Intel hints MacBook Pro speed feed for early decade date

Jonny Evans
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December 18, 2009
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Intel intends introducing new chips on January 7, day one of the huge Consumer Electronics Trade (CES) next month, including 32-nanometer Arrandale processors across the Core i3, i5 and i7 brands.

During a press conference picked up upon by MacRumors, Intel promised its Arrandale and Grantdale processors are shipping to manufacturers now and will make their debut in new computers in early 2010.

Mobile versions of these processors have been anticipated to take a leap into the insides of future Apple laptops, specifically the MacBook Pro. Speeds could hit 2.66GHz, MR observes.

However, there’s also possibilities Apple will skip the family, potentially because the processors come with Intel HD graphics, a 45-nm graphics chip integrated with the CPU. Will Apple pick Intel for graphics in its high-end video editing laptops?

At the journalist events, Intel also had several systems on display that were powered by the new chips. Several systems were running animated movies and video games, showing off the graphics capabilities of the new chips.

The new chips include Hyper Threading, while the i5 chips will offer Turbo Boost, which enables processing cores to run a little faster when the demand arises, as reported by eWeek.

Comments (10)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 18, 2009 - 9:17am

with either of the first two commenter's opinions on the possible MBP upgrades.

taoprophet420 (not verified) | December 18, 2009 - 9:59am

It wouldn't surprise me if the i3 and i5 make their way into the 21.5 inch iMac. It wouldn't be the first time Apple updates the processor of a new machine 3 or 4 months after it was released. The Macbooks and iMac's always shared similair processor's since  the IMac's mostly have used mobile processors, since there is only one Macbooks at this time, it isnt much of a stretch thinking they will now share them with the Macbook Pro's.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 18, 2009 - 11:36am

any hints for a apple keynote out there?

taoprophet420t (not verified) | December 18, 2009 - 1:39pm

Well Apple isn't attending Macworld in 2010 and no word if they will have a booth at CES, so no telling when Apple's next keynote will be. Usually by now there would be some detailed rumors if Apple was attending Macworld like in years past. I would guess in March Apple will host some special event. If there was a keynote comming soon there would be more detailed rumors out.

Warwick Brown (not verified) | December 18, 2009 - 2:33pm

I imagine we'll be seeing the 15" and 17" come with the Intel chip and a high-performance Nvidia dedicated GPU, like the pre-Unibody models. Not sure if they can shoehorn it into a 13". The issue is they can't use Nvidia chipsets, which is major suck for everyone. Ironic considering AMD pretty much relied on NForce for many years because it knew it couldn't produce good chipsets in house. No doubt the Nvid chipset in the current pro line is well ahead of any Intel chipsets.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 18, 2009 - 5:10pm

Won't happen. Intel's integrated graphics chips have been an embarrassment to Apple. 

boat accessories (not verified) | December 18, 2009 - 10:24pm

I love to work on my Mac. Good to hear that the Intel intends introducing new chips. I hope Customers will be pretty hearing that news. I hope this chip will be having the High performance as compared to the previous one.

VenusAsABoy (not verified) | December 19, 2009 - 1:49pm

God! The wait is killing me, I was about to get my first MacBook Pro when I heard about the new updates expected for next year. Now I have to wait until God knows when, because I'm not going to buy a $3000 laptop to see an update 3 months later.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 21, 2009 - 5:28pm

The problem with these chips is not necessarily the inclusion of the s****y integrated graphics, but rather that Intel moved the PCIe bus into the CPU in order to thwart nVidia from making compatible chipsets.  The effect of this is to lock in third party OEMs with Intel's chipsets.  Apple have until now selected and then tweaked the chipset separately from the CPU.  It's locked in now which means it must use a discrete third party video chip or use what crap Intel serves up.  This effectively takes nVidia's 9400M chip off the table.  Apple may still use these chips, but at increased expense since they'll need to put discrete graphics in even the most modest offerings, such as the entry level MacBook Pro, the MacBook, and the 21.5 inch iMacs.  This also screws up Apple's latest power saving strategies because there will no longer be an energy efficient graphics core capable of handling basic consumer needs (HD decoding, simple 3D) at a trickle of power, which is what the 9400M did in laptops that also had more powerful discrete graphics chips.  Apple could still make this work if they can force Intel to deeply discount the CPUs to make up for the added cost of discrete graphics.  It all depends on how hungry Intel is to move product, versus Apple's need to increase overall performance.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | December 21, 2009 - 5:29pm

The problem with these chips is not necessarily the inclusion of the s****y integrated graphics, but rather that Intel moved the PCIe bus into the CPU in order to thwart nVidia from making compatible chipsets.  The effect of this is to lock in third party OEMs with Intel's chipsets.  Apple have until now selected and then tweaked the chipset separately from the CPU.  It's locked in now which means it must use a discrete third party video chip or use what crap Intel serves up.  This effectively takes nVidia's 9400M chip off the table.  Apple may still use these chips, but at increased expense since they'll need to put discrete graphics in even the most modest offerings, such as the entry level MacBook Pro, the MacBook, and the 21.5 inch iMacs.  This also screws up Apple's latest power saving strategies because there will no longer be an energy efficient graphics core capable of handling basic consumer needs (HD decoding, simple 3D) at a trickle of power, which is what the 9400M did in laptops that also had more powerful discrete graphics chips.  Apple could still make this work if they can force Intel to deeply discount the CPUs to make up for the added cost of discrete graphics.  It all depends on how hungry Intel is to move product, versus Apple's need to increase overall performance.