The MacBook Pro Review (13 & 15-inch): 2011 Brings Sandy Bridge
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Brian Klug & Vivek Gowri on March 10, 2011 4:17 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Mac
- Apple
- Intel
- MacBook Pro
- Sandy Bridge
Thunderbolt
We wrote about Thunderbolt when the new MBPs launched, and about the differences between when it existed as Intel's codename Light Peak like we used to know it and saw at IDF. Thunderbolt differs technically and in practice in a number of ways. The short version of the story is that Thunderbolt is Light Peak sans light in this initial form (electrical right now), uses the mini DisplayPort connector on the MBP, and is capable of two channels of full duplex 10 Gbps traffic, for a theoretical 20 Gbps up and down. Thunderbolt requires a controller on the host and peripheral, uses 4 PCIe lanes, and connects to Display Port internally on the MBP's discrete GPU. One of the interesting things is where those 4 lanes come from on the 2011 MacBook Pro.
Thunderbolt can supply 10 watts of power and support up to 7 devices, up to two of which can be DisplayPort 1.1a devices. Just PCIe and DisplayPort are tunneled over Thunderbolt links. However, you can connect a standard DisplayPort monitor to the jack on the MBP and use it natively as well.
Sandy Bridge brings 16 lanes of PCIe really purposed for running a GPU. Interestingly enough, the discrete GPU on the 2011 MBPs uses just 8 PCIe lanes:
So where do the remaining 8 lanes get used for? They're split into 2 x 4x ports, one of which is for Thunderbolt. It's surprising, but this configuration is totally supported. Originally I speculated that the other 4x lane was being used for another PCIe interface device in the MBP (the SDXC card reader and BCM7765 are both 1xPCIe devices), but it appears they're unused.
Intel's Thunderbolt controller
Thunderbolt launches with Apple, but isn't Apple exclusive. Intel reports that we just likely won't see adoption in the PC space until 2012. In addition, there's no per-port licensing fee or royalty for peripheral manufactuers wanting to use the port or controller, which are entirely Intel's. The controller is actually of appreciable size on the 2011 MBP:
Initially, Thunderbolt is electrical only, though the optical version of Thunderbolt is coming later this year. Optical cabling will be compatible with this electrical version through the use of electro-optical transceivers on the cable ends.
Bottom: 2011 MBP with Thunderbolt port, Top: 2010 MBP
We can't test and see whether Thunderbolt works or does anything right now, because there aren't any devices on the market with support. That said, Western Digital, LaCie, Promise, and other external storage manufacturers have stated that drives will arrive shortly, which we will surely take a look at. There are also rumors of various high end DSLRs shipping with Thunderbolt in the near future, though that's anyone's guess.
There's a field for Thunderbolt in system profiler, but even with a DisplayPort monitor attached, it shows nothing connected:
Interestingly enough, in Windows there's no trace of Thunderbolt at all. There aren't any unknown devices in the device manager, no device ID either. Hopefully Boot Camp drivers come along for Thunderbolt in Windows before devices start rolling out.
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Pandamonium - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I own a 15" 2010 MBP and like the author(s) of "The Big Picture" section, I like using separate peripherals at home. I don't want to come off like I'm giving a sales pitch, but after a long wait, I bought a Henge Dock for my MBP. It's a $70 plastic mold whose only purpose is to hold your cables in place so you can easily/quickly "dock" a MBP.For security concerns, I made an encrypted volume with OS X's disk utility and keep my frequently accessed sensitive stuff there. Everything else sits on my NAS.
I control heat and noise with SMC Fan Control. I've got a profile to keep "docked" fan speeds just a notch faster than default (the fan speed ramping up and down irritates me more than the absolute noise of the fan), and another profile for "lap use" to keep the machine at a comfortable temperature.
I too think that Thunderbolt is a big step towards an Apple docking station, but for now, the Hengedock, a NAS, and SMC Fan Control give me a solution that while not as elegant, is 95% of the way there.
Pandamonium - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I should add that I use a Synology DS 209. If I could do it all over again, I'd go with QNAP. See my comments on Ganesh's Synology review for my reasoning. Cliffnotes are that I believe that regular SMART tests (to detect bit rot) should be part of a NAS's software stack and Synology's PR begs to differ. I'd love for Anand to offer clear advice one way or the other.dagamer34 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Does high amounts of heat ever mess up the screen or affect the dissipation of heat? I'd get worried if I were running a render or playing a game that caused my MBP to hit higher than the 80C it does now and the laptop just shuts itself down because it's too hot.dagamer34 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Based on this review and using a 17" MacBook Pro (2011), here's my advice:13" MacBook Pro - the changes from the 2010->2011 are good if you do CPU tasks, but mediocre to lame for GPU tasks. If you want to game, I'd wait until Ivy Bridge with a better GPU. Hopefully, we'll also see something more radical with ditching the optical drive allowing for a larger battery and dedicated GPU, but we'll see how that turns out.
Base 15" MacBook Pro - very good if you have CPU driven tasks, and what I'd recommend for most people. The only offsetting thing I see is that the next step up has a CPU, GPU, and VRAM bump, which may be very enticing for gamers.
High-end 15" MacBook Pro - for gamers, with the most optimal CPU, GPU, and VRAM configuration there is while still being very portable.
17" MacBook Pro - you love high-resolution screens for your work but still need to be portable. Very ideal because of the ability to have a full 1080p picture on the screen untouched for editing websites and such. Also good for photoshop. Likely for people that feel having an additional monitor is too much work, or their second monitor should be comparable in screen resolution to their main one.
I do hope the 2012 MacBook Pros cut away a lot of the fat: optical drive, FireWire port, USB port, ExpressCard slot and just have most of that functionality replicated with ThunderBolt. I feel like they could have gotten away with it this time, but there were no peripheral style docks ready, which is rather disappointing.
Ushio01 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Optical drives are still essential for those of us in the majority of the world who's internet is useless not to mention you never know if throttling or low data caps will be introduced in area's with currently good internet access subsequently making the loss of an optical drive a drawback.Also interesting phrase cutting the fat or in other word's continue paying for a premium product but get even less for your money, yay.
dagamer34 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
That's what the $79 External SuperDrive is for.Ushio01 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Yay pay $1200+ for a laptop then pay $80 for the ability to use anything on it.khimera2000 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Its apple your paying out of the @$$ any how. If you where going for a budget, or "price VS performance" you would not be considering an apple. I think people looking at these will have 80 bucks to spare... at least be able to scrounge up 80 bucks when the need arives.mianmian - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Yeh. Apple should have the upgrade option to replace optic drive to1. a 2.5" drive slot
2. an extened battery.
gstrickler - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I doubt you'll see either from Apple, however:For #1, an OptiBay from MCE (MCEtech.com), or a DataDoubler from OWC (macsales.com). The MCE offers an external USB case for the removed SuperDrive so you still have the use of the SuperDrive, and it's USB powered so it's still portable.
For #2, HyperMac (hypershop.com) sells external portable batteries for the MB/MBP.