
 
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As we all know, Apple typically gives very clear, precise and accurate information on their upcoming products, months in advance. So I'm sure most people on [H] are well aware of Apple's plans for 2013.

yyyyyeah...

(Nobody has a clue what Apple is going to do, and it won't be known what they plan to do until Tim Cook stands on a stage and tells everyone)
 
SuperSubZero said:
As we all know, Apple typically gives very clear, precise and accurate information on their upcoming products, months in advance. So I'm sure most people on [H] are well aware of Apple's plans for 2013.

yyyyyeah...

(Nobody has a clue what Apple is going to do, and it won't be known what they plan to do until Tim Cook stands on a stage and tells everyone)
Click to expand...

The question was not whether Apple will release a Haswell MBP. The question is whether it's worth waiting for the Haswell MBP based on what we know about Intel's upcoming CPU microarchitecture which is very well-announced and anticipated. It is trivially obvious that Apple will incorporate Intel's latest tech for as long as they're releasing Intel machines. Your flippant tone doesn't do you any favors when you don't know what you're talking about, or even what this thread is about.
 
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