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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jb510 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
It would seem to me their is one currently shipping Thunderbolt periphral... A 2011 MBP in target disk mode. Maybe you could drop an SSD in one and do some preliminary testing?jb510 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
damn... wish i could edit that comment originally typed on my iphone... but their doesn't appear to be any way... (misspelling repeated for comedic effect)deadshort - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Thanks for the genuinely informative review. Running both low-load and high-load battery tests is especially helpful to developers, etc.One question. You chose the 2.3Ghz/8MB cache system. Was that just 'cuz you swing that way, or do you expect significant performance benefits for some workload you care about? For these machines is it a 10% price goldplate, or a reasonable increment to keep these CPUs fed? I am seriously interested....
Brian Klug - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
I can speak for myself at least, but part of the reason for the 2.3/8 MB system choice was that it's the only preconfigured (Apple Store available) configuration that comes with the anti-glare display.Essentially, if you're a customer walking into the apple store and don't want the glossy/glare display, you're immediately forced into buying the highest-specced (and most expensive) MacBook Pro. It's frustrating because the only way to get lower specced systems is BTO online.
Obviously we got these systems on launch date to immediately start working, and that was the reason for the 2.3 choice.
-Brian
synaesthetic - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
You know, I don't get this thin crap. I really don't.I mean, I can understand it. From a purely aesthetic point of view. Sort of, anyway.
I'm sick of "thin" gadgets with weak performance and fragile builds. Thick gadgets means more tech fits inside. My HTC Glacier is quite thin, and you know what? I wish it was thicker. It'd be easier to hold onto, and HTC could have put a bigger battery in it!
Stop making things so stupidly thin. Instead of driving the miniaturization of components on "thin," why not take that same miniaturization power and make things a bit thicker... with more power/cooling/battery inside?
Thin may be sexy, but powerful is even sexier!
Then again, Apple's never really cared to broadcast the specs of their devices, hoping instead to gloss over it to such a degree that nobody questions paying ridiculously inflated prices...
Marc B - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
I am finally buying my first MacBook this year, and I am 70/30 leaning toward the 15" MBP. The 17" version has the high res screen and express port, but the 15" MBP is lighter/smaller and has the SDXC reader. Will the Thunderbolt port will provide enough throughput to allow simultaneous in/out?I am using this to log HD video on location, and was wondering if the express port is no longer necessary to use with a small ESATA array now that you can have high speed storage in and out using the Thunderbolt port.
Belard - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
If Apple is pushing their notebooks to be more and more Desktop replacements...Where is a docking bay to handle all the connectors? How hard for a single connector to handle everything?
Lenovo sells about 3 different Docking units $130~300 for their regular Thinkpad line (ie: NOT Edge or L/SL series).
We have a few users who use them. Comes to the office, drop the notebook into the dock and turn it on, not a single cable to be attached. They include 4 USB ports (or more), PS/2 ports, HDMI and DVI ports, Ethernet and of course charge up the battery.
So one user would have to plug in 7 cables everyday if he didn't have a dock... like his keyboard, wireless desktop mouse, 21" display, various printers and devices, etc.
name99 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
" I still haven't figured out how to actually grab SINR out on here, all I can see for the moment is just RSSI. "Apple's Airport Utility does give you part of what you want.
If you open it, go to "Manual Setup", see the summary page, and click on where it says "Wireless Clients: 2" (or 3 or whatever) you will be given a page that, for each connection, shows their signal and noise levels (along with a graph).
Of course this doesn't exactly have any bearing on what we are discussing, because the numbers that are presented are the intermediate term SINR values, relevant to shadowing but not to fading. The numbers that are relevant to fading (and thus to MIMO tricks) change on a millisecond time scale, and so what one really wants is an indication of their standard deviation, along with other info like the connection diversity. This is all way more geeky than Apple (or any other consumer company) is going to provide.
humunculus - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Any chance you could run a few of the tests on the 2.0 and 2.2 GHz models. I am interested in how much performance difference there is between the 2.2 and 2.3 GHz 15 inch Macbook Pro models. It is hard to assess if the 10% cost increase is warranted. ThanksBelard - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
The $400 price difference is for the extra 200mhz (Apple values that at $250 - these are notebook CPUs, so pricing from intel is a factor)And then $150 to sometimes double the performance of the GPU for games.
Oh, and an extra 250GB of HD space (which is about $5 in the real world).