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
6Gbps SATA
Twenty eight days after Intel launched its Sandy Bridge microprocessors, it announced the stop-shipment of all 6-series Sandy Bridge chipsets. The first shipping version of these chipsets (B2 stepping) was affected by an unfortunate "oversight" that could cause failure in the four 3Gbps SATA ports that branch off the chipset. The remaining two 6Gbps SATA ports were unaffected by the bug.
Most notebooks only use two of the six SATA ports supported by most members of Intel's 6-series chipset family. If a notebook design used the 6Gbps ports exclusively, the notebook would be fine to ship using the flawed B2 stepping parts. With the 3Gbps ports not in use the bug would never show up. Notebooks that used more than just two ports or used at least one of the 3Gbps ports would be affected and would have to be remanufactured with a fixed version of the 6-series chipset. Intel promised to begin shipping fixed (B3 stepping) 6-series chipsets by the end of February.
Apple announced and started selling the 2011 MacBook Pro lineup on February 24, four days before the end of the month. Surely that would be too soon for Apple's manufacturing partners to have received B3 stepping chipsets, built boards around them, integrated them into MacBook Pro designs and shipped them half way across the world to Apple stores all around the US.
Naturally Apple wouldn't comment on what chipset revision was in the 2011 MacBook Pro, so the first thing we did was check to see what SATA ports were in use on our systems.
Here we have the high end 15-inch MacBook Pro. I installed an Intel SSD 510 in the lone 2.5" drive bay and it is connected via a 6Gbps port internally:
So far, so good. The only other bay in the new MacBook Pro is used for the optical drive. And it's connected to a:
...3Gbps SATA port. Uh-oh.
Apple doesn't directly report chipset IDs under OS X. I installed Windows 7 via Boot Camp and headed over to device manager to pull the device ID of the SATA controller: 1C01.
Cross referencing with Intel's datasheets I found that there are two revisions of the SATA controller: 04 and 05. The latter is used in the "fixed" B3 stepping chipsets. And what do we have here at the end of the hardware ID string for the SATA controller?
REV_05.
This is a B3 stepping chipset. In fact, Apple's manufacturing partners seem to have received B3 chipsets before anyone else given that boards were produced, tested and shipped in time for a February 24th launch. It would appear that Apple was among the first if not the first company to receive B3 stepping 6-series chipsets. Although I had concern for the health of the Apple/Intel relationship over the past couple of years, it looks like the two are back to being bedfellows.
Internally there are no visible changes to the MacBook Pro's primary SATA cable. It's still a flex cable but apparently capable of delivering twice the bandwidth of last year's model. Apple doesn't ship the new MacBook Pros with any 6Gbps drives and I would be surprised if it selected anything other than Samsung or Toshiba for SSDs, which means even the SSD options are 3Gbps. Luckily I happen to have a small cache of SSDs, including a bunch of new 6Gbps offerings.
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claytontullos - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
The laptop was not constantly crashing, maybe 1-2 times per week. Had I sent it in to them nothing would have happened because they would have run their own woefully inadequate ram test. I replaced the ram and have not had any crashes since.HP also insisted that I reinstall vista when my led screen turned solid blue at a certain angle.
alent1234 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
i've been dealing with computers long enough to remember lifetime warranties being standard and dell sending replacement parts with no questions asked.around 2000 is when it changed and i've had to lie to tech support even when i called for large customers with tens of thousands of dell computers bought.
my own personal experience with HP tech support for a work laptop vowed me to never buy a HP laptop again unless it's from costco or dirt cheap to where i can buy one every year and junk it without thinking twice.
same with dell. 7 years ago i bought a $1500 laptop with the 3 year warranty. 2 years into it i find out the battery is not covered. Unlike with Apple where the entire laptop is covered and going to the genius bar doesn't mean being on hold for hours and needing a translator to talk to someone
erple2 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Huh. I've never had a problem with HP service before. I've had HP laptops ranging from the 2800T to an Elitebook 6930p to an Envy 15. In each case, there was an issue that had to be resolved, and I received prompt, accurate service, including a box they sent to me to ship the device back to them. Yes, they didn't cross ship a laptop, but that's not practical.My experience with Apple's Genius Bar, however, hasn't been so rosy. Personally, I'd rather wait on hold in my house for 2 hours than wait around at a Genius Bar for 2 hours for someone to actually help you. Granted, it was crowded, but it's irrelevant to this discussion.
claytontullos - Saturday, March 12, 2011 - link
When the problem and solution is crystal clear to even the most ignorant person then HP's service is fantastic: ie: Won't Power On, Disc wont eject, Nothing on screen.However with intermittent issues HP's support is horrible. Even speaking with a supervisor nets little reprieve from ignorance.
argosreality - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
The Envy line comes with its own dedicated support group that is not the usual, outsourced to India group. Quite a bit better. Also, strangely I have seen memory pass the Pc-doctor tests (usually what HP uses outside of the BIOS runs) but fail memtest. Not sure why, could just be different test algorithemsstarfalcon - Sunday, May 15, 2011 - link
What kind of 13 inch laptops have discrete graphics anyway?Except maybe that smaller Alienware.
Taft12 - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
<i>My preference would be two cables: one for power and one for peripherals/display. Today, it's five.</i>What you've just said is that Macbooks need a Dell Latitude-style docking station option in the worst possible way. Your preference is 2 cables. Mine is zero. Just snap in. (I've had this for over a decade now)
If Apple is serious about phasing out desktops as you suspect, that'll be something that needs to come first.
secretmanofagent - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I've always been hesitant of docking stations. I've had a Dell that for the most part would undock somewhat correctly, and currently have an HP work computer that refuses to undock at all. For me, the convenience has always been hampered by the usability.gstrickler - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Actually, with MagSafe power and Thunderbolt, that's essentially possible. A dock that includes a connection to both ports could offer Mini-DisplayPort, DVI, VGA, USB, Ethernet, FireWire, eSATA, and Thunderbolt connections, and optionally, even a PCI slot or two. With 4x PCIe compatibility and 20Gb/s bidirectional throughput, a Thunderbolt port has plenty of bandwidth for that. Of course, Apple is currently the only company who could offer it with the MagSafe connection, but a third party could at least reduce it to 2 quick connections.erple2 - Friday, March 11, 2011 - link
Huh. My windows laptop has only 1 connection that handles mouse, keyboard, monitor, power, ethernet and external storage. 'Course that's the beauty and convenience of a (working) docking station, something that I never really thought was worthwhile until I actually got one.I'm bummed that consumer products don't come with one.