Upcoming Macbook Pro Revisions

Hi all,

I have been trying to keep up with apple news, but as my eMac and older iBook get older I have shyed away from apple. (for shame I know).

But anyways I have a friend who has had a taste of Leopard OSX and he really likes it. Just like me he has not owned a new mac since the second revision iMac's.

So he had questions for me most of which I could answer by keeping up with this forum section and the general apple news sites.

One's I cannot answer are:

Will the new MBP's have a possible option of an SSD drive?

Any chance on a newer faster graphics card in the 15" MBP?

He is worried about the heat issues he has heard about, but I have assured him that has been mostly addressed in the last few revisions but told him to get a zalman cooler like i have. Am I in the wrong? Is heat still an issue?

Also wants to know what Montivena might bring to the table that is ground breaking in anyway.

That is about it, anything else you can fill me in on to tell him that might be in the next revision I would appreciate it. Any luck he'll be a new MBP owner to cruise your forums in summer when he plans to buy...and me closer to september

Have a great day!!

 

No one knows.

Apple has the most devout rumor guessers in the world, and they're always right. Not because they're that good, but because they guess every single damn thing that could possible be attached to a computer. There's a new Apple rumor every 2 days, while Apple can sit smugly - without every revealing anything until it's released or until Mr. Job's keynote.

 

I'd say there's a fair chance of seeing some form of ATi's 3xxx series in the upcoming revision. New chipset, (rumored) new case, new graphics card.

However, there's equally as likely a chance that Apple will stick to the 8600M, especially considering the fact that the last refresh bumped them up a bit.

 

Ok thanks, covers all but the heat issue. Is it still a problem like in the earlier models or have they pretty much got that fixed?

 

Well, my Core 2 Duo MBP seems noticeably cooler than my friend's original Core Duo MBP when he had it, but it still warms up enough not to be comfortable on your lap when there's anything processor intensive running for extended periods of time. (Some flash websites seem to really eat up CPU cycles). I would think that with the latest Penryn models it'd be better since the Penryn is more efficient than Merom. Still, it's more of a personal thing about how much heat you are comfortable since Intel mobile CPUs are rated up to 100C so the CPU isn't in any danger.

And if the long rumoured case revision comes to fruition, how the new thermal profile is going to be is anyones guess.

 

Using smcFanControl, I keep my temperature below 55 C all the time, just to be safe. But I rarely have to put the fans above 2000 RPM, unless I start using VMWare or running something else intensive.

 

My Penyrn MBP runs much cooler than the Core Duo MBP my co-worker has. It still gets warm, if I am using Parallels or doing a lot of multitasking, but not hot enough to be uncomfortable.

 

i always keep my fans on 2700rpm and it usually sits around 45 c when using it on a table, im sitting on 40 c at the moment and have firefox and sketchup going.

 

there is a possibility of a new gpu... something like a 9600m gt (doesn't yet exist) or a similar currently non existant ati mobile gpu. the machine can get hot under load (gaming, or running two operating systems with vmware) but general operation runs very cool with near-silent fan operation.

 

SSD is possible, although considering how small the SSDs are currently in storage space, I don't know. As for a new GPU, its possible, but at the same time I'd say unlikely. Apple likes to keep its mobile GPUs the same for as long as possible, so yeah.

 

HDMI port, Blu Ray, Full keypad with numeric keys...That's all I'm askin' for on the 17" MBP. 8800 series card would be icing on the cake!

 

Does the Nvidia 9000 serie have any mobile chipset yet? How about that new intel and ati gfx chips are they any good? Think they are called somethign like HD 4500 or so.